The father of alleged Georgia high school shooter Colt Gray detailed the pair’s hunting trips and revealed that he taught his son to shoot to ‘get him an interest in the outdoors’ and ‘away from video games’ when the pair were interviewed last year over ‘online threats’ of a school rampage.
Colt and his father Colin Gray were interviewed by police last year in connection with online threats about carrying out a school shooting made on the gaming social-media platform Discord, newly released audio of the FBI interview revealed.
Colin told police that he and Colt ‘do a lot of shooting’ and ‘deer hunting’, even hailing the day the teen shot his first deer as the ‘greatest day ever’, according to the interview transcript. He shared that he keeps a photo on his phone of Colt with the animal’s blood on his cheeks.
Colin, who branded the probe as ‘b*****t’ and said he was ‘in shock’ and ‘pissed off’ after learning of the allegations, argued that Colt ‘knows the seriousness of weapons’ and when he should or should not use them.
He further urged officers to instill in his son that school shootings are ‘no joke’ and said that he was ‘going to be mad as hell if he did’ make threats online and that ‘all the guns will go away’.
Colt, 14, was apprehended on Wednesday at Apalachee High School in Winder, just minutes after he killed two students and two teachers with the semi-automatic weapon.
Colin, 54, was arrested on charges including murder after it was revealed that he purchased the AR-15-style rifle that Colt used to shoot dead four people on campus as a Christmas present to his son – just months after they received an initial visit from the FBI.
Colin was interviewed in May 2023 after the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office received a tip from the FBI that Colt, then 13, ‘had possibly threatened to shoot up a middle school tomorrow.’
The threat was made on Discord, a social media platform popular with video gamers, according to the sheriff’s office incident report.
The FBI’s tip pointed to a Discord account associated with an email address linked to Colt Gray, the report said. But the boy said ‘he would never say such a thing, even in a joking manner,’ according to the investigator’s report.
The interview transcript quotes the teen as saying: ‘I promise I would never say something where …’ with the rest of that denial listed as inaudible.
Colin, during his interview, reiterated that the family valued gun safety and that Colt ‘knows how serious it is, trust me’.
‘Let me ask you this – do you have any weapons in the house?’ the officer asked, to which Colin replied: ‘I do.’
When asked if the weapons were accessible, he said: ‘They are…I mean there’s nothing loaded, but they are…we do a lot of shooting, we do a lot of deer hunting. He shot his first deer this year.
‘Like I’m pretty much in shock…I’m pissed off to be honest with you. I’m a little taken back by the whole thing, but I can tell you this, I take that very serious and so does he, as a matter of fact.’
He added: ‘I don’t know anything about him saying s**t like that. And I’m going to be mad as hell if he did, and then all the guns will go away and they won’t be accessible to him.
‘You know, I’m trying to be honest. I’m trying to teach him about firearms and safety and how to do it all and get him an interest in the outdoors.’
Colin also shared how teaching his son to shoot as seemingly made him proud, saying: ‘The God honest truth is, the picture on my phone is him with blood on his cheeks when he shoot his first deer. It’s just the greatest day ever.
‘So sure, he knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do and how to use them and not use them.’
He added: ‘So it’s kind of a little bit of a shock. So whatever y’all are telling him, please instill in him what if this is whatever or wherever some come from is no joke. No, like it’s no joke.’
The father also argued that Colt had been ‘going through a lot’ after his parents’ divorce and recent eviction.
‘[It’s] very difficult for him to go to school and not get picked on,’ Colin told police. ‘He struggled at first with the separation. I’ve been taking him to school. He goes to Jefferson Middle school. He’s been doing really good.’
Colin alleged that he had been called to school several times after other students had been touching Colt and picking on him. He also explained that spoke to his son ‘quite a bit’ about school shootings because ‘I don’t want anything to happen to him.’
‘I’m telling you right now we talk about it quite a bit. All the school shootings, things that happen,’ Colin told officers.
‘Yeah, “I hear you getting picked on at school.” He is. He’s getting picked on at school. And, “is everything okay?” That’s why I keep going up there. No. You know, because you just never you never really know. And I don’t want anything to happen to him.’
