Just after 10am on September 4 as students were settling into their morning classes, a 14-year-old freshman walked into his school in Winder, Georgia armed with a military-style assault rifle and opened fire.
What followed in those horrifying few minutes at Apalachee High School was the deadliest school shooting in the state’s history. Teenager Colt Gray now stands accused of killing two teachers and two students in a rampage that shocked America and the world.
In the days that followed, details of his troubled family life and upbringing started to emerge, painting a picture of a child growing up in a disturbingly dysfunctional home where he was raised by a mother with a long criminal history and a gun-loving father who gifted the youngster an AR-15 for Christmas.
Colt had been on hunting trips with his father, Colin Gray, 54, for at least 18 months before he allegedly opened fire in the school hallways.
The teen’s grandfather has claimed that Colt was ‘driven by his father to do what he did’ and has called for ‘evil’ Colin to face the death penalty. The 54-year-old has been charged in relation to the killings after admitting to authorities that he bought the weapon used in the attack for his son.
His mother Marcee Gray, 43, has a criminal record dating back to 2007 and spent time in jail as recently as this past April and was banned from contacting Colin without a third party intermediary. She has a record across four Georgia counties that includes drug use, domestic violence, property damage and fraud.
Despite relatives claiming the family are ‘not white trash’ and just ‘regular people’, the suspected school shooter’s home life appears to have been neglectful, with a landlord claiming the Grays were frequently visited by child protective services.
Colt was also bullied by classmates who called him gay, his father told detectives in an interview last year, and found it ‘very difficult to go to school’ because he was ‘picked on’ and ‘ridiculed’ daily.
DailyMail.com takes a look inside the tumultuous home life and family of Colt Gray…
Accused Georgia high school shooter Colt Gray, pictured as a toddler, had a seemingly unstable childhood. His mother Marcee (left) has a criminal record spanning more than 17 years and his father Colin (right) was allegedly ‘dysfunctional’ and could be heard ‘screaming and hollering every day’
Colt Gray, 14, (left) is accused of killing two teachers and two students at Apalachee High School in Winder, outside Atlanta, last Wednesday. His father, Colin Gray, 54, (right) has been charged in relation to the killings after admitting to authorities that he bought the weapon used in the attack for his son
The Gray family has seemingly embraced weapons with Colin even bragging that his son was a ‘hell of a shot’ and Marcee saying she was a ‘proud mama’ after Colt killed a deer for the first time.
Colt was introduced to weapons by his father, who claims he took him hunting out of fear he could be caught up in a school shooting and unable to defend himself.
‘I introduced him to bow hunting, then it was a pellet gun, then it was a 22,’ Colin told police during an interview in May 2023 said.
The father-son duo where brought in after the FBI received a tip which accused then 13-year-old Colt of posting threats to open fire at a school.
Colin told officers that they ‘do a lot of deer hunting’, before proudly saying: ‘He shot his first deer this year’.
‘Gun safety was in all of this because I worry about him and school, and you never know what would ever happen.’
‘I’m trying to teach him about firearms and safety,’ the father-of-three added. ‘And how to do it all and get him in interested in the outdoors.’
Conflicting evidence on the origin of the threatening post left investigators unable to arrest anyone last year. Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum has since reviewed the report from May 2023 and says she found nothing that would have justified bringing charges at the time.
Colt was introduced to weapons by his father, who claims he took him hunting out of fear he could be caught up in a school shooting and unable to defend himself. Colt is pictured in January 2023 with a 450 Bushmaster AR-15 semi-automatic rifle that he used to kill a deer
Footage shared on his mother’s social media accounts revealed how proud both Marcee and Colin were after Colt killed a deer on January 8, 2023
Colt has gone on several hunting trips with his father, who has hailed him as being a ‘hell of a shot’. Colt is pictured as a toddler with Colin
Colin Gray, 54, enters the Barrow County courthouse for his first appearance, on Friday, September 6, 2024, in Winder, Georgia
Colt has gone on several hunting trips with his father and even posed with a deadly AR-15 rifle and deer blood on his face a year before he allegedly opened fire on his high school.
