Opening statements to start in the trial of a Georgia high school shooting suspect’s father

WINDER, Ga. (AP) — Opening statements are expected Monday in the trial of a man whose teenage son is accused of killing two students and two teachers at a Georgia high school in September 2024.

The case is one of several around the country where prosecutors are trying to hold parents responsible after their children are accused in fatal shootings. Colin Gray faces 29 counts, including two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of involuntary manslaughter and numerous counts of second-degree cruelty to children related to the shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder.

The indictment says Gray gave his son, Colt, access to a gun and ammunition “after receiving sufficient warning that Colt Gray would harm and endanger the bodily safety of another.” Prosecutors argue that amounts to cruelty to children, and second-degree murder is defined in Georgia law as causing the death of a child by committing the crime of cruelty to children.

The trial is being held in Winder, in Barrow County, where the shooting happened. The defense asked for a change of venue because of pretrial publicity, and prosecutors agreed. The judge kept the trial in Winder but decided to bring in jurors from nearby Hall County to hear the case. Jurors were selected last week.

Investigators have said Colt Gray, who was 14 at the time, carefully planned the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting at the school northeast of Atlanta that is attended by 1,900 students.

With a semiautomatic rifle in his book bag, the barrel sticking out and wrapped in poster board, he boarded the school bus, investigators said. He left his second-period class and emerged from a bathroom with the gun and then shot people in a classroom and hallways, they said.

An investigator testified at a pretrial hearing that Colin Gray had given his son the gun as a gift the Christmas before the shooting and bought a larger magazine so the weapon could hold more rounds.

Colin Gray knew his son was obsessed with school shooters, even having a shrine in his bedroom to Nikolas Cruz, the shooter in the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, prosecutors have said. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent testified that the teen’s parents had discussed their son’s fascination with school shooters but decided that it was in a joking context and not a serious issue.

Colin Gray was also aware his son’s mental health had deteriorated and had sought help from a counseling service weeks before the shooting, an investigator testified.

“We have had a very difficult past couple of years and he needs help. Anger, anxiety, quick to be volatile. I don’t know what to do,” Colin Gray wrote about his son.