WINDER, Ga. (Court TV) — A teenager who killed four people in a mass shooting at his Georgia high school will never have the chance for release from prison, a judge ruled on Tuesday.
Colt Gray appears in court on July 28, 2026. (Court TV)
Colt Gray, 16, sat stoically as Judge Nicholas Primm handed down the sentence after a hearing spanning three days. Colt Gray pleaded guilty to all 55 charges he’d faced, which included four counts of malice murder and four counts of felony murder, for the shooting deaths at Apalachee High School. On Sept. 4, 2024, Colt Gray, then 14, took a rifle to school and killed 14-year-olds Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, as well as teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irmie, 53. Nine other people were injured in the shooting.
Prosecutors spent days presenting evidence that they said proved that Colt Gray not only planned and carried out the attack, but that he did it because he wanted to be famous within a group on the internet known as “True Crime Community” (TCC). Investigators testified that TCC is a group largely populated by children and teenagers who are obsessed with mass killers, specifically school shooters.
Comparing Colt Gray to other shooters he was obsessed with, including Nikolas Cruz, Adam Lanza and Salvador Ramos, District Attorney Brad Smith created a chart showing how the equipment the defendant used to arm himself compared to that used by other gunmen. “He took steps before the shooting took place to put Easter eggs, callbacks, into the case, anticipating today,” Smith said. “Anticipating these things, us being here, releasing them into the wild, to keep his fame going.”
The defendant’s obsession with other killers didn’t stop when he was taken into custody. Recorded jail calls between Colt Gray and his mother, Marcee Gray, revealed the two laughing as they discussed the defendant’s newfound notoriety.
Colt Gray: “Can you believe it, mom? I took over Thomas Crooks in popularity. Take that.”
Marcee Gray: “Well, you should.” (laughs)
Colt Gray: “This is messed up, but like, I’m being compared — I’m in the big leagues, bro. And not in a bad way, I mean, this is the TCC community.” (laughter)
A graphic compares items used by Colt Gray to other mass shootings. (court evidence)
Thomas Crooks was killed by the U.S. Secret Service on July 13, 2024, after allegedly firing at President Donald Trump with an AR-15-style rifle at a rally in Pennsylvania.
In another conversation, Colt Gray asked his mother, “Have you made a shrine for me yet?” and enlisted her to browse Reddit forums for his name. Describing one edited image to her son, Marcee Gray said, “They posted a bunch of different school shooters and then beside them they have what flavor Ben & Jerry’s ice cream they are. And they actually have you and [Nikolas Cruz] together on the same little picture! You got caramel almond brittle and he got cannoli.”
Colt Gray appeared to revel in the reports of his fame online, encouraging his mother to pass on a message to his grandmother to make their browsing easier. “Tell Mamoo that her f—ng celebrity grandson is telling her to upgrade her internet right now. Yeah, really, you tell her. I’m tired of this s—, seriously,” Colt Gray said after getting frustrated with the time it took his mother to look up comments about him on Reddit.
The teenager’s defense emphasized a difficult childhood and chaotic upbringing as they asked Primm to consider offering the defendant a chance at parole. “If we give him life without parole, then that takes away the hope and takes away the ability for him to change,” his attorney, W. Charlton Allen, said.
Colt Gray’s maternal grandmother, Deborah Polhamus, pleaded for mercy on her grandson’s behalf. “I know that’s hard for a lot of people to believe, but the Colt that I knew and the Colt that I know now, it’s not the Colt that did all of this. His mind was just so distorted,” she said. “All he ever wanted was to have a friend. All he ever wanted was to be included and loved.”
Smith conceded the defendant’s tumultuous childhood, but argued it should make no difference. “In this courtroom, we’ve seen a lot worse,” he said. “We’ve seen no evidence he has any ability to develop a conscience or any ability to ever fully value human life…Colt Gray cannot be in society.”
“Planning, fantasizing about, visualizing, and executing a school shooting put you in a problematic place that puts you in an unredeemable moral wasteland,” Primm said as he began to hand down the sentence. “You do not seem to be tormented by what you did. You seemed to relish following in the footsteps of the murderers you idolize. You aren’t racked with guilt; you’re proud of yourself. Less than a month after the tragedy, you weren’t concerned with the horror you wrought, but rather with finding out which mass murderers they were comparing you to.”
Primm ordered Colt Gray to serve sentences of life without parole on each of the four murder counts.
On Thursday, Colt Gray’s father, Colin Gray, will be sentenced after a jury convicted him of 29 counts in connection with the shooting. Colin Gray provided his son with the gun used in the attack.
