Suspected school shooter Colt Gray allegedly uttered three chilling words after arrest
By Emily Crane,
2024-09-06
Suspected school shooter Colt Gray uttered three chilling words — “I did it” — to investigators soon after he was arrested for the slaughter of two classmates and two teachers earlier this week, the local sheriff said.
The baby-faced 14-year-old, who is set to make his first court appearance Friday after being slapped with murder charges, allegedly made the admission while being interrogated in the aftermath of the bloodshed at Apalachee High School in Georgia, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told CNN .
Gray is accused of unleashing a barrage of gunfire with an AR-15-style rifle at his school in Winder, just outside Atlanta, on Wednesday morning — killing four and wounding nine others.
He was taken into custody just minutes after allegedly gunning down his victims, authorities said.
The teen suspect, who has since been charged as an adult, is set to appear by video from a youth detention facility for the proceedings at the Barrow County courthouse.
His initial court appearance comes a day after his father, Colin Gray, 54, was hit with a string of charges tied to the shooting, including allegedly giving the boy the weapon used in the massacre as a Christmas gift last year.
It comes as investigators scrambled to piece together the teenager’s alleged motive behind the massacre and whether there were any additional warning signs after authorities first visited his home a year ago.
Authorities had paid Gray a visit in May last year after the FBI received tips that the teen had made online threats about carrying out a school shooting, according to investigators.
At the time, the teen denied threatening to carry out such a threat, a sheriff’s report stated.
His father, who was also interviewed, told cops he had hunting guns in the house but his son did not have access to them. The officers urged the father, at the time, to keep the firearms under lock and key — and advised that Colt be kept out of school “until this matter could be resolved.”
Investigators later shelved the case though when conflicting evidence on the social media post’s origin left investigators unable to arrest anyone, the sheriff’s report added.
Despite the visit from the cops, law enforcement sources told The Post that the father allegedly bought the AR-style assault rifle for Colt for Christmas just months later.
It wasn’t immediately what aspects of that shooting Gray had allegedly read or written about.
Gray has been charged with four counts of murder over the deaths of two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, as well as two teachers, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53.
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