Mother of Georgia suspect said to have called school before shooting, warning of ’emergency’

An official reportedly checked a backpack belonging to the similarly named student. The shooting began moments later

Author of the article:

Washington Post

Sarah Blaskey, Teo Armus

Published Sep 08, 2024  •  7 minute read

Colt Gray, the suspect in the shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. Photo by HANDOUT /Barrow County Sheriff's Office/A

The mother of the suspected Apalachee High School gunman told family members that she called the school on the morning of the shooting and warned a counselor about an “extreme emergency” involving her 14-year-old son, according to text messages obtained by The Washington Post and an interview with a family member.

That account is supported by a call log from the family’s shared phone plan, which shows a 10-minute call from the mother’s phone to the school starting at 9:50 a.m. — about a half-hour before witnesses have said the gunman opened fire.

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“I was the one that notified the school counselor at the high school,” Marcee Gray texted her sister following the shooting on Sept. 4, according to a screenshot of the exchange. “I told them it was an extreme emergency and for them to go immediately and find [my son] to check on him.”

A counselor told Gray during the call that her son had been talking about school shooting that morning, according to Gray’s sister, Annie Brown, who described family discussions of the events to The Post.

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Around the same time, a school administrator went to the son’s math classroom, according to Lyela Sayarath, a student in the class. Sayarath said there seemed to be confusion involving another student in the class with a name similar to that of Gray’s son. Neither student was in the room, and the official left with a backpack belonging to the similarly named student, she said. The shooting began minutes later.

The phone log, texts and interviews provide the strongest indications yet that officials at Apalachee High were alerted to concerns about the suspect on the morning of the shooting and may have been looking for him in the minutes before he allegedly killed four people and injured nine with an AR-15-style rifle. The texts also show that the school and family were in contact about his mental health a week before the shooting, and that Brown told a relative the teen was at the time having “homicidal and suicidal thoughts.”

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Barrow County School System Superintendent Dallas LeDuff did not answer detailed questions from The Post and told reporters to instead contact law enforcement. “Our focus is currently on healing our community and supporting our students during this incredibly difficult time,” he wrote in an email.

Marcee Gray declined to elaborate on what had prompted her to call in the warning to the school, but she said she had shared that information with law enforcement. She called the shooting “absolutely horrific” and expressed remorse for the students and parents affected.

“I am so, so sorry and can not fathom the pain and suffering they are going through right now,” Gray told The Post in a text.

Representatives of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the agency overseeing the investigation into the shooting, and of the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office declined to answer questions and referred The Post to the Piedmont Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office. District Attorney Brad Smith did not respond to requests for comment.

The suspect, Colt Gray, is charged as an adult with four counts of felony murder. He appeared in court Friday but did not enter a plea.

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The call log and texts were provided to The Post by Brown, who said she administers the family’s cellular plan.

The texts Brown received about Gray notifying the school were sent from a phone belonging to their mother, the suspect’s grandmother, but Brown said Gray was the sender. The two address each other as “sister” in the exchange. A screenshot provided by Brown shows that the number that made the call to the school that morning was saved in Brown’s phone under “Mar,” a shortened version of her sister’s name.

Brown said her sister called the school after she learned something concerning about her son and feared an “impending disaster.” Brown said in the interview she did not know details about what her sister had learned or how.

Brown previously told The Post that her nephew had spent months “begging” for mental health help, and that the “adults around him failed him.” His struggles were complicated by a difficult home life, she said.

Colin Gray, 54, the father of Apalachee High School shooting suspect Colt Gray, 14, enters the Barrow County courthouse for his first appearance, on Sept. 6, 2024, in Winder, Georgia. Photo by Pool /Getty Images

The suspect’s mother in December pleaded guilty to a charge of family violence and was ordered to have only limited contact with Colin Gray, her husband and the suspected shooter’s father, according to court records. In 2022, the Grays were evicted from their home and the suspect’s mother and father separated, according to law enforcement records. The family has also had contacts with Georgia’s child welfare agency, authorities have said.

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In May 2023, local law enforcement officers contacted the teen after receiving an FBI tip about online threats to carry out a school shooting, according to records released by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office. The teen denied that he had made any such threats. Colin Gray told authorities at the time that he kept hunting rifles in the house, and that his son was allowed to use them with supervision but did not have “unfettered access.”

Colin Gray has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with the killings, as well as involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children. Authorities said he knowingly allowed his son to have the weapon. The Post attempted to contact the father before his Thursday arrest but was unable to reach him.

The week before the shooting, the teen’s grandmother, Deborah Polhamus, had met with a school counselor to request help for him, The Post has previously reported. He “starts with the therapist tomorrow,” Polhamus wrote in a text message to Brown after that meeting.

It’s not clear whether the suspect attended that therapy session. Polhamus has not responded to The Post’s requests for comment.

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In an Aug. 29 text with a family member, Brown said she was hopeful about plans the family had made with the school to get her nephew into therapy. She also raised concerns about her nephew’s access to guns in the home.

“He has been having homicidal and suicidal thoughts, he shouldn’t have a gun, and he should’ve been in THERAPY months ago,” Brown wrote. She wrote that she had previously tried to get him into therapy without success.

After the shooting at Apalachee, the suspect’s mother expressed frustration that the school had not prevented the tragedy, text messages show. The amount of time that elapsed between her warning to the counselor about her son and the first shots fired was “just a long time for them to intervene so I’m curious to know what happened in that time,” she wrote to Brown, according to a screenshot of the message.

Sayarath, 16, who previously spoke with CNN about her experience, told The Post she was in her second-period algebra class shortly after 10 a.m. Wednesday morning when an administrator came looking not for Colt Gray — Sayarath’s seat neighbor — but for another student who sat nearby and had a similar name.

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A poster with images of victims Christian Angulo, top left, Richard Aspinwall, top right, Mason Schermerhorn, bottom left, and Cristina Irimie is displayed at a memorial outside Apalachee High School, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Winder, Ga.. Photo by Arvin Temkar /THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

It is not clear what prompted the administrator’s visit and whether the call from Marcee Gray played a role.

That student had gone to the bathroom, the algebra teacher told the administrator, Sayarath said. The student’s red and black backpack was still in the classroom, and the administrator took it with her when she left.

In that moment, Colt Gray was also not in the classroom. He had left, Sayarath said.

Shortly after, the student with a similar name returned with his backpack in hand, Sayarath said. He told her that an adult in the hallway had asked him about a first-period teacher he didn’t have, and that he believed that the adult may have been looking for Colt Gray.

Not long afterward, a voice came over the intercom asking the teacher to check her email, according to Sayarath. The teacher walked to her computer, then continued going over algebra problems. Moments later, Colt Gray approached the classroom and the teacher said up to the intercom, “Oh, he’s here,” Sayarath recalled.

Another student was about to open the door to let him inside, but then noticed he had a gun and stepped back in alarm, Sayarath said. The door was locked, and the armed teen could not get into the classroom. Sayarath heard the first shots seconds later.

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Rabecca Sayarath, Lyela’s mother, drove to Apalachee as soon as she got a call from her daughter about the shooting as it unfolded.

That evening, Sayarath tried to ask about her daughter’s account at a news conference with law enforcement officials, and she made a number of assertions about the suspect’s behavior and the school’s response. Without being specific, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said she had “wrong information.”

In an interview with The Post, she said she believed school officials had been looking for the suspect and was furious they did not take more aggressive action sooner. “You were looking for the kid … and you didn’t lock up the school when you found out he wasn’t in the class?” she said. “If they had locked the school down, a lot of people might still freaking be here.”

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