The tragic events at Apalachee High School in Georgia on September 4 have left a community shattered, and new details are beginning to emerge about the family of the 14-year-old shooting suspect, Colt Gray.
One of the more shocking revelations came when Colt’s mother, Marcee Gray, revealed that she had called the school just moments before the deadly shooting to warn of an “extreme emergency.”
According to a report by the Washington Post, Marcee Gray texted her sister, Annie Brown, after the horrific shooting unfolded, explaining that she had reached out to the school counselor that very morning. “I was the one that notified the school counselor at the high school,” Gray wrote in her text to Brown, a message that has since been verified through a screenshot obtained by the Post. “I told them it was an extreme emergency and for them to go immediately and find [my son] to check on him.”
#BREAKING The mother of #Colt_Gray spoke out for the first time since her son was charged with killing 4 innocent people at the #Apalachee_High_School.
“It’s horrible. Absolutely horrible,” #MarceeGray, devastated, outside her father’s home in Fitzgerald.
When asked if she… pic.twitter.com/oKlMCHaD6o
— 𝕏 🕵🏻♀️🦋L̤̮E̤̮G̤̮🅰️C̤̮Y̤̮🦋🕵🏻♀️ 𝕏 (@iamlegacy23) September 7, 2024
The call was made at 9:50 a.m., about 30 minutes before Colt Gray allegedly opened fire, according to phone records shared by the family. Two students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14 years old, and two teachers, 39-year-old Richard Aspinwall and 53-year-old Cristina Irimie, were killed in the shooting. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) has also confirmed that another nine people were injured—eight students and one teacher—further amplifying the devastation caused that day.
Annie Brown, the teen suspect’s aunt, explained to the Washington Post that her sister had received troubling information about her son and called the school, fearing something terrible was about to happen. While the exact details of what Marcee learned are still unclear, it’s evident that she sensed an “impending disaster.” During the phone call, a school counselor reportedly informed her that Colt had been talking about a school shooting earlier that morning.
An aunt of the Georgia school shooter Colt Gray was on FB yesterday DEFENDING her nephew. This is not a joke. I verified the account’s legitimacy by looking through comments, photos, and friends to see if they are related – they are. She has now blocked me or privated her page. pic.twitter.com/BQqtR8rWWO
— Olivia Rondeau 🇺🇸 (@rondeaulivia) September 5, 2024
Complicating matters further, a witness in Colt’s math class, Lyela Sayarath, told the Washington Post that around the time of the mother’s warning, an administrator came to the classroom searching for the teen. However, confusion arose due to another student with a similar name, and the administrator ended up leaving with the wrong student’s backpack just moments before the shooting began. Neither Colt nor the similarly named student were present in the classroom at the time.
This timeline of events has raised many questions about whether the warning signs were recognized and acted upon quickly enough. In a previous interview, Annie Brown, who resides in Florida, expressed frustration, saying that Colt had been “begging for help from everybody around him” for months, yet “the adults around him failed him.” Brown also revealed that their family had been seeking professional help for Colt. Just a week before the shooting, Colt’s grandmother sent a text saying that the teen was scheduled to start seeing a therapist.
The Gray family, it seems, had been grappling with serious issues for some time. Court records from Barrow County show that Marcee Gray pleaded guilty to a family violence charge in December and was ordered not to contact her husband, Colin Gray, Colt’s father. Meanwhile, Colin Gray has now been arrested and faces serious charges, including second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, and cruelty to children. He is accused of knowingly allowing his son to access a weapon, a decision that may have directly contributed to the tragedy.
Colt Gray is also facing grave charges. Although only 14, he is being tried as an adult and has been charged with four counts of felony murder. His father had previously informed investigators that Colt had been struggling emotionally since his parents separated and had been the target of bullying at school, potentially contributing to his distress.
As these heartbreaking details continue to surface, questions linger about whether more could have been done to prevent this tragedy. The warning signs—phone calls, counseling sessions, and pleas for help—were there, but sadly, they weren’t acted upon in time to stop the unimaginable from happening. The investigation will continue to unfold, but for now, the community is left to mourn, ask difficult questions, and search for ways to prevent such a catastrophe from happening again.
