Aunt of Georgia Shooting Suspect Says Mother Called School to Warn of Emergency

A memorial at Apalachee High School after the Wednesday school shooting, in Winder, Ga., on Sept. 7, 2024. Mike Stewart/AP Photo

The mother of the teenager who was charged with murder in the shooting deaths of four people at Apalachee High School in Georgie last week called the school before the killings, according to his aunt.

Annie Brown, the aunt, told The Washington Post that her sister, the mother of the shooter, had texted her saying she spoke with a school counselor and urged them to “immediately” find her son to check on him and that there was an “extreme emergency” involving her son.

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 a call was made to the school about 30 minutes before the shooting started.

Brown confirmed the reporting in text messages Saturday but did not provide further comment.

The Epoch Times contacted the Barrow School District, which oversees Apalachee High School, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the agency leading the probe into the shooting, for comment. Neither have 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, where Colt faces four charges of felony murder and will be tried as an adult. Gray, meanwhile, faces second-degree murder charges in connection to the school shooting as well as involuntary manslaughter and counts of cruelty to children.

(Left) Colin Gray. (Right) Colt Gray. Barrow County Sheriff's Office via AP

After the father’s arrest, a day before his court appearance, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that Gray “knowingly allowed his son, Colt, to have the weapon.”

“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 to the shooting, which also left nine people injured. When in court, he did not enter a plea, and no bond was set for either him or his father.

Their attorneys declined to immediately seek bail during their court appearances.

Gray was told by Judge Currie Mingledorff II 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 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.

Last year, officials with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office interviewed Colt and his father after the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center received several tips about posts online that included threats to carry out a school shooting, the FBI said.

The FBI said that the online posts originated in Georgia, adding that the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office located the individual who they suspected 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.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.