Jury selection begins in trial of Georgia father charged in school shooting

Jury selection is under way in Hall County for the criminal trial of Colin Gray, the Georgia father charged in connection with the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting at Apalachee High School that left four people dead and nine others wounded. The trial is set to be held in Winder, Barrow County, while jurors will be drawn in Gainesville, a process the court scheduled to cover roughly three weeks.

Prosecutors have charged Colin Gray with 29 felony counts, including two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of involuntary manslaughter, multiple counts of second-degree cruelty to children and reckless conduct. If convicted on all counts, he faces up to 180 years in prison. Gray was arrested the day after the shooting, has remained in custody since and pleaded not guilty. Bond had been set at $500,000.

The government’s case centers on purchases and prior warnings. Prosecutors say Gray bought an AR-style rifle in December 2023 as a Christmas gift for his son, Colt Gray, and later purchased a larger-capacity magazine to increase the weapon’s ammunition capacity. Investigators have also pointed to a May 2023 contact with law enforcement after an FBI alert about online threats tied to Colt; officers who followed up were told Colt did not have unsupervised access to guns. Court testimony has indicated that Colin Gray sought counseling weeks before the shooting and acknowledged his son’s worsening mental health, writing to a counseling service: “We have had a very difficult past couple of years and he needs help. Anger, anxiety, quick to be volatile. I don't know what to do.”

The alleged shooter, Colt Gray, was 14 at the time of the attack. Investigative testimony from Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents presented to prosecutors described that Colt wrote detailed plans and diagrams in a notebook, brought a semiautomatic rifle to school in a backpack and began shooting after leaving a bathroom. Local reporting identifies the four people killed as teachers Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie and students Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and Christian Angulo, 14.

Prosecutors are advancing a legal theory that could have wide implications: they contend that Colin Gray’s decision to purchase and transfer the gun, and to buy a larger-capacity magazine, amounted to cruelty to children under Georgia law and can therefore support murder-related charges when a child’s actions lead to death. The argument tests how criminal liability may attach to adults who provide firearms to minors and to the boundaries of statutes designed to protect children.

Colin Gray’s trial will proceed before any trial for his son; charges filed against Colt include multiple counts of murder, aggravated battery, assault and cruelty to children, though his trial date has not been set. The split venue and the use of Hall County jurors reflect a deliberate judicial effort to manage pretrial publicity and to seat an impartial panel in a case that has drawn intense local and state attention.

Beyond the immediate criminal stakes, legal observers say the outcome could shape prosecutorial approaches in future cases involving juveniles and firearms, influence debates over safe-storage and gift purchases, and inform how investigators and courts weigh parental knowledge and prior warnings in assigning criminal responsibility. The coming weeks in the courtroom will determine whether prosecutors can persuade a jury that purchasing and enabling access to the weapon rose to the level of criminal culpability for the deaths at Apalachee High School.