A Georgia jury needed less than two hours Tuesday to send a message that has been building in courtrooms across America: Parents who arm dangerous children will be held responsible for what those children do.
Colin Gray, who gave his teenage son the semiautomatic rifle used to kill four people at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., last September, was convicted of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter — the latest in a growing line of parents to face criminal consequences after their children carried out mass shootings. The verdict comes roughly a year after James and Jennifer Crumbley became the first parents in U.S. history convicted in a mass school shooting committed by their child — a case with striking parallels to Gray’s: Both involved a gun purchased as a gift for a troubled teenager and ignored warning signs of deteriorating mental health. The Crumbleys are each serving at least 10 years in prison. Gray now faces the same reckoning.
Jurors found Mr. Gray guilty of second-degree murder in the deaths of two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and involuntary manslaughter in the killings of teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53. Another teacher and eight students were wounded. He was also convicted on multiple counts of reckless conduct and cruelty to children.
Mr. Gray showed little emotion as the verdict was read and each juror was polled. Deputies cuffed his hands behind his back as he stood at the defense table. He will be sentenced at a later date. Second-degree murder carries a penalty of 10 to 30 years in prison; involuntary manslaughter carries one to 10 years.
Prosecutors said Mr. Gray gave his son the gun as a Christmas gift and allowed him access to it and ammunition despite the boy’s deteriorating mental health, and that he had “sufficient warning that Colt Gray would harm and endanger” others. Mr. Gray knew his son was obsessed with school shooters and kept a shrine in his bedroom to Nikolas Cruz, the gunman in the 2018 Parkland massacre, prosecutors said.
“It wasn’t like one parent missed one warning,” Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith said. “This was multiple warnings over a lengthy period of time and, like we said, you just had to do one thing — take that rifle away and this would have been prevented.”
Colt Gray, 14 at the time of the shooting, has pleaded not guilty to 55 counts including murder. A status hearing is set for mid-March.
Mr. Smith noted that the Crumbley convictions in Michigan had already begun to shift behavior — Mr. Gray’s estranged wife, Marcee Gray, who was not charged, testified that she had urged her husband to lock the guns away after seeing what happened in that case. “Michigan was able to move the needle to the point that it almost stopped this tragedy,” Mr. Smith said. “We hope we’ve moved the needle a little further.”
Following the shooting, Georgia lawmakers passed a school safety bill requiring a statewide alert system for students who have threatened violence, mandatory law enforcement notifications to schools, mobile panic alert buttons and mental health coordinators in each of the state’s 180 school districts. Gov. Brian Kemp also secured an additional $50 million in school safety funding.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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