Apalachee High School Shooting Suspect Charged With 4 Counts of Felony Murder

Students are evacuated to the football stadium after the school campus was placed on lockdown at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., on Sept. 4, 2024. Erin Clark via AP

A 14-year-old student was charged with four counts of felony murder in connection to a shooting at a Georgia high school on Sept. 4, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement.

Additional charges are expected to be filed against Colt Gray, the agency said in a post on social media on Sept. 5. It also stated that the suspect will make his first court appearance on Sept. 6. Officials said the shooting left four people dead and nine injured at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia.

The agency stated that the autopsies of the four victims, who were identified as two students and two teachers, would be carried out on Sept. 5. Richard Aspinwall, Christina Irimie, Mason Schermerhorn, and Christian Angulo were identified as the victims, authorities said in a press conference a day earlier.

“The investigation into the shooting at Apalachee High School is still active and ongoing,” the bureau stated. “This is day 2 of a very complex investigation, and the integrity of the case is paramount. We ask for the public’s patience as we work to ensure a successful prosecution and justice for the victims.”

So far, no motive has been established for Gray, who officials have confirmed is being charged as an adult in connection to the shooting. Few details about the suspect have been offered. Members of his family have not issued any public statements after the incident, and no mug shot has been released.

A classmate of the alleged shooter told CNN in an exclusive interview that Gray left their algebra class and later attempted to come back inside the classroom.

A student who went to open the door “saw that he had a gun, so she backed away,” Lyela Sayarath told the media outlet.

“[Gray] turned to the classroom that would have been to my right, and he just starts to shoot, and you hear about 10 to 15 rounds back-to-back,” Sayarath said.

On the evening of Sept. 4, officials confirmed that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies had investigated Gray after they received multiple anonymous tips in May 2023 about online threats to carry out a school shooting. The threats were posted to a gaming site and contained photographs of guns, according to Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum.

“At that time, there was no probable cause for arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action on the local, state, or federal levels,” the FBI said on Sept. 4.

Jackson County officials could not substantiate the threats and did not charge the teenager, although they did alert local schools for “continued monitoring of the subject,” Mangum said in a social media post.

Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, told reporters in a briefing later on Sept. 4 that the local Department of Family and Children Services also had previously been in contact with the family of the alleged shooter. Investigators are probing this previous connection for any information that may relate to the shooting.

There is no evidence of another suspect and no evidence that the alleged shooter wanted to attack other schools, authorities said.

“There is no evidence of a list of schools being targeted,” Hosey said. “However, there is a lot of evidence that is being recovered and evaluated. We’re going through everything to determine if there’s any active threats.”

Hosey noted that there was another boy who went to the school with a similar name and was not involved.

In a separate Sept. 4 press conference, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said Gray was taken into custody by a school resource officer.

“Within minutes, law enforcement was on the scene, as well as two school resource officers assigned to the school who immediately encountered the subject,” the sheriff said during the press conference.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.