The father of Georgia school shooting suspect Colt Gray thought his 14-year-old son was too nice and bought him an AR-15-style rifle to “toughen him up,” relatives say.
Authorities say Collin Gray gave his troubled son an assault rifle as a Christmas gift, which Colt used to kill two teenagers and two teachers in a bloody massacre at Apalachee High School last Wednesday.
But it was the way Colin spoke to his son that raised the eyebrows of his concerned family.
“He would call him names to his face,” says Marcy, a relative of Colt's mother. “Names that no little boy wants to hear: sissy, devil, bitch… names meant to tear him down and take away his manhood.”
The relative added: “Colin always thought Colt was too nice and sweet, so I think that's why he gave him the rifle.”
Prosecutors said Colt has been charged with four counts of murder and will be tried as an adult for the bloody rampage that left two students and two teachers dead.
If convicted, he could face life in prison.
Collin, 54, was also arrested after the shooting.
He was charged with four counts of manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of second-degree child abuse.
If convicted on all charges, Collin faces up to 180 years in prison.
“He's evil,” Charles Polhamus, the 14-year-old suspect's maternal grandfather, told The Washington Post over the weekend. “What you'd be if you spent 11 years screaming and yelling with that son of a bitch every day.”
“He was a good kid who turned into a bad kid in a bad situation.”
The victims in the shooting have been identified as Christian Angulo, 14, Mason Schermerhorn, 14, Christina Irimy, 53, and Richard Aspinwall, 39.
Colt has been under FBI surveillance since last year.
In May 2023, the FBI alerted local police officers, who questioned Colt and Collin about online threats to “commit a school shooting.”
At the time, Colt denied making any threats, and his father told authorities his son never had access to hunting guns in the home unsupervised.
However, Collin Gray told deputies at the time that her son was often pinched and teased by bullies.
“Colt is gay,” his father would often shout in the hallways at school.
“My son is going through a hard time,” his father told officers at the time, according to police records. “He just wants us to have a simple life. It's been very difficult for him to go to school without being bullied.”
Though many members of the Gray family own guns, relatives questioned the wisdom of giving an AR-15-style rifle to a teenager. “When I heard about it, I was like, 'What the heck?'” the relative said. “You can't give that to a kid. It's a recipe for disaster.”
“There was a lot of talk about 'making Colt a man,'” the relative said. “The whole idea was to make him strong and tough. That was Collin's No. 1 priority. And you know what that did to us. It's really sad.”
