Nearly two years after four people were murdered in 52 seconds at Apalachee High School, we finally have a date and a location for the kid who pulled the trigger. Before we get into that, let’s do a quick refresher for anyone just tuning in, because this case has more moving parts than a Swiss watch factory.
On September 4th, 2024, 14-year-old Colt Gray walked into Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, with an ‘AR-platform-style weapon’ disguised as a school project sticking out of his backpack. He killed two students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, along with two teachers, Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie. Nine others were wounded.
Investigators later found a notebook detailing the attack and a bedroom shrine dedicated to past school shooters, because of course they did. Law enforcement had already interviewed Gray back in 2023 over an online threat made under the name “Lanza,” a nod to the Sandy Hook shooter, but nothing came of it. Because nothing ever does until there’s a body count.
And let’s not forget dear old dad. Colin Gray was another ‘responsible gun owner™’ who bought his son the rifle used in the shooting as a Christmas present, despite knowing about the 2023 threat and his son’s deteriorating mental state.
Earlier this year, a jury didn’t buy whatever defense his attorneys were selling, convicting him on 27 charges including second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, and cruelty to children. He’s currently sitting somewhere between “in a cell” and “wishing he’d bought his kid a Steam Deck instead,” awaiting a sentence that could run up to 180 years.
In more recent news, Judge Nicholas Primm has officially ordered that Colt Gray’s trial be moved out of Barrow County and relocated to Columbia County, which sits about 108 miles and roughly two hours southeast, near Augusta. Jury selection begins October 13, and the trial itself isn’t expected to last more than three weeks. Pretrial proceedings will stay put in Barrow County, but the actual trial, the one that matters, heads east. Primm granted the change of venue back in June, citing the nonstop media coverage as making a fair trial with local jurors basically impossible. He’s not wrong. This case has been front-page news in Georgia since the day it happened, and good luck finding twelve Barrow County residents who haven’t already formed an opinion.
Honestly, I’m fine with the move. Somewhere along the way, people started treating change of venue requests like some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card, but we already watched that theory collapse in real time with Colin Gray. His trial got moved too, technically, since it used jurors bused in from neighboring Hall County even though the proceedings stayed in Barrow County. That didn’t matter. 27 convictions later, that strategy accomplished nothing except delaying the inevitable. If Colt Gray’s team is hoping a couple hundred miles and a new jury pool will somehow produce a different outcome, they might want to look at how well that worked for the guy who raised him.
Colt Gray currently faces 55 charges, including malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, and cruelty to children. He was given a deadline of July 15 to enter a guilty plea, so depending on when you’re reading this, that decision may have already come and gone. If he doesn’t take a deal, October 13 is when the trial reconvenes in earnest.
As for the man who handed a traumatized, threat-making teenager a rifle for Christmas instead of a therapist’s phone number, we finally have a date for that too. Colin Gray is scheduled to be sentenced July 28th and 29th. Given the jury only needed an hour and forty-eight minutes to convict him, I wouldn’t expect the sentencing hearing to bring any surprises, just the formality of a judge telling him exactly how many decades he’ll have to think about what giving a gun to a teenager for Christmas gets you.
Two trials, one gun, four graves, and somehow we’re still not done counting the cost.
(Sources)
Leave a Reply