ATLANTA — A Georgia judge has scheduled a plea and sentencing hearing for later this month for the teenager charged in the September 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School that left four people dead.
Colt Gray, 16, previously pleaded not guilty to multiple charges, including murder, in the attack at the high school northeast of Atlanta. Two students and two teachers were killed, and several other people were injured.
In a court filing Friday, the judge presiding over the case set a “Non-Negotiated Plea and Sentencing Hearing” to begin July 24. The judge had earlier said Gray would need to notify both the court and prosecutors by this coming Wednesday if he intended to plead guilty before trial.
A non-negotiated plea means prosecutors and the defense have not agreed in advance on what sentence should be imposed.
That differs from a negotiated plea deal, in which a defendant typically agrees to plead guilty in exchange for an agreed-upon sentence and, in some cases, reduced charges. In a non-negotiated plea, the sentence is left entirely to the judge, who decides after both sides are allowed to outline the case and offer sentencing recommendations.
An attorney for Colt Gray did not immediately respond Sunday to an email seeking comment.
Gray’s trial had been scheduled to begin in mid-October in Columbia County, roughly 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Barrow County, where Apalachee High School is located. The case was moved after the judge granted a defense request for a change of venue.
Gray’s father, Colin Gray, was found guilty by a jury in March on charges that included second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors said he provided his teenage son with the assault-style rifle used in the school shooting. He is also expected to be sentenced later this month.
The Sept. 4, 2024, shooting killed teachers Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14.
Another teacher and eight more students were wounded, seven of them hit by gunfire. Colt Gray, who was 14 at the time of the shooting, was charged as an adult with 55 total counts, including murder, cruelty to children, and 25 counts of aggravated assault.
Investigators testified that Colt Gray carried the rifle given to him by his father onto the school bus with the barrel wrapped in a poster board. They said the teenager left his second-period class and emerged from a bathroom with the rifle, shooting people in a classroom and hallway.
Investigators have said the teenager carefully plotted the shooting at the high school of 1,900 students. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent testified that the boy left a notebook in his classroom with step-by-step instructions and a diagram to prepare for the assault, including an estimate that he could kill as many as 26 people and wound as many as 13 others.
Colt and Colin Gray were interviewed by sheriff’s deputies about an online threat linked to Colt Gray in May 2023. Colt Gray denied making the threat at the time. He skipped 8th grade, enrolled as a freshman at Apalachee after the academic year began, and then skipped multiple days of school.
Family members had been seeking psychological help for Colt Gray before the shooting, but it appeared he never saw a counselor.
Colt’s mother, Marcee Gray, who was separated from Colin Gray, told investigators that she had argued with Colin Gray weeks before the shooting, asking him to secure his guns and restrict Colt’s access. Instead, over time, he bought the boy ammunition, a gun sight, and other shooting accessories, records show.
Colt Gray even created a shrine in his bedroom to Nikolas Cruz, the shooter in the 2018 massacre at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, prosecutors said.
