(The Center Square) – A 16-year-old who killed four people at Georgia’s Apalachee High School in 2024 was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole after a three-day sentencing hearing.
Colt Gray was 14 years old at the time of the shooting, which also wounded seven people. He pleaded guilty to all 55 counts on Friday, including the four counts of murder. He was being tried as an adult due to a Georgia law that allows anyone over the age of 13 who commits serious crimes, including murder, rape and armed robbery, to be charged as an adult.
Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm said he recognized that Gray was failed by each of his parents and his extended family. Colt Gray’s father, Colin Gray, was convicted of second-degree murder for allowing his son to have access to guns and failing to address what prosecutors called warning signs before the shooting.
He is awaiting sentencing.
“To a certain extent, you’ve been failed by a society that can’t stop propagating this misguided value in online cultures and social media, rather than making genuine interpersonal connections and relationships,” Primm said. “That failure does not absolve you from who you chose to idolize, worship and become.”
Testimony revealed that Gray was obsessed with serial killers. The idolization of the serial killers led to the shooting, the judge said.
“It wasn’t done out of fear or anger,” Primm said. “You were being bullied at Apalachee. It wasn’t done after hatred. You didn’t even know anyone at the school. It was done for the infamy of it.”
The crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility, Primm said.
“You weren’t racked with guilt. You were proud of yourself,” Primm said. “Less than a month after the tragedy, you weren’t concerned with the horror you brought, but rather finding out which mass murderers they were comparing you to. This wasn’t transient immaturity. It was deliberate, contemplated evil.”
The shooting led state lawmakers to pass school safety bills.
House Bill 268, signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp in 2025, created a statewide emergency system to monitor threats against schools. The Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency would oversee it.
Schools are required to adopt threat assessment plans and implement a mobile panic alarm system by July 1 under the bill. Apalachee High School had a panic alarm system at the time of the shooting, which lawmakers said saved lives during testimony on the bill.
The General Assembly considered a bill that would have added metal detectors at Georgia’s schools. The bill failed.
Some Georgia school districts have already added metal detectors. Rep. Karlton Howard, D-Augusta, said the detectors are at eight of 11 Augusta high schools. Each of them requires two people to man them, he said.