Footage shared on his mother’s social media accounts revealed how proud both Marcee and Colin were after Colt killed a deer on January 8, 2023.
Video shows the teenager with blood on his cheeks, wearing hunting gear in a wooded area of Georgia, smiling at the camera while clutching the 450 Bushmaster AR-15 semi-automatic rifle he used to shoot the animal.
His father then insists he poses with the rifle and the deer, telling the camera: ‘I’ll follow you sir. Holy crap look at that brother. Go ahead and lay your rifle down on it, barrel up so you don’t get mud in the barrel, gun down like we had for the picture.
‘Remember it’s still loaded. Beautiful, lean down there and hold that head up let me see what you got this morning.’
Colin further bragged: ‘On your first ever deer hunt big old giant three pointer amazing look at that son what a hell of a shot. Yes sir.’
Marcee, who shared the video online, added: ‘Proud mama right here. All are in agreement’.
Marcee Gray, 43, (pictured) has a criminal record dating back to 2007 and spent time in jail as recently as this past April and was banned from contacting her ex-husband Colin without a third party intermediary
Marcee, (pictured) was sentenced last December to five years in jail and banned from having any contact with Colt’s father Colin, as well as paying out $1,500 to an Atlanta construction company in restitution
Colt’s grandfather Charles Polhamus, 81, has claimed that Colin turned his son into a mass murderer, citing the boy’s ‘dysfunctional’ home life and violence-prone upbringing.
Polhamus alleged Colt was ‘driven by his father to do what he did’, telling the New York Post: ‘Spending 11 years with that son of a b***h screaming and hollering every day, it can affect anybody.
He added: ‘He needs the death penalty.’
‘Colt has to pay for what he did, but I’m telling you, he was driven, no question in my mind,’ Polhamus said. ‘Colt is like a lot of young kids these days with the tablets and some of the garbage they pull up, the blood and all the fighting.
‘If you don’t think that has an impact on young kids, you’re missing the boat, and that was also part of Colt’s problem.
‘It’s part of it — and living with a dysfunctional dad who was a screamer and a hollerer.
‘No question about it. Prior to going through this, he was a good kid. I will preach that forever.’
Marcee Gray, pictured, has a record across four Georgia counties that includes drug use, domestic violence , property damage and fraud
Polhamus said his wife Deborah had gone to the school a day before the shooting as family concern about Colt mounted.
‘They were having some problems with him not going to school, and this kind of thing,’ he told CBS. ‘My wife had gone up there the day before and met with the teachers to get him some.’
Polhamus spoke out after it was claimed that his daughter Marcee called her son’s school to warn them of an ‘extreme emergency’ minutes before the shooting started.
‘I told them it was an extreme emergency and for them to go immediately and find [my son] to check on him,’ the mother told her sister in text messages seen by the Washington Post.
Colt Gray’s AR-15-style rifle can be seen in the corridor of Apalachee High School
The outlet reported that a call log from the family’s shared phone plan shows Gray made a 10-minute call to the school at 9.50am on Wednesday, about half an hour before Colt allegedly opened fire.
She then got in her car and started driving toward the school, more than three hours away. But about half-way there she learned that the tragedy she was racing to prevent had already taken place.
Polhamus, told The New York Post that Colt had delivered an apology to his mother via text message prior to the shooting, prompting her to call the school.
‘I’m sorry, mom,’ the text read.
Further text exchanges reported from Marcee’s sister showed that Colt’s school and family were also in contact regarding his deteriorating mental health at least a week before the shooting.
In one text, Brown reportedly told a relative that Colt was having ‘homicidal and suicidal thoughts.’
‘He shouldn’t have a gun, and he should’ve been in THERAPY months ago,’ she added in the text.
Brown said that her nephew had spent months ‘begging’ for mental health help, but the ‘adults around him failed him.’
First responders on the scene of a shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia on September 4, 2024 after a gunmen opened fire inside the school, killing four and injuring nine
Cars are parked on the sides of a road as law enforcement officers work at the scene of a shooting at Apalachee High School on September 4, 2024
Marcee was previously ordered by a court to have only limited contact with Colt’s father after she pleaded guilty in December to a charge of family violence.
