Colt Gray sentencing ends with life without parole in Apalachee shooting

The Colt Gray sentencing ended Tuesday with a Georgia judge ordering the 16-year-old to spend his life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2024 attack at Apalachee High School.

Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm imposed the sentence in Winder, Georgia, days after Gray pleaded guilty to all 55 counts against him, including murder. Gray was 14 when prosecutors said he opened fire at the school on Sept. 4, 2024.

Two students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and two teachers, Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, were killed. Another teacher and eight students were wounded, with seven of those students struck by gunfire, according to the case presented in court.

What was Colt Gray sentenced to?

Gray was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Because he had pleaded guilty without a sentencing agreement with prosecutors, Judge Primm had to decide whether Gray would ever be eligible for release after hearing from victims’ families and both sides.

Gray declined to speak during Tuesday’s hearing. Primm told him from the bench, “You do not seem to be tormented by what you did, you seem to relish following in the footsteps of the murderers you idolize.”

The judge added that the hearing brought no celebration. “There’s no joy here,” Primm said, calling the sentence “only a measure of closure.”

Prosecutors said Gray was fixated on mass killers and wanted notoriety. The state played jail phone calls with his mother in which Gray appeared pleased by comparisons to other school shooters, including Nikolas Cruz, who received life without parole for the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Ashley Gilleland, an investigator with the Barrow County District Attorney’s Office, testified that Gray had more than 2,000 images of Cruz saved on his phone and additional Cruz photos printed and displayed in his bedroom.

Victims’ relatives had asked the court to impose the maximum punishment. Shayna Aspinwall, whose husband Ricky was killed, told the court their daughters were 2 and 5 when their father died and said the family was left with “a life sentence of grief and trauma.”

Breanna Schermerhorn, Mason’s mother, told the judge that even if adults had failed Gray, the choices that led to the killings were his own.

The defense presented testimony from psychologist Kevin Richards, who described Gray as a lonely and dysfunctional teenager with a chaotic childhood. Richards said Gray’s parents abused drugs, struggled financially and fought often, and that Gray spent stretches of time out of school before becoming absorbed in online true-crime communities and school shootings.

Gray’s grandmother, Debbie Polhamus, testified that he often stayed with her because his parents were unstable. She said his father, Colin Gray, kept many guns at home and that not all were secured. She testified that Colin Gray bought the firearm used in the attack as a way to connect with his son.

Colin Gray was convicted by a jury in March of charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter for giving his son the weapon used in the killings.

Police said that shortly before 10 a.m. on the day of the shooting, Gray told a second-period teacher he needed to see a crisis counselor, then went to a bathroom to prepare. After he could not get back into his classroom, police said, he went to another classroom and fired, also shooting at people in the hallway before surrendering to officers.

Prosecutors said investigators later found a notebook laying out a step-by-step plan for how Gray would get ready in the bathroom. In a recorded interview played in court, Gray cried, apologized repeatedly and described what he had done as “horrible” and “the worst nightmare for everyone involved.”

This story draws on original reporting from NBC News.