The mother of Georgia school shooting suspect Colt Gray once described herself as a victim of abuse and bragged online that her children were “thriving” just as authorities visited her son and investigated him for threatening to shoot up a school.
Marcy Gray's social media profiles include posts detailing her ex-husband's abusive upbringing and their apparently tumultuous relationship, months before she declared she had separated from him.
“I have taken myself and my children and moved back to my hometown in southern Georgia. We are all doing well and my children are thriving,” Marcy, who has a criminal record going back nearly 20 years, wrote on LinkedIn in May 2023.
The announcement that Mercy, 43, is leaving the family home came after she wrote about her husband Colin's childhood as “severely physically abusive”.
“My husband's first memories were all about the abuse….everything from having his arm broken in his sleep at age 8 to having his skull cracked with a bar stool,” she wrote on Facebook in November 2022.
“I still rub my fingers over the scars on my son's scalp and think in my mind: 'WHY?! I don't understand!' That's what substance abuse does. It affects mothers, fathers, spouses, siblings — anyone.”
“I know it's hard to understand from the outside looking in. No one in my family or his could understand why I stayed for so long,” she wrote in another post, adding that “it was ultimately my own decision.”
In another social media message, Marcy wrote: “I am the only one who can understand the pain my husband is in every day. Everyone in his life has hurt or betrayed him.”
“And I truly believe that the Lord sent me to him because there was no one else strong enough to be by his side through it all. I'm not giving up on him right now…we're just taking a break,” she continued.
A month later, the couple, who have three children, divorced.
“I finally left my abusive husband of 14 years… it's the hardest thing I've ever done but we're in good hands,” she said. He wrote on LinkedIn.
Her emotional posts seemed to mask Marcy Gray's own chaotic life.
Her arrest history includes charges of drug possession, aggravated assault, theft and trespassing, and she also “threatened to kill her husband” during the incident. a source told the Daily Mail.
The media reported that Gray “tied up” his elderly mother and left her there for 24 hours, but did not provide further details.
Marcy Gray's most recent incarceration occurred in April in Barrow County, where she was arrested on suspicion of possession of methamphetamine, fentanyl and a muscle relaxant.
She was also charged in neighboring Fitzgerald County in January with aggravated assault, theft, trespass, false imprisonment and failure to appear in court.
According to an arrest warrant obtained by the Daily Mail, Gray was in possession of a glass bottle containing methamphetamine, a “baglet” containing fentanyl, another “baglet” containing multiple muscle relaxants, and a glass pipe “used to take drugs.”
According to the outlet, Gray was sentenced to five years in prison, with the first 46 days to be spent in jail and the rest on probation.
On Saturday, The Washington Post was unable to reach Gray by phone or at his address in Fitzgerald, a small town about three miles south of Atlanta.
A Nissan Rogue was parked in the garage, but no one opened the door. An arrest warrant issued for Marcy last year stated that she had hidden the title of her Nissan Rogue by installing the license plates of a Nissan Kicks.
While Marcy was bragging about her new beginning, Colt was receiving a visit from local police for threatening via Discord to shoot up a middle school.
Collin Gray told police he had recently split with his son's mother and “she took the two younger kids,” and Colt appeared to be staying with him.
Colt, 14, is charged with four counts of felony murder in Wednesday's shooting, while his father is charged with four counts of second-degree murder by negligence and eight counts of child abuse for allegedly giving his son the AR-15-style rifle used in the massacre, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Collin Gray told sheriff's investigators that his son was not the type to be violent.
“He's not a loner, officer. Don't get that,” the father told police, adding, “He just wants to go to school, he just wants to do his thing and stay out of trouble.”
He also said he had no knowledge of any threats made by Colt, saying, “If he had made threats I would be furious and all my guns would be gone.”
Additional reporting by Steven Vargo.