Colt also denied he was the author of the threats, telling police he’d shut down his Discord after being repeatedly hacked. He expressed concerns that someone would make those accusations about him.
‘I gotta take you at your word and I hope you’re being honest with me,’ investigator Daniel Miller, who spoke to the pair, replied.
The investigator wrote that no arrests were made because of ‘inconsistent information’ on the Discord account, which had profile information in Russian and a digital evidence trail indicating it had been accessed in different Georgia cities as well as Buffalo, New York.
The Discord account had a user name written in Russian, and the translation of the letters spelled out the name Lanza, referencing Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary school tragedy, officers said.
The sheriff’s investigators closed the case after being unable to substantiate that either Gray was connected to the Discord account, and did not find grounds to seek the needed court order to confiscate the family’s guns, according to police reports released by the sheriff’s office on Thursday.
Colin, 54, was taken into custody by local authorities Thursday at 6.11pm and charged with two felony counts of murder, four felony counts of involuntary manslaughter, and eight felony counts of cruelty to children.
His mugshot was released by the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office Thursday night.
Officials confirmed in a press conference that the charges stem from Colin ‘knowingly allowing’ his son to have access to the firearm used in the shooting.
The family home was raided on Wednesday afternoon, with FBI investigators seizing firearms and evidence.
Neighbors saw Colin return to the family home on Wednesday evening, though it is unclear if he handed himself into authorities.
A neighbor told DailyMail.com that they were ‘terrified’ following the new charges, adding that the family had ‘kept themselves to themselves’ and not integrated with the community in their two years at the property.
‘These charges stem from Mr. Gray knowingly allowing his son, Colt, to possess a weapon,’ GBI Director Chris Hosey said at an evening news conference.
‘His charges are directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon.’
In Georgia, second-degree murder means that a person has caused the death of another person while committing second-degree cruelty to children, regardless of intent.
It is punishable by 10 to 30 years in prison, while malice murder and felony murder carry a minimum sentence of life. Involuntary manslaughter means that someone unintentionally causes the death of another person.
It’s the latest example of prosecutors holding parents responsible for their children’s actions in school shootings.
In April, Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first convicted in a mass school shooting.
They were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison of not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son´s deteriorating mental health before he killed killing four students in 2021 .
The arrest came after sources claimed that the father-of-three bought his 14-year-old son the assault rifle used in the shooting as a Christmas gift in 2023.
This was just months after the teenager and his father were interviewed by local law enforcement in connection with online threats about carrying out a school shooting made on the gaming social-media platform Discord, according to investigators.
Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said Thursday that she reviewed the report from May 2023 and found nothing that would have justified bringing charges at the time.
‘We did not drop the ball at all on this,’ Mangum told reporters in an interview. ‘We did all we could do with what we had at the time.’
The boy reportedly had an obsession with other infamous school shooters such as Parkland, Florida killer Nikolas Cruz.
Two students and two teachers were dead inside the school building by the time he laid down his AR-style weapon.
Students Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and Christian Angulo, 14, and teachers Richard Aspenwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, were named as the deceased.
When police searched the teen’s Georgia home following the bloodbath, they reportedly found clues the teenager was ‘obsessed’ with mass shootings – specifically the Parkland massacre in 2018, which left 17 people dead.
Gray was known to the FBI after several tips came in about him last year.
The boy remains in juvenile custody in Georgia, awaiting his first court appearance, which is scheduled for Friday morning. He will be charged as an adult, sheriffs said.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said Gray immediately surrendered when confronted by school resource officers at the scene.
Sheriff Smith revealed that Wednesday was Gray’s first ‘real day’ at Apalachee High.
He said: ‘He was a brand new student to Barrow County Schools, he had enrolled about two weeks prior. This was his second day at school. He had been before, he left early, on that day and this was his first real full day.’
According to law enforcement, Gray opened fire at approximately 10:23am, hitting at least 13 people as frantic scenes took over the school.
Images showed students streaming out onto the campus as terrified parents raced to find their children, with one mother describing the scene outside the school as pure ‘chaos.’
A makeshift memorial has been created using a wreath and flowers. On Thursday, families and students stopped by the somber scene to pay their respects to the lives lost in the tragedy.
