WINDER, Ga. (Court TV) — Two days after his son was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for a deadly school shooting, Colin Gray faced the same judge to learn his fate.
Colin Gray appears at his sentencing on July 30, 2026. (Court TV)
A jury convicted Colin Gray, 55, of all 29 charges he had faced in connection with the deadly shooting at Apalachee High School in 2024. While Colin Gray didn’t pull the trigger and was not present at the school, prosecutors successfully argued that he was responsible for his son’s actions, in part because Colin Gray gave him the gun used in the school attack.
“On Sept. 4, 2024, my husband left for work, excited to spend another day doing what he loved: teaching students, coaching players and making a difference in their lives,” Shayna Aspinwall said at Thursday’s sentencing hearing. “He never came home. Ricky was the love of my life and the heart of our family.”
Shayna Aspinwall’s husband, Richard Aspinwall, was one of two adults killed in the shooting. Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, were also shot to death.
“You’re responsible for all that has happened. I can’t see it any other way,” Richard Aspinwall’s father, Rick Aspinwall, said in court. “I hope to God you sit somewhere in a corner and have to remember everything that you’re responsible for.”
Mason Schermerhorn’s mother, Brianna Schermerhorn, said that she had been a single parent after the birth of her first child and resented the way that Colin Gray appeared to use the title as an excuse during his trial. “There’s a world of difference between struggling to parent and refusing to parent,” she said. “Mr. Gray was not an overwhelmed teenager trying to figure life out. He was a grown man. He had years of experience, countless opportunities and repeated warnings.”
Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith holds up a poster showing a photo of Colt Gray’s bedroom wall. (Court TV)
Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith emphasized those repeated warnings as he asked Judge Nicholas Primm to sentence Colin Gray to more than 70 years in prison. He held up a poster showing an image of Colt Gray’s bedroom wall covered in photos and articles as a makeshift shrine to school shooter Nikolas Cruz, who murdered 34 people in Parkland, Florida. “This is that risk. This was the risk that was staring him in the face every day,” Smith said. “He gave his son the exact tool he would need to accomplish this. He’s the reason four people are dead, seven were injured and countless others were traumatized. And he is the reason a 16-year-old boy was sentenced two days ago to the rest of his life in prison.”
Colin Gray’s defense attorney, Brian Hobbs, urged the judge to focus on his client’s actions rather than those of the gunman. “He comes to be sentenced for what he did,” Hobbs said. “And not for what his son did.”
Hobbs argued that the multiday sentencing hearing for Colt Gray revealed that Colin Gray was not responsible for what happened. “When the jury convicted Colin Gray in March, they never heard from the one person who knew the whole truth of what was planned in that house. Colt Gray did not testify at his father’s trial and this court has now spent a week hearing that missing evidence.”
Hobbs argued that Colt Gray was hiding his true intentions from his father and accelerated his timeline to carry out the shooting because his father was, in fact, seeking out mental health treatment for him. “Was it enough what Colin did? Obviously not,” Hobbs conceded. “The jury has said so, and Colin accepts that. But it is not nothing, and it is not indifference.”
Asking the court for leniency, Hobbs said his client had no felony record and was unlikely to reoffend. “His punishment did not begin with the verdict and it will not end with his release. His son is in prison for life, his daughter is in foster care, his youngest son is in foster care. His family is gone. His name will forever be associated with this tragedy for the rest of his life and afterwards.”
“I can safely say, never before have I found my position less enviable than I do today,” Primm said as he began to pronounce the sentence. “Punishing criminal negligence is not easy, in part because they didn’t intend to commit a crime. The punishment generally comes from the foreseeability of the crime and from the damage that results. It is clear you failed as a parent.”
Primm sentenced Colin Gray to a total of 15 years in prison, with sentences for each of the charges running concurrently.
On the advice of his attorney, Colin Gray did not speak at the hearing.
