Mother of Georgia shooting suspect called school to report emergency, aunt says

A memorial is seen at Apalachee High School following the shooting Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

The mother of the 14-year-old boy charged with murder in the fatal shootings of four people at his Georgia high school called the school before the killings, alerting staff of an “extreme emergency” involving her son, a relative said.

Annie Brown told the Washington Post that her sister, Colt Gray’s mother, texted her saying she had spoken with a school counselor and urged them to find her son “immediately” to check on him.

Brown provided screenshots of the text exchange to the newspaper, which also reported that a call log from the family’s shared phone plan showed a call was made to the school about 30 minutes before the gunfire was supposed to erupt.

Brown confirmed the information to The Associated Press via text message Saturday but declined to provide further comment.

Colt Gray, 14, has been charged with murder in the killings of two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, near Atlanta, on Wednesday. His father, Colin Gray, is charged with second-degree murder for providing his son with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.

Their lawyers declined to immediately seek bail at their first court appearance on Friday.

The Georgia teenager had struggled to come to terms with his parents’ separation and the taunting of classmates, his father told a sheriff’s investigator last year when asked whether his son had posted a threat online.

“I don’t know anything about him saying (an insult) like that,” Gray told Jackson County sheriff’s investigator Daniel Miller, according to a transcript of their interview obtained by the AP. “I would be furious if he did, and all the guns would be gone.”

Jackson County authorities closed their investigation into Colt Gray a year ago, concluding there was no clear evidence linking him to a threat posted on Discord, a social network popular with video gamers. The documents from that investigation provide at least a small glimpse into a boy who struggled to come to terms with his parents’ breakup and the middle school he attended at the time, where his father said others frequently made fun of him.

“He gets upset and feels pressured. He can’t think straight,” Colin Gray told the investigator on May 21, 2023, recalling a discussion he had with the boy’s school principal.

Shooting and hunting were frequent pastimes for both father and son, he said. Gray said he encouraged the boy to be more active outdoors and spend less time playing video games on his Xbox.

When Colt Gray killed a deer a few months earlier, his father was filled with pride. He showed the investigator a photo on his cellphone, saying, “You see him with blood on his cheeks after he shot his first deer.”

“It was simply the best day of my life,” Colin Gray said.

The investigator’s report and the interview transcript do not mention that Gray owned an assault rifle. When asked if his son had access to firearms, the father said he did.

But he said the guns were not loaded and insisted he had emphasized safety when teaching the boy to shoot.

“He knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do,” Gray said, “and how to use them and not use them.”

An eviction rocked the Grays family in the summer of 2022.

On July 25 of that year, a deputy sheriff was dispatched to the rental house on a suburban cul-de-sac where Colin Gray, his wife Colt, and the boy’s two younger siblings lived. A crew of movers was stacking their belongings in the yard.

A Jackson County sheriff’s deputy said in a report that the movers found firearms and hunting bows in a closet in the master bedroom. They gave the guns and ammunition to the deputy sheriff for safekeeping, rather than leaving them outside with the family’s other belongings.

The deputy sheriff wrote that he left copies of the gun receipt forms on the front door so Gray could pick them up later at the sheriff’s office.

The reason for the eviction is not mentioned in the report. Colin Gray told the investigator in 2023 that he had paid his rent.

It was after the expulsion, he said, that his wife left him, taking his two younger siblings with her.

Colt Gray “had a hard time at first with the separation and everything,” said the father, who worked in construction.

“I’m the sole service provider, I do the high-rise buildings downtown,” he told the investigator. Two days later, he had another interview with Colin Gray while he was at work. He said by phone: “I’m hanging off the top of a building. … I’ve got a big crane that’s running, so it’s a little noisy in here.”

Middle school had also been a difficult time for Colt Gray. He had just finished his seventh grade year when Miller interviewed the father and son.

Colin Gray said the boy had only a few friends and was often bullied, with some students “making fun of him day in and day out”.

“I don’t want him to fight anybody, but they keep pinching him and touching him,” Gray said. “Words are one thing, but when you start touching him, it’s a whole other story. And it got to the point where last week he didn’t care about his finals.”

The investigator also interviewed the boy, then 13, who was described in a report as calm, quiet and reserved.

He denied making any threats and said that in the past few months he had stopped using the Discord platform, where the threat against the school was posted. He then told his father that his account had been hacked.

“The only thing I have is TikTok, but I just go on there and watch videos,” the teenager said.

A year before they were both charged in the high school shooting, Colin Gray insisted to a sheriff’s investigator that his son was not the type to threaten violence.

“He’s not a loner, Officer Miller. Don’t let that fool you,” the father said, adding, “He just wants to go to school, do his own thing and he doesn’t want any trouble.”

Associated Press writer Trenton Daniel contributed to this report from New York.

A memorial is seen at Apalachee High School following the shooting Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

A poster with images of victims Christian Angulo, top left, Richard Aspinwall, top right, Mason Schermerhorn, bottom left, and Cristina Irimie is displayed on a memorial outside Apalachee High School, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Winder, Ga., after a shooting at the school earlier in the week. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

This combination of booking images provided by the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia shows Colin Gray, left, and his son Colt Gray, who have been charged in connection with the Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, shootings at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. (Barrow County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

Colin Gray, 54, the father of Apalachee High School shooter Colt Gray, 14, enters the Barrow County Courthouse for his first appearance, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

A memorial is seen at Apalachee High School following the shooting Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

People hug at a makeshift memorial after a shooting Wednesday at Apalachee High School, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Linda Carter, of Grayson, Ga., kneels near Apalachee High School to lay flowers as she mourns the students and teachers killed Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

The rental home of Colt Gray, the 14-year-old suspect who has been charged as an adult with murder in the Wednesday, Sept. 4, shooting at Apalachee High School, is shown Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Two students look at a memorial as flags are flown at half-staff following a shooting Wednesday at Apalachee High School, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Flowers are laid at a memorial outside Apalachee High School, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Winder, Ga., following a shooting at the school earlier in the week. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

Mark Gorman holds a candle during a candlelight vigil for students and teachers killed at Apalachee High School, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Georgia Bureau of Investigation personnel move through an entrance to Apalachee High School following Wednesday’s multiple shooting, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)WLD

Chimain Douglas, of Grayson, Ga., kneels near Apalachee High School as she mourns the students and teachers killed Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Apalachee High School and its football stadium are seen a day after a mass shooting at the school, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)