Source: CNN
The teenager who killed four people at his Georgia high school in 2024 returned to court Monday as prosecutors and defense attorneys debated whether he can ever be rehabilitated.
Colt Gray, 16, pleaded guilty Friday to 55 charges, including four counts of murder, in connection with the mass shooting at Apalachee High School in September 2024. After his guilty plea, victims’ families and shooting survivors spoke about their anger and sorrow and recounted the scars they still carry.
The multiday hearing resumed Monday with witness testimony from a forensic psychologist who analyzed Colt’s mindset and mental state.
Colt will have an opportunity to address the court before the judge sentences him to life in prison, either with or without the possibility of parole.
The hearing comes about two years after the deadliest school shooting in Georgia history. Just 14 years old at the time, Colt took an AR-15-style rifle to school and fatally shot teachers Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo. He also wounded nine others.
His father, Colin Gray, was found guilty of murder and manslaughter charges in March for purchasing his son the firearm and keeping it unsecured despite warnings that Colt was a danger to others. He faces decades in prison and will be sentenced later this week.
The father’s trial revealed the extent of Colt’s tumultuous childhood. His mother struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, and the family moved repeatedly. Family members spoke about Colt’s spiraling mental health, and school records show he was repeatedly absent from school, including missing his entire eighth-grade year.
The dual sentencings will close one chapter of the families’ painful journey while opening another: the long, uncertain road of healing.
Dr. Kevin Richards, a forensic psychologist, testified for the defense Monday about Colt’s mental health issues. He said the teen’s paranoia, depression and anxiety were exacerbated by neglect and abuse at home and an online fixation with mass shooters.
“He was a lonely, dysfunctional kid who was anxious, paranoid, depressed and immersed in this highly dysfunctional world with these people who were obsessed with folks who had done school shootings,” Richards said.
Richards said he reviewed case files and interviewed Colt for about 15 hours total for his analysis. While in custody, the teen was diagnosed with a mood disorder — depression with psychotic features — an unspecified personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, Richards testified.
He also testified that Colt could improve with proper interventions and medication.
“He’s still an adolescent. His personality is still not done. His character is still not done. His brain is still developing,” Richards said. “So there’s, I think, still room to intervene at this point to make some headway to undo some of that stuff.”
But on cross-examination, Richards said Colt had exaggerated his mental health symptoms and made things up to try to get a more serious diagnosis. Colt did not have any signs of insanity, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, Richards said.
“My evaluation didn’t reveal any actual mania or any diagnosis of schizophrenia,” he said. “They can talk about it until the cows come home, but there was no evidence for it.”
The US Supreme Court has ruled that juveniles cannot be sentenced to death and can only be sentenced to life in prison without parole in rare circumstances.
Friday’s sentencing hearing belonged to the victims. One after another, family members and survivors stood before the court, describing who they were before September 4, 2024, and who they have become since.
“I started to hate myself because I couldn’t truly live anymore, because I let you take every piece of joy I had away from me,” said Nautica Walton, who was in ninth grade when she was shot in the leg.
“I hate everything about you,” she told Colt. “I hate the scars you left on my body. I hate that you took innocent lives in front of innocent people. Most of all, I hate that I let you live in my mind.”
Others acknowledged Colt’s difficult childhood circumstances, as revealed during his father’s trial, while making clear it could never justify his actions.
“Two things can be true at the same time,” said Sarah Beaver, the mother of shooting survivor Jaxson Beaver. “He was a child who was failed. He was also the person who failed countless innocent children and their families.”
“The defendant’s family will still get to see their son, talk to him and know he is breathing,” said Ismael Angulo Jr., the oldest sibling of victim Christian Angulo. “My mother (and) my father don’t get that privilege. The only way to visit Christian now is by standing over his grave. There is no fairness in that reality.”
After the victim impact statements Friday, prosecutors presented never-before-seen evidence from Colt’s private notebooks and interviews with police that offered the public its clearest look yet into his mindset.
Barrow County Sheriff’s Office investigator Jason Smith read aloud from notebooks recovered after the shooting that outlined Colt’s plans in striking detail.
One notebook found in his bedroom contained pleas to escape what he called a “cruel world,” drawings of firearms, sketches depicting a school shooting and references to Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz. Investigators also found what they described as a shrine to Cruz in Colt’s bedroom.
In another notebook, he wrote, “Stop I’m scared! I’m not a killer!” and repeatedly filled pages with the word “why.”
As Smith read Colt’s writings, the teenager remained expressionless, sometimes gently rocking and twisting in his chair.
The courtroom then heard recordings of Colt’s interview with investigators less than an hour after the shooting. Sobbing and struggling to speak, the then-14-year-old described pausing in a school bathroom before carrying out the attack.
“I had a moment in the bathroom of like, I probably shouldn’t do this … next thing I know I’m f**king shooting in a classroom, dude,” Colt said.
Colt repeatedly apologized throughout the interview. “I’ve probably affected thousands of people; this was just f**king horrible,” he said.
He said he heard voices in his head and believed teachers were plotting against him. He also told investigators he believed he should be in a mental health facility.
He insisted his father was not responsible, and when officers arrested him, Colt asked them to deliver a message to his dad: “Tell him that it wasn’t his fault and that I know he tried his hardest.”
CNN’s Isabel Rosales, Andy Rose, Rebekah Riess, Sarah Hutter, Devon M. Sayers, and August Phillips contributed to this report.