Back in January, I wrote about the criminal charge filed against the mother of the Antioch High School shooter after investigators said her DNA was found on the pistol used in the attack. At the time, news reports identified her as Chrysta Thomas. Since then, newer reporting and the Davidson County Criminal Court website have identified her as Chrystal Thomas. It appears the court records use the latter spelling, so that’s the name I’ll use here.
The bigger update is that her case is still very much alive.
A recent report indicated Thomas was expected to go to trial this past week, but according to the Davidson County Criminal Court schedule, her trial is now set for late November 2026. More than a year and a half after the Antioch High School shooting, prosecutors are still pursuing a charge of unlawful possession of a weapon by a convicted felon.
Thomas is not accused of planning the shooting or helping her son carry it out. Investigators have consistently said that 17-year-old Solomon Henderson acted alone when he walked into Antioch High School‘s cafeteria on January 22nd, 2025, fired ten shots in about seventeen seconds, killed 16-year-old Josselin Corea Escalante, wounded another student, and then took his own life.
The charge against Thomas stems from what investigators found afterward. Police said laboratory testing identified her DNA on the 9 mm pistol Henderson used. They also determined she had a 2010 felony conviction in California that prohibited her from legally possessing a firearm. Based on that evidence, authorities obtained a warrant, Thomas surrendered after relocating to Las Vegas, and she was later released on bond while the case moved through the courts.
Reading this update, once again, reminded me of another school shooting that seems to have already faded from the national conversation.
Last September was the shooting at Evergreen High School in Jefferson County, Colorado. 16-year-old Desmond Holly somehow obtained a revolver from inside his family’s home before walking into his school, killing one student, seriously wounding two others, and then killing himself. After an investigation, authorities announced they would not file criminal charges against his parents. Investigators said they could not establish ownership of the revolver beyond its original purchaser decades earlier, and the family maintained it was an heirloom that had been stored in a locked safe.
Both of these cases involve teenagers who obtained firearms before carrying them into schools. In Antioch, prosecutors concluded there was enough evidence to charge a parent with a firearms offense. In Evergreen, no charges were filed against the parents at all.
Chrystal Thomas is Black. The parents of the Evergreen High School shooter are reportedly white. In Antioch, prosecutors found a way to bring criminal charges against a parent. In Evergreen, authorities decided they couldn’t.
Do I know that race explains the difference? No. I can’t honestly say that it does. Criminal cases are supposed to be decided on evidence, not on the race of the people involved. At the same time, I also do not think it is unreasonable to notice the contrast and wonder why two cases that share so many similarities ended with such different decisions.
That question becomes even harder for me to ignore because of who made the decision in Colorado.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office has spent decades trying to move beyond Columbine, but its handling of that investigation remains one of the most criticized law enforcement responses to a school shooting in American history.
The agency faced years of criticism over its transparency, the handling of evidence, and the way information was released to victims’ families and the public. So, I’m not simply inclined to accept another controversial decision from the same agency without asking some questions.
Maybe there are legitimate legal distinctions that explain why prosecutors believe they can prove the charge against Thomas but not against the Evergreen parents. If so, they should explain those differences as clearly as possible. From where I sit, the contrast is striking. One parent is preparing for a criminal trial while another set of parents walked away without facing charges after their son managed to take a gun from the family home and carry it into a school.
My opinion hasn’t changed. I believe Thomas should absolutely be charged if prosecutors have evidence that she unlawfully possessed the gun. Laws prohibiting convicted felons from possessing guns exist for a reason, and if those laws were broken, they should be enforced.
However, I also believe the adults in the Evergreen case deserved the same level of scrutiny. If we are going to hold parents accountable when children gain access to guns, then that principle should not change depending on where the shooting happened or which law enforcement agency is conducting the investigation.
School shootings do not begin when a student walks through the front doors carrying a gun. By that point, countless opportunities to prevent the tragedy have already been missed. Those opportunities almost always begin somewhere else, usually inside a home where a gun was accessible to someone who never should have been able to get their hands on it.
The jury will decide whether Chrystal Thomas is guilty of the charge against her. Whatever the verdict, I hope the trial sparks another conversation about parental accountability when minors gain access to guns. I just hope we eventually have that same conversation everywhere, including Evergreen.
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