The mother of a 14-year-old accused of killing four people and wounding others at a Georgia high school in 2024 testified on Monday that her son's behavior was "alarming" when he came to live with her the previous year.
Marcee Gray, the estranged wife of Colin Gray, took the stand to discuss their son's behavior prior to the shooting at Apalachee High School. Colin Gray, whose trial began last week, is accused of giving their son access to a firearm. He is charged with two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of involuntary manslaughter, 20 counts of cruelty to children and five counts of reckless conduct.
Their son, Colt Gray, is accused of opening fire at the high school on Sept. 4, 2024, killing two students, two teachers and wounding nine others. He has been charged as an adult with four counts of felony murder. A trial date has not been set for him yet.
The victims of the shooting were identified as Mason Schermerhorn, 14; Christian Angulo, 14; Richard Aspinwall, 39; and Cristina Irimie, 53.
'Alarming' behavior
Marcee Gray said she moved out of a shared home with her two younger children, Jenny and Colee, in 2022, but Colin and Colt stayed behind. In the summer of 2023, Colt came to live with her, she said.
She described her son's behavior as "alarming" and "very different" from that of the son she had left with his dad.
"He had a lot of anger inside, and he was very aggressive and unpredictable," Marcee Gray said. "So much so that I ended up relocating his little sister across town to my parents house because I didn’t want to leave her there alone with him. And then his little brother basically just never left my side."
She said Colt damaged flat screen TVs inside the home, broke windows, carved surfaces with knives and wrote things on the walls. The incidents led to Marcee Gray's father contacting the police twice, which eventually led to Colt moving back in with his father.
Marcee Gray said Colin Gray blamed her for calling the police on their son and convinced Colt that she had done so.
"I was trying to get him, sent, you know, to juvenile detention," Marcee Gray said in court Monday. "And once he had him convinced of that, Colt refused to talk to me, he just wanted to go back with his dad."
Marcee Gray said she arranged a counseling session for her son that he never attended, and testified that Colin Gray did not enroll their son into the eighth grade when he went to live with him.
Not long afterward, Marcee Gray, who had an open Department of Human Services Division of Family & Children Services case against her, failed a drug test and the other two children were also sent to live with their dad, she said.
"I was faced with the reality that Jenny and Colee were now living in the house with their dad, where things were horrific. And there was nothing I could do about it," she said.
Marcee Gray said that one day she showed up at Colin Gray's house and demanded to see her children. When she arrived, Colin Gray threatened to call the police and Marcee Gray keyed his car before leaving, she told the court.
"I was not in my right mind at the time," Marcee Gray said of the incident. She was arrested the next day and eventually checked into a rehabilitation center upon her release, she said. The stint in rehab was followed by a temporary stay with her husband and the kids in their home.
A fascination with school shooters and an interest in guns
Marcee Gray described an incident in which Colt Gray had a panic attack, which led her to research inpatient help for her son. She said Colin Gray was not supportive in her efforts.
"He just wanted to not pay attention to it and hope it will go away," Marcee Gray said about her estranged husband.
Attorneys for Collin Gray pushed back on Marcee Gray during cross-examination, asking her why she didn't reach out to law enforcement if she was so concerned her son needed help. Defense also mentioned that she had been using methamphetamines because she was having difficulties taking care of all three kids by herself.
"So, you’re not here today telling the jury or anyone that you saw this coming?" defense attorney Brian Hobbs asked Gray.
"I did not see a mass school shooting coming," Marcee Gray said in court. "Maybe I was just not wanting to face it because I was his mother. I don’t know, but I, it was the last thing that I would have guessed."
She said their son had shown an interest in people who carried out school shootings — including Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz — talking to her about their home lives and their interests.
This included a joke from the teen saying he had to "finish my school shooter outfit," Marcee Gray told the court.
Colt Gray also took up a shared interest in firearms with his father, often asking him to go to the shooting range to practice, Marcee Gray said.
His mother recalled an incident a month before the shooting when she asked her son to give her a rifle he'd been walking with around the house. The rifle was gifted to him by his father, she said.
"And he turned around and just kind of in one big sweeping motion, kind of, hit me with his arm slash gun, but he hit me very hard, enough that knocked me back backwards across the hall," she said.
Marcee Gray said she didn't tell her estranged husband about the incident, but asked him to take all guns and keep them in his truck.
"And he kept saying, 'Well, it’s — they’re in the top of my closet.' And I said, 'That’s not good enough. You know, you might as well say well, ‘They’re under my bed.' They need to be locked somewhere," Marcee Gray said, adding that the defendant agreed to keep the guns in his truck initially.
The day of the shooting
On the morning of Sept. 4, 2024, Marcee Gray said her estranged husband told her that he'd received concerning texts from their son. The content of the messages was not shared in court.
Marcee Gray discussed the messages with her mother before deciding to call a guidance counselor at Apalachee High School to issue a warning.
"I said, 'I need you to take this seriously. I need you to put down what you’re doing, and you need to go find him right now, please,'" she said.
Shortly after, Colt Gray allegedly opened fire at the school, killing four people and wounding multiple others.
A week before the shooting, Marcee Gray had googled James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of a 15-year-old who committed a mass shooting at his Oxford, Michigan, high school in 2021. The pair was charged with manslaughter in connection with the shooting.
Marcee Gray's search history, which was shown in court, painted a picture that she was interested in learning what the parents were charged with. She said she had recently watched a documentary on the shooting with her son and wanted to find information to convince her estranged husband to lock the guns away.
"He told me, well, one comment that I remember specifically, he said that if he went in Colt’s room and tried to take his gun to put it up, that it would basically cause a s---storm," she said, recalling a conversation with Colin Gray.
Colin Gray’s trial began last week, with the prosecution arguing that his actions led to the 2024 shooting, while defense attorneys contended there is no way he could have known his son would cause harm.
On Tuesday, 14 Apalachee High School students took the stand to speak about the day of the shooting. Nautica Watson recalled passing out after being shot in the leg, and worrying about dying and how it would impact her parents.
Another student, William Cariker, sent out a group text to eight of his loved ones when the shooter was at his classroom door.
“There’s a school shooting if I don’t make it I love you all,” Cariker wrote.