She has a criminal record spanning more than 17 years, and was in jail as recently as April, court records show.
The former quality engineer was arrested in November in Barrow County, suspected of possessing methamphetamine, fentanyl and muscle relaxants.
She faced charges of aggravated battery, theft by taking, criminal trespass, false imprisonment and failure to appear in January, in nearby Fitzgerald County.
Sources told DailyMail.com that the mother-of-three ‘threatened to kill her husband’ during one of the incidents. She has also been accused of having ‘tied up’ her elderly mother and abandoning her for 24 hours.
Last December, Marcee pled guilty to counts of using a license plate to conceal identity, damage to property and trespassing/family violence, as she used a tag for a Nissan Kick to conceal the identity of her Nissan Rogue.
She was eligible to do so under a Georgia law that allows certain defendants to plead guilty without being convicted, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
On December 21, she was sentenced to five years in jail and banned from having any contact with Colin, as well as paying out $1,500 to an Atlanta construction company in restitution.
Marcee only had to spend 46 days in confinement before getting the rest on probation, while also having to take part in a family violence intervention program and not use drugs or alcohol.
Colt Gray, charged as an adult with four counts of murder, sits in the Barrow County courthouse on Friday, September 6, 2024, during his first appearance for the Wednesday shooting at Apalachee High School
In April this year, Marcee was charged in connection with a November 4 aggravated battery against a 73-year-old woman, believed to be her mother, as well as theft, false imprisonment, criminal trespass and failure to appear when she threw the woman against a wall.
She taped the elderly woman’s hands and feet to keep her from leaving and broke a bathroom mirror in the woman’s home, records show.
Marcee’s other charges include misdemeanor traffic offenses in 2019, a speeding charge in 2014 and traffic offenses in 2007.
The most she was ever punished was 12 months of probation and 40 hours community service.
She also has been accused of civil fraud by a local Chevrolet dealership, saying she bought a 2018 Suburban with a $10,000 check with her and Colin’s names on is that was ‘dishonored due to lack of funds’.
Marcee was ordered to pay over $19,000 in restitution and attorney fees, with records showing that Colin’s paychecks were being garnished to help pay down the debt.
The rental home where the Gray family resides (pictured) was raided on Wednesday afternoon, with FBI investigators seizing firearms and evidence
Speaking to police last year, Colin Gray said he had recently separated from his son’s mother, and that ‘she took his younger two’ children
Neighbors have alleged that the Gray family had been trouble ever since moving into the community in 2022 and claim the children were clearly not being taken care of.
‘There were nights where the mom would lock him and his sister out the house,’ Lauren Vickers, a neighbor, told the New York Post. ‘And they would be banging on the back door, just screaming like «Mom! mom! mom!» and crying. It was absolutely devastating.’
She added that Marcee was often clearly intoxicated, even when driving her children – shooter Colt was described as ‘quiet’ – to school.
‘I would find her in the driveway, passed out, with the car running and blaring music early in the morning,’ Vickers added.
Colt Gray, apparently holding his assault-style rifle during the shooting inside Apalachee High School last week
Similarly, a former landlord to the couple has portrayed the family as both cold hearted and callous.
The man, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described how Colin and Marcee were allegedly chaotic tenants to deal with and he ultimately had them evicted.
Even more shockingly, he said, when the now estranged couple fell behind on their rent and were forced from their rental home in 2020, they decided to leave their pets behind, only returning to retrieve their guns – and allegedly kicking down the front door as they did so.
Owing thousands of dollars in unpaid rent, the Grays were not quick to leave and ultimately the unnamed landlord was forced to change the locks in order to get the family out once and for all.
‘The craziest part of all is that they left [their] two German Shepherds,’ the landlord told The Independent. ‘I imagine the next place where they were renting didn’t allow dogs, so they just left them.’
The landlord explained that even when he tried to contact the couple to reunite them with their pets, they weren’t interested and ignored his calls.
