Apalachee High School shooting suspect appears in court with his father

WINDER, Ga. – The teen suspected in the shooting at Apalachee High School and his father both appeared in court on Friday in connection with charges related to the attack that killed four people and rocked a rural community outside Atlanta.

The 14-year-old suspect, Colt Gray, faces four counts of felony murder and is being held without bond at a juvenile detention facility. He appeared in a Barrow County courtroom wearing a green shirt with shackles around his wrists and ankles. He did not look at the gallery, where several family members of the victims were seated.

His father, Colin Gray, 54, was arraigned on four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children. An arrest warrant obtained by USA TODAY accused the elder Gray of "providing a firearm to Colt Gray with knowledge that he was a threat to himself and others."

Neither son nor father entered a plea or requested bond during their respective hearings.

The attack occurred just over a month into the school year and has plunged the city of Winder, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, into a state of mourning as students, parents and residents alike grapple with the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. in over a year.

Shooter to face more charges over injured victims, DA says

Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith updated reporters Friday morning, saying Colt Gray will next face a grand jury. Smith also said Gray will be charged with additional crimes at the hearing, which is in October, Smith said.

"There will be additional charges on Colt Gray," Smith said.

Gray will face additional charges because so far, prosecutors have only charged him with crimes related to the four killed during the Wednesday shooting. Authorities will decide on additional charges after victims who suffered injuries have had a chance to heal physically and emotionally, Smith said. At that point, the injured victims can share more information with authorities that will inform Gray's additional charges, according to Smith.

"There will be additional charges that address the other victims," he said Friday.

Hundreds mourn at vigil for victims

Elected officials and hundreds of Apalachee High School community members wearing school paraphernalia gathered despite the rain Friday evening to hold a vigil at Winder’s Jug Tavern Park for the victims of the shooting that left two students and two teachers dead.

“We will find our way forward through this. It will not be easy,” Barrow County Schools Superintendent Dallas LeDuff said through tears. “But as we work together to find that path forward, I just want you to know that we are going to do it together.”

“We are Barrow strong,” he said, echoing the chants of other communities devastated by mass shooters.

Pictures of the four victims killed were displayed prominently behind the speakers on a screen. Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith gestured to the pictures as he spoke: “These four people are heroes."

U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock and U.S. Representative Mike Collins also spoke.

“l come tonight first and foremost as a dad,” Warnock said. “There is nothing more precious, nothing more sacred than our children.”

The senator Democrat from Georgia added that preventing further shootings should be considered a moral issue, not a political one. “This is every parent’s nightmare,” he said. “We don’t have to live this way.”

Collins praised Barrow County for having an emergency action plan in place and said it helped save lives. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has said that school staff used a special panic button system to quickly alert law enforcement.

He encouraged the crowd to pray for the victims.

“Remember the lives of the four people who were lost that day,” Collins said. “We gotta pray for those people that are still injured out there.”

Father told police he was teaching his son 'about firearms and safety'

In May 2023, the FBI forwarded to the sheriff's office in Jackson County several anonymous tips received about threats "to shoot up a school" in the social media platform Discord, often used for gaming. A transcript obtained by USA TODAY sheds light on the conversations investigators had with Gray and his father.

Colin Gray told investigators he and his son "do a lot of shooting" and that he had been trying to "teach his son about firearms and safety" to get him away from video games and interested in the outdoors, the transcript said.

The father said his son, who was 13 at the time, had been bullied at school and struggled with his parent's recent divorce. The family had also been evicted from their home months earlier. The father took in Colt Gray and his now ex-wife moved elsewhere with their two younger children.

When asked if his son had access to the weapons, Colin Gray said "I mean there's nothing loaded but they are down." He later added that his son "knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do and how to use them and not use them."

The teen denied making threats online and told the officers he had deleted his Discord account after it had been hacked. Investigators determined that conflicting evidence prevented them from identifying the author of the post and eventually closed the case.

"I urged Colin to keep his firearms locked away, and advised him to keep Colt out of school until this matter is resolved," the investigator wrote in a report, noting later that the school year had already ended by the time the tip was received.

City of Winder in anguish after high school shooting

"This isn’t supposed to happen here. It happens somewhere else. It’s just not supposed to be,” said Tommy Jennings, president and CEO of the Barrow County Chamber of Commerce, located in the old train depot in historic downtown Winder.

