Father of suspected school shooter convicted of murder

A Georgia jury found Colin Gray guilty Tuesday on charges including second-degree murder and manslaughter, stemming from a 2024 mass shooting allegedly committed by his teenage son with a rifle he gifted him as a Christmas present.

The jury found the 55-year-old Gray guilty of 27 counts. Two other counts were dropped. The jury deliberated fewer than two hours before returning its verdicts.

Gray is the first parent in the United States convicted of murder due to the alleged acts of their child after prosecutors in various U.S. states in recent years have attempted to hold parents criminally liable in connection to their children’s deadly actions.

Colin Gray was charged with multiple counts of second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and cruelty to children. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Gray’s son, Colt Gray, now 16, allegedly killed two students and two teachers and injured eight students in a Sept. 4, 2024, mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta.

Colt Gray has been charged as an adult and is awaiting a separate trial on multiple counts of felony murder and aggravated assault. He has pleaded not guilty.

During the two-week trial, Barrow County prosecutors presented evidence that Colin Gray had been warned that his son had an affinity for mass shooters and was aware that Colt kept a shrine in his bedroom dedicated to the shooter in the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Instead of getting his son psychological help, Colin Gray allegedly gave the boy an AR-15-style weapon as a Christmas present that he ultimately used to carry out the mass shooting at Apalachee High School, prosecutors alleged.

On Friday, Colin Gray took the witness stand in his own defense and broke down while being questioned about whether he noticed any «red flags» that would have led him to believe the boy was capable of committing a mass shooting.

«I struggle with it every day,» Colin Gray testified. «He’s a good kid, you know? He wasn’t perfect, but to do something, uh, that heinous, like I don’t, I don’t know if anybody would see that type of evil.»

During his testimony, Gray confirmed that he gave his son the AR-15-style rifle as a Christmas present, telling jurors the gift came with rules.

«This is a weapon that I want you to shoot when we go to the range, and if you keep doing really good in school, going to school and doing all the things you should, you graduate and you’re 18, this will be your gun,» Colin Gray said he told his son.

The landmark guilty verdict comes after several parents across the country have been charged and convicted in connection with mass shootings carried out by their children.

In December 2023, Robert Crimo Jr. pleaded guilty to seven counts of misdemeanor reckless conduct – one count for each person killed by his son, Robert Crimo III – during a mass shooting at a Fourth of July Parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park. As part of a plea deal, Crimo Jr. was sentenced to 60 days in jail and two years of probation.

Crimo’s son, who was 19 at the time of the shooting, pleaded guilty to multiple counts of murder and attempted murder in April 2025 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In 2021, Jennifer and James Crumbley became the first parents convicted in the United States of charges stemming from a mass school shooting committed by their child. Ethan Crumbley, then 16, pleaded guilty in October 2022 to charges he murdered four students and injured several others in a November 2021 shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, Michigan, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Jennifer and James Crumbley were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in separate trials after prosecutors presented evidence of an unsecured gun at their home and their indifference toward their son’s mental health. They were each sentenced to 10 to 15 yearsin prison.