When Colin did return to collect something he did care about – his weapons – he was forced to ‘kicked in the door to get his guns out’, the landlord alleged.
The landlord reported the break-in to the police but was recommended not to press any criminal charges as he had only ‘stolen’ his own belongings back.
The Gray family lived in at least three rented properties between May 2022 and now, according to Fox News. Colin and Colt lived in the two most recent homes without Marcee, from whom he is recently divorced, and the two youngest children.
Mason Schermerhorn, 14, (left) an autistic student at Apalachee High School, was the first victim to be identified. He was among four people killed in the mass shooting. Christian Angulo, 14, (right) also lost his life in the senseless shooting
Teachers Richard Aspinwall (left) and Christina Irimie (right) were also killed in the tragedy
Colt Gray, pictured in an apparent yearbook photo, has been charged with four felony counts of murder, and will be tried as an adult, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation confirmed
Despite the allegations that Marcee and Colin were neglectful parents, extended family members have claimed they were just ‘regular people’.
‘We are not white trash. That’s what everyone is saying about us, but we’re not. We are just regular people,’ one of Marcee’s relatives, who requested to remain anonymous, told the New York Post.
The relative did admit that Marcee, who is college educated and ‘both book smart and street smart’, did struggle with drug and alcohol addiction.
Although it is unclear exactly what sparked Marcee’s apparent spiral, she did previously posted online about ‘what substance abuse can do’ to a family.
She had made several concerning Facebook posts throughout the years, sharing her struggles with estranged husband Colin Gray, who she accused of abuse.
Marcee in November 2022 wrote: ‘From my husband’s first memory, all he knew was abuse. Severe physical abuse (I’m talking everything from getting a broken arm at age 8 while he was totally asleep to having a barstool crack his skull open…I still rub my fingers across the scar/gouge on his scalp and think to myself «How?! I can’t even comprehend it!»…that is what substance abuse can do. To a mama, a daddy, a spouse, a sibling….you name it and it will reach them.’
The same day, Marcee said in a different post: ‘I know it’s hard to understand from the outside looking in. Everyone in my and his family couldn’t understand why I stayed as long as I did. Ultimately it was my own decision…
Gray had made several concerning Facebook posts throughout the years, sharing her struggles with estranged husband Colin Gray, who she accused of abuse
‘I made a commitment to the Lord and my husband. No one but me understands the pain that my husband lives with every single day. Every single person in his life has hurt or betrayed him… And I truly believe that the Lord sent me to him because no one else was strong enough to stay by his side through thick and thin. I’m not about to give up on him now… We are just taking a break.’
The next month, Marcee wrote on LinkedIn: ‘Finally separated from my abusive husband of almost 14yrs… Hardest shit I’ve ever done but we’re in good hands.’
In May, 2023, she said in a post: ‘I packed myself and my babies up and relocated to my hometown in south GA. We are all good and my kids are thriving.’
The same month, police contacted Colin after receiving an FBI tip that Colt had threatened to shoot up his school on the platform Discord.
Speaking to police at the time, Colin said he had recently separated from his son’s mother, and that ‘she took his younger two’ children. He also admitted that Colt was being bullied at school.
‘It was very difficult for him to go to school and not get picked on,’ Colin told an investigator, according to a transcript of the conversation obtained by DailyMail.com.
The father added: ‘It went from one thing to another… I was trying to get him on the golf team… [they were like], «Oh, look, Colt’s gay. He’s dating that guy.»
‘Just ridiculed him day after day after day.’
Georgia school shooter Colt Gray made his first court appearance on Friday
Colin Gray appeared shortly after his son in the same courtroom
Colt is charged as an adult in the deaths of Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53.
Nine people were also hurt in Wednesday’s attack at Apalachee High school in Winder, outside of Atlanta.
He and his father appeared in back-to-back hearings Friday morning with about 50 onlookers in the courtroom.
Colin is also charged in connection with the shooting, including with counts of involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder.
He told police this week he purchased the weapon used in the killings as Christmas present for his son last December, according to authorities.