He’s lived in Winder nearly his entire life and recalled seeing police car after police car fly past his office window on Broad Street – a very unusual sight in the city of about 20,000 residents.

“It will be, for the residents here, the local version of 9/11. You’ll remember where you were when you heard or you saw something happen,” he said. “Even today, I heard a police car zipping down and suddenly the memory hit, so we will live with it for a long time.”

Flowers line the steps of the outdoor stage in nearby Winder’s Jug Tavern Park, where a vigil was held Wednesday and another will be held Friday night. Driving through Winder, several local businesses have signs saying Pray for Apalachee.

Jennings said most people seem to be grieving privately, but “Whenever two or three gather somewhere, the conversation comes up and you see people comforting each other.”

Mother of Apalachee student recalls 'terrifying' experience

At a flagpole surrounded by flowers at Apalachee High School, Katie Strickland stood several feet back from her daughter, a sophomore, as she quietly grieved. Her daughter wasn’t up for sharing her experience, but Strickland, who works nights as a dispatcher in Barrow County, vividly recalls hearing from her Wednesday.

“I was asleep and it was a miracle that I just happened to look at my phone and she had messaged me and said, ‘Mom, please get me. There’s a shooter here,’” Strickland said. “I just tried to get here as fast as I could … I just had to get my hands on her, my eyes on her, make sure she was OK.”

Strickland had two other daughters at the middle school next door, which was also locked down after the shooting.

“I’ve got one here, I’ve got two stuck over there. It was just terrifying,” she said.

Her 10th grader didn’t see the shooting but heard the gunshots. Friday morning was the first time Strickland said they felt up to coming back to the school.

“It’s crazy to think it happened in this town. I grew up here,” Strickland said. “You just never think it’s going to happen to you, and when it does, it still seems unreal to be standing here and seeing this.”

Start your day informed. Sign up for USA TODAY's Daily Briefing newsletter.

Friends, family remember 4 slain in school shooting

In the days since the shooting, friends and family members have shared loving words about the four victims killed during the attack, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and math teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53.

Aspinwall, who was the defensive coordinator for the Apalachee High School football team, was described by Head Coach Mike Hancock as a "great dad, man, and a great father."

"He loved his two girls and he loved his wife," Hancock said. "He did happen to love the game of football and he was well respected around this area."

Irimie was described by students as a caring and patient teacher. Pastors and friends told the Atlanta-Journal Constitution that she always embraced her Romanian roots and was active in the expat community.

Angulo's older sister, Lisette, remembered him as "very sweet and so caring," according to a GoFundMe page for his funeral services. "He was so loved by many. His loss was so sudden and unexpected," Lisette Angulo wrote of her brother. "We are truly heartbroken."

Schermerhorn was described his people who knew him as a friendly teenager who enjoyed reading, playing video games and visiting Walt Disney World, The New York Times reported.

Aunt says suspect was 'begging for help' months before shooting

An aunt of the suspected shooter who killed four people at Apalachee High School told The Washington Post that her nephew had struggled with his mental health and “was begging for help from everybody around him” in the months before the shooting.

“The adults around him failed him,” the aunt, Annie Brown, told the outlet.

Brown, who lives in Central Florida, said she expressed concern over her nephew’s access to a gun through texts to another relative, The Post reported. She also said the suspect’s grandmother went to his school to seek help from a counselor.

A week before the shooting, the grandmother wrote in a text that her grandson “starts with the therapist tomorrow," according to The Post.

15-year-old arrested after reported threat to 'finish the job'

A 15-year-old student was arrested Wednesday after investigators said the teenager referred to the Apalachee High School shooting and pledged to “finish the job to shoot another school in Jackson County."

Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said Thursday that the threat was made on a school bus. She said there were witnesses to the threat and the teen was located and brought to the sheriff’s office for interviews.

Afterward, the teenager was charged and was placed in the Regional Youth Detention Center in Gainesville, the same facility where the suspect in the Apalachee High shooting is being held.

Contributing: John Bacon, Thao Nguyen, Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY; Ryne Dennis, Wayne Ford, Athens Banner-Herald

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Georgia school shooting: Father and son appear in court