Mother of mass shooting suspect called Apalachee High School with warning after getting alarming text, grandfather says

(CNN) — The mother of the teenager suspected of killing four people during a Georgia school shooting called to warn a school counselor prior to the shooting, the suspect’s aunt and grandfather said Saturday.

Colt Gray, 14, apologized to his mother Marcee Gray on the morning of the mass shooting at Apalachee High School — sending an alarming early-morning text that prompted the mother to warn the school, his grandfather told the New York Post

Marcee Gray’s father, Charles Polhamus, told the New York Post his daughter was at his home in Georgia on Wednesday morning when Colt texted her to say: “I’m sorry, mom.”

Colt has been charged with four counts of murder after committing a mass shooting earlier this week at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, prosecutors said. He will be tried as an adult.

Marcee Gray broke her silence Saturday, apologizing for the “absolutely horrific” shooting.

“I am so, so sorry and can not fathom the pain and suffering they are going through right now,” she told the Washington Post .

The mother called the school about an unspecified “extreme emergency” involving Colt sometime before the shooting began, Gray’s sister Annie Brown told the Washington Post and later confirmed to CNN.

A 10-minute call was placed from Marcee Gray’s phone to the school at 9:50 a.m., the Washington Post reported. Police were notified of the shooting around 10:20 that morning, CNN previously reported.

Marcee Gray later confirmed the call to the Washington Post, which reported Gray “declined to elaborate on what had prompted her to call in the warning to the school, but said she had shared that information with law enforcement.”

According to the Post , Brown has a shared phone plan with the family which allowed her to see a log of the calls made by her sister.

The Barrow County School District did not return CNN’s request for comment. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation referred CNN’s request for comment to the Piedmont Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office.

CNN has reached out to the Piedmont Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office Saturday evening. CNN has also reached out to Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith, who previously said he had no knowledge of any phone call to the school prior to the shooting.

The 14-year-old suspect is expected to face additional charges accounting for the injured victims, officials said Friday.

A community grieves

As more information continues to emerge about the circumstances surrounding the attack, asmall Georgia community is grieving the two students and two teachers who died Wednesday in the 45th school shooting of 2024 – and the deadliest US school shooting since the March 2023 massacre at The Covenant School in Nashville .

In the days since the tragic attack, Apalachee students have given harrowing accounts of the courageous actions they took to protect their classmates and teachers in the face of senseless violence.

In one classroom, a 14-year-old said she kept the suspect from getting through the door when she saw him pull out a gun. And after a teacher in another classroom was shot, students say they pulled him back inside and used the shirts off their backs to try and stop his bleeding while barricading the door with desks and chairs. Even with a gunshot wound, one teenage boy said he raced to close the classroom door to prevent the shooter from entering.

Victims’ families wiped away tears or clutched stuffed animals as they sat in the Barrow County courtroom Friday during Colt Gray’s arraignment, where he declined to enter a plea to the charges against him.

Prosecutors allege Gray fired an AR-style rifle on campus Wednesday morning, killing four people. Nine others were injured, all but two of whom were shot, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said .

Because of his young age, the maximum penalty Gray could face is life in prison with or without parole, Judge Currie Mingledorff told the teenager in court. In 2005, the US Supreme Court ruled no one can be put to death for crimes committed before the age of 18.

Gray’s father, Colin Gray, 54, faces a maximum sentence of 180 years in prison for four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children.

An arrest warrant for Colin Gray alleges he gave his son a firearm “with knowledge he was a threat to himself and others.” He declined to enter a plea at his first court appearance Friday, and neither him nor his son have asked for bond to be set at their hearings.

“I’m just trying to use the tools in my arsenal to prosecute people for the crimes they commit,” Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith said.

CNN on Saturday sought comment from the public defenders representing Colt Gray and his father.

Smith said he expects additional charges against Colt Gray in connection with victims who were injured during the shooting. Authorities on Thursday said all nine people wounded in Wednesday’s shooting are expected to make a full recovery.

The next step in the case against Gray will be a grand jury meeting on October 17. This will be followed by a scheduled arraignment before the trial process is started, Smith said. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for December 4, Mingledorff said.

For survivors and others, a community recovery center will open in Barrow County on Monday to offer financial assistance, legal services and spiritual and mental health care, the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency announced Friday.

Here’s what we know so far:

• Suspect will be tried as an adult: Colt Gray, who is being held at the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, is slated to remain there while in custody until he turns 17, Glenn Allen, the agency’s spokesperson, told CNN Thursday. Under Georgia law, a juvenile aged 13 to 17 who commits a serious crime is automatically tried as an adult.

