Father of accused Georgia school shooter testifies about hoping to bond over guns and hunting

ATLANTA — The father of an accused Georgia school shooter testified in his own defense Friday that he gave his son the rifle used in the attack as a Christmas present in hopes of bonding with the boy over hunting and outings at the gun range.

In one of the latest cases in which parents are being put on trial after their children are accused in fatal shootings, defense lawyers called Colin Gray to the witness stand. Prosecutors say he should be held accountable for giving his son the weapon despite alleged threats and warning signs that the boy, who was 14 years old at the time, was mentally unstable.

After the family had opened presents, Gray testified that he walked down the hallway and said to his son, “I have one more thing for you.” He presented the gun, hoping it would encourage him to succeed in school.

“This is a weapon that I want you to shoot when we go to the range,” Gray said he told him, “and if you keep doing really good in school, going to school and doing all the things you should, you graduate and you’re 18, this will be your gun.”

His son Colt Gray now faces 55 counts, including murder in the deaths of four people and 25 counts of aggravated assault. He’s accused of carefully planning the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, northeast of Atlanta, that killed two teachers and two students and wounded several others.

The father faces 29 counts, including two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter.

The trial of Colin Gray, now ending its second week, has included testimony from the boy’s mother, Marcee Gray, who testified that she urged her husband to lock up the guns so that their son could not access them. But in the days before the school shooting, their son kept the gun in his bedroom, witnesses testified at the father’s trial.

The parents were separated for much of the time leading up to the shooting, and Marcee Gray was not charged with any crimes.

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Colin Gray became emotional Friday after being asked by his lawyer whether there were any “red flags” that would have made him believe his son was capable of a school shooting.

“No, I struggle with it every day,” he said, trying to hold back tears.

“He’s a good kid,” Gray added. “He wasn’t perfect, and nor was I. But to do something that heinous, like I don’t know of anybody that can ever see that kind of evil. Like the Colt I knew and the relationship I had - there’s this whole other side of Colt I didn’t know existed.”

In a sometimes combative cross-examination, a prosecutor hammered Gray on details he left out of conversations with social workers and others who were checking up on his children. Multiple times, Gray responded that he was struggled while “learning on the fly being a single parent working full time just trying to get my feet under me.”

Even today, he said, he doesn’t remember everything in the years leading up to the shooting.

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“I’m trying to still process what exactly happened with my son, and me being locked up for it, so if I did not remember every single detail that you are asking me at that point, that is my bad,” he testified.

After being asked about his efforts to get his son into therapy, Gray said “that’s not the only thing I had to worry about while I had those kids.”

Gray took the stand a day after prosecutors showed surveillance video of the morning of the shooting. The video shows his son getting on a school bus with a backpack that prosecutors contend carried the rifle. The weapon protruded from the backpack, and posterboard was used to conceal it, prosecutors have said.

In the video, he is seen entering the school with the backpack. He walks down several hallways past dozens of students and some employees who don’t take notice of the large size of the pack. He then begins classes, and later that morning spends several minutes in a bathroom moments before the shooting.

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Video of the gunfire was played for jurors, but not shown to the general public watching the livestream of the trial.

In dramatic testimony last week, several Georgia high school students testified in court about being shot during their algebra class. They recounted through tears seeing a classmate in a pool of blood, then seeing blood on their own bodies and fearing they might die.

There has also been testimony about what prosecutors describe as a “shrine” to a Florida school shooter that Colt Gray kept on a wall next to his computer at home.

He had an interest in Nikolas Cruz, convicted of the 2018 shooting that left 14 students and three staff members dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Marcee Gray testified this week.

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