Fourteen-year-old Colt Gray has been charged with four counts of felony murder following a deadly school shooting at a Georgia high school on Wednesday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) announced on Thursday afternoon. Four people were killed in the tragic incident.
Gray, a student at Apalachee High School, will be tried as an adult. His first court appearance is scheduled for Friday morning.
The autopsies for the four victims will be conducted on Thursday at the GBI Medical Examiner’s Office. The victims have been identified as two students, Christian Angulo, 14, and Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and two teachers, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, according to NPR. Nine additional people were transported to hospitals with injuries.
Richard Aspinwall, a math teacher and assistant football coach at Apalachee High School, had recently joined the school as the defensive coordinator for the Apalachee Wildcats in 2023. Isaiah Hooks, a sophomore football player, expressed his grief, saying, “It’s just so hard to think that somebody that you spent so much time with, like family basically…knowing that he’s not going to be there.”
Christina Irimie, a beloved member of the school’s math department, was remembered by students for her patience and caring nature.
Mason Schermerhorn, a freshman, was described by his family as someone who was “always positive and always looked at the bright side of things.” He enjoyed playing video games and had recently started learning to play the trumpet.
Christian Angulo, also a freshman, was remembered by friends as a free spirit who loved to make others laugh. His friend, Abner Sanz, shared his disbelief upon hearing the news: “I checked the family group chat and there’s my sister saying that there’s a shooting at Apalachee and that’s how I was just like, ‘This isn’t real, this can’t be happening.’”
The FBI’s Atlanta Division revealed that Gray had previously been questioned in 2023 about threats to carry out a school shooting.
“In May 2023, the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center received several anonymous tips about online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location and time. The online threat contained photographs of guns. Within 24 hours, the FBI determined the online post originated in Georgia and the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office referred the information to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office for action,” the FBI stated.
The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office interviewed Gray, who was 13 at the time, and his father. The father acknowledged having hunting guns in the house but claimed his son did not have unsupervised access to them. Gray denied making the online threats, and local schools were alerted to monitor him. The FBI later confirmed that the 13-year-old in question was indeed Gray, the suspect now arrested for the shooting.