• The four people killed: The shooting at Apalachee High School claimed the lives of two 14-year-old students – Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, as well as two teachers – 53-year-old math teacher Cristina Irimie and 39-year-old assistant football coach Richard Aspinwall, who also taught math. Authorities say Irimie was celebrating her birthday with her students the day she was shot and killed, according to a family friend.

• Nine injured are expected to make a full recovery: Of the nine other people injured, seven of them – six students and a teacher – were shot, the GBI said Thursday. The other two – both students – suffered other injuries, the GBI said.

• Suspect was questioned about online threats: In May 2023, law enforcement officials questioned Colt Gray and his father about “online threats to commit a school shooting” that included photos of guns, according to a joint statement from FBI Atlanta and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office. Colt Gray, who was 13 at the time, told investigators during that interview that “someone is accusing him of threatening to shoot up a school, stating that he would never say such a thing, even in a joking manner,” authorities said. Authorities could not substantiate the threats and the investigation was closed, according to the sheriff’s office.

• Suspect’s father gifted him the gun involved in shooting: Two law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the investigation said Colin Gray told authorities he purchased the AR-style rifle used in the school shooting as a holiday present for his son in December 2023 – just months after authorities initially contacted the father about the online threats.

• Suspect had writings on past school shootings: During questioning, Gray told investigators, “ I did it .” As authorities searched his home, they found documents that they believe he wrote referencing past school shootings, including references to the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, a law enforcement source told CNN.

• Shows of support: Ahead of the Georgia Bulldogs’ kick-off against the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles Saturday, a moment of silence was observed to honor those affected by the shooting. Also on Saturday, in front of the high school, more than 100 motorcyclists from different motorcycle clubs staged a rally to show their support.

Student says she didn’t open the door after spotting a gun

Bri Jones, 14, was in second period Wednesday when Colt Gray left the classroom, Jones said. “We didn’t notice he left,” Jones said, adding that Gray was “always quiet.”

But Gray came back and knocked on the door, Jones said.

Bri said she peeked out the door before she opened it because that’s what her mom taught her to do.

“As I was looking at the door, he was pulling his gun out, and then I froze up, like I froze up and I said ‘no’ to myself,” she said.

The teacher asked for the door to be opened, Bri said, “because she didn’t know he had a gun because she was at her desk.” As she went to open the door, “I was like, ‘no, he has a gun,’” Jones said.

Then, the shooter looked up at them before turning and firing shots, Jones said.

“He was looking at me, my teacher, and then​ somebody was in the hall,” she said. “He turned his head and he just started shooting.”

The students then ran to the back of the class and the teacher turned off the lights, Bri said.

“Once he started shooting, it’s like he kept going, it was so many gunshots after gunshots,” she said. “It felt like he was just shooting forever.”

If she had opened the class door, Bri said she believes the suspect “would have got every single one of us in that class.”

Another student, 14-year-old Ronaldo Vega, immediately took cover under his desk when the shooting began in his second-period math class, he said. Ronaldo was injured amid the four to six shots fired, but he still stood up quickly to close the classroom door so the shooter “couldn’t come back,” he said.

Only after seeing one of the bullets behind the teacher’s desk did he realize he had been shot and was bleeding, Ronaldo recounted.

Students took the shirts off their backs to try to save their math teacher

Richard Aspinwall, a math teacher, heard commotion outside his classroom and entered the hallway to see what was going on. When he did, he was shot in the chest by the 14-year-old suspect, according to family friend Julie Woodson, who cited accounts by Aspinwall’s students.

“We had to watch our teacher come back in the classroom holding himself like he’s been shot, and fell to the floor,” 17-year-old Malasia Mitchell said. “And as he kept going, my teacher was shot again.”

Students in the class say they pulled Aspinwall back into the classroom and used the shirts off their backs to try and stop their teacher’s bleeding, according to Woodson.

Meanwhile, the students closed the door and protected themselves with desks and chairs, Mitchell said.

Woodson said Aspinwall “died as a hero trying to save his students’ lives.”

“If he didn’t walk out and take the bullet … who knows what would’ve happened,” Woodson said.

Malasia remembered her teacher as a “great guy” with “such a happy spirit” — someone who wouldn’t want her to ever give up.

“He wouldn’t want me to just stop coming to school,” she said. “He would want me to keep going.”

CNN’s Ashley R. Williams, Rebekah Riess, Holly Yan, Mark Morales, Ryan Young, Isabel Rosales, Chelsea Bailey, Sara Smart, Jaide Timm-Garcia, Raja Razek, Jade Gordon and Steve Sorg contributed to this report.

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