The mother of the teenager who was charged with murder in the Sept. 4 shooting deaths of four people at Apalachee High School in Georgia called the school before the killings, according to his aunt.
Brown provided screen shots of the text exchange to the newspaper, which also reported that a call log from the family’s shared phone plan showed that a call was made to the school about 30 minutes before the shooting started.
Brown confirmed the reporting in text messages on Sept. 7 but didn’t provide further comment.
The Epoch Times contacted the Barrow County School System, which oversees Apalachee High School, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the agency leading the probe into the shooting, for comment. Neither has responded to the requests nor issued public comments on the aunt’s claims.
The teen suspect and his father, Colin Gray, both appeared in court for the first time on Sept. 6. Colt faces four charges of felony murder and will be tried as an adult. Colin Gray, meanwhile, faces second-degree murder charges in connection with the school shooting, as well as involuntary manslaughter and counts of cruelty to children.
“This is a very difficult time for students and parents and many are afraid,” the agency said. “You’ve likely seen reports of incidents of other students making threats today at schools around GA. In each of these incidents, police took charges and made arrests as we take each matter seriously.”
Officials have said that Colt will face additional charges in connection with the shooting, which also left nine people injured. The teen did not enter a plea in court, and no bond was set for either him or his father.
Judge Currie Mingledorff II told Colt that he could face life in prison if convicted by a jury. The teen was shackled as he sat next to his attorney and answered the judge’s other questions with a nod.
The judge later noted that the boy cannot be sentenced to death. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 ruled that juveniles cannot receive the death penalty for crimes that they carried out before they turned 18.
Colt was charged in the killings of students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, as well as 39-year-old Richard Aspinwall and 53-year-old Cristina Irimie.
The FBI said that the online posts originated in Georgia and that the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office had located the person whom they suspected had made the online threats.
“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 in its statement on Sept. 4.
Officials have not revealed any motive or disclosed how Colt got the firearm into the school of about 1,900 students.
Earlier this year, the parents of a Michigan school shooter were sentenced to 10 years in prison. In that case, prosecutors alleged that Jennifer and James Crumbley did not secure a gun at home and acted indifferently to signs that their teen son was expressing mental health problems.
