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OAN Staff Addie Davis
5:24 PM – Tuesday, March 3, 2026
Colin Gray, the 55-year-old father of the teenager accused in the deadly 2024 Apalachee High School shooting, was convicted on Tuesday on all 27 charges related to the attack — including two counts of second-degree murder and four counts of involuntary manslaughter.
The conviction represents a landmark precedent, coming before the still-pending trial of Gray’s 16-year-old son, Colt Gray, whose mental health evaluation remains ongoing.
Prosecutors argued that 55-year-old Gray bore criminal responsibility after providing his son with the rifle used in the September 4th shooting, despite prior warnings about the teen’s threats, making this one of the first instances in U.S. history where a parent has been held liable for murder in connection with their child’s alleged school shooting.
In the September 4, 2024, Apalachee High School shooting in Winder, Georgia, two students and two teachers sadly succumbed to their injuries while nine other injured individuals later recovered.
Colt Gray, the purported shooter, now 16, is currently being held in a juvenile detention facility awaiting his trial.
According to prosecutors, Colin presented his son with a Sig Sauer M400 rifle as a Christmas present in 2023 — the same firearm later used in the deadly Apalachee shooting. Gray said he purchased it to encourage shared father-son activities like hunting and range shooting. However, the gift was given seven months after law enforcement had already probed his son over online threats to shoot up a school.
At the time, then-14-year-old Colt had what investigators described as a “school shooter shrine” in his bedroom — a wall adorned with photographs and clippings of Nikolas Cruz, the perpetrator of the 2018 Parkland school massacre in Florida.
Colin Gray, however, denied any awareness of it, testifying firmly: “I tell you right now, I never saw anything like that.”
Marcee Gray, Colt Gray’s mother, had also testified that she pleaded with her estranged spouse, Colin, to take and lock away all firearms so that their son could not have access to them, according to the California Post.
The outlet also pointed out that Colin Gray’s conviction is not entirely unprecedented, as Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first in the U.S. convicted in connection with a mass school shooting — as their son had killed four students in 2021 after they failed to secure the firearm he used.
Gray’s sentencing is scheduled for a later date, where he could face up to 180 years in prison.
During the trial, the father’s lead defense attorney had argued that Colin’s son, Colt, had engaged in deliberate and calculated deception to conceal his intentions, asserting that his client shouldn’t be held liable.
“You cannot hold a person criminally liable for failing to foresee what was deliberately and meticulously hidden from them,” Hobbs said during his opening statement.
District Attorney Brad Smith, however, argued that Gray’s “criminal negligence” provided his teenage son with the means to carry out the attack, directly facilitating the tragedy.
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