Chilling text messages from the mother of alleged Georgia school shooter Colt Gray were sent just before four individuals lost their lives at Apalachee High School in Winder, Barrow County.
On September 4, reports of an active shooter led police to the school.
Tragically, two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, along with two teachers, Christina Irimie and Richard Aspinwall, were killed in the attack.
Colt Gray, a 14-year-old, was arrested on suspicion of the shooting and will be tried as an adult.
CNN reported that nine additional people were injured, and Gray allegedly surrendered after being confronted by a school resource officer.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith stated that after Gray was taken into custody, he admitted to the crime by saying ‘I did it’ during questioning.
New, harrowing details have surfaced about the time leading up to the shooting.
According to The Washington Post, Gray sent an apologetic text to his mother Marcee before the incident, prompting her to frantically contact the school.
Charles Polhamus, Gray’s grandfather, mentioned that Marcee was with him when she received the message.
The message allegedly said, “I’m sorry, mom.”
She then called the school to alert them of an ‘extreme emergency’, later telling her sister: “I was the one that notified the school counselor at the high school. I told them it was an extreme emergency and for them to go immediately and find [my son] to check on him.”
Further revelations showed that the teenager had been interviewed by the FBI in May 2023 after anonymous reports were made about someone issuing ‘online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location and time’.
The BBC reports that Gray and his father were interviewed, but the teenager denied making the threats and was not arrested at that time.
In a statement, the FBI said, “The father stated that he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them […] At the time, there was no probable cause for an arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action on the local, state or federal levels.”
Gray’s father, Colin Gray, has also been arrested in connection to the shooting and is facing multiple charges, including ‘four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children,’ according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
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