Winder, Georgia
CNN
—
Authorities searching the home of the 14-year-old accused of killing four people
at a Georgia high school this week found documents that they believe he
wrote referencing past school shootings, a law enforcement source
familiar with the investigation told CNN.
The source said that the writings were discovered in the
bedroom of suspect Colt Gray, and included references to the 2018
massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.
Live updates: The latest on the Georgia high school shooting
The discovery, which could shed more light on a motive for
the shooting, comes amid an emerging portrait of Gray’s tumultuous
family life in the years leading up to the deadly attack, revealed in a
CNN review of court and law enforcement records, social media posts, and
an interview with his grandfather.
As that portrait has emerged, so have details about the
investigation and authorities’ pursuit of those they allege bear
responsibility in the shooting. Gray told investigators, “I did it”
while being questioned, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told CNN on
Thursday.
And while Gray faces four counts of felony murder,
Gray’s father, Colin, also has been arrested in connection with the
shooting, accused of “knowingly allowing his son … to possess a weapon,”
Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said Thursday.
Colin Gray was charged
with four counts of involuntary manslaughter; two counts of second
degree murder; and eight counts of cruelty to children, the GBI said.
As for Colt Gray’s family situation: His parents went
through a bitter separation and custody dispute in recent years. They
called law enforcement on each other, the family was evicted from at
least one home, and Gray’s mother was arrested on suspicion of keying
her husband’s car and drug possession, law enforcement records show.
At the same time, Gray’s mother and maternal grandfather
have accused Gray’s father of being verbally abusive toward his family
for years.
“He was just a good kid, but he lived in an environment that
was hostile,” Charles Polhamus said of Colt Gray, his grandson, in an
interview with CNN. “His dad beat up on him, I mean, I’m not talking
about physical, but screaming and hollering, and he did the same thing
to my daughter.”
The grandfather said he had never seen Colt Gray show any
kind of anger problems, but that the turbulent family life had affected
the teenager.
Now, investigators seeking to understand the suspect’s
motive are looking into his family’s previous contacts with the state’s
child protective services agency, the GBI director said Wednesday.
The suspect’s father told investigators this week he had
purchased the gun used in the killings as a holiday present for his son
in December 2023, according to two law enforcement sources with direct
knowledge of the investigation. One source told CNN the AR-15-style
rifle was purchased at a local gun store as a Christmas present. The
other source described the gift as a holiday present.
Attempts to reach both of the suspect’s parents for comment
on Wednesday and Thursday were unsuccessful. CNN was working to
determine whether Colin Gray has legal representation.
Colt Gray’s parents’ relationship started out with promise.
In July 2011, shortly after he was born, his parents bought a small farm
in Barrow County, Georgia, outside of the college town of Athens. They
planned to “create a non-profit, therapeutic riding school for local,
under-privileged children,” his mother, Marcee Gray, who worked in
industrial engineering, later wrote in a LinkedIn post.
But those plans were derailed in part because her husband,
Colin Gray, had at least three “major” back surgeries, she wrote. The
couple, who had three children, later sold the farm in 2019, according
to property records.
After they moved, the family faced lawsuits from multiple
landlords, and were evicted from one home by a county sheriff’s deputy
in July 2022 for failing to pay rent, according to court records. As
part of the eviction, sheriff’s records show, deputies collected three
firearms, including an AR-15, and at least one hunting bow, and kept
them for safekeeping. The weapons were later “released to owner,” the
documents say.
Later that year, Marcee Gray wrote on social media that she had left her husband.
“Finally separated from my abusive husband of almost 14yrs,”
she wrote in one LinkedIn comment on a post from December 2022.
“Hardest shit I’ve ever done but we’re in good hands.”
“I packed myself and my babies up and relocated to my
hometown in south GA,” Gray added in another post in May 2023. “We are
all good and my kids are thriving.”
The same month, however, law enforcement agents were
investigating 13-year-old Colt Gray in connection with a school shooting
threat. Investigators with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office
interviewed Colt and his father about a threat on the online chat
platform Discord to commit a school shooting, documents obtained through
a public records request show.
Colt Gray denied making the threat, an investigation report
said. A Discord spokesperson told CNN on Wednesday that the platform
removed an account “believed to be associated with” Gray in May 2023 for
violating Discord’s policy against extremism.
Colin Gray told investigators he had hunting rifles in the
house, and that “Colt is allowed to use them when supervised but does
not have unfettered access to them,” the report said. The case was later
cleared because the tip could not be substantiated.
Transcripts from the interview and a subsequent phone call
show that Colin Gray said his son was “getting picked on at school,”
with other students “pinching him and touching him… just ridiculed him
day after day after day.” He also that that he was “trying to teach him
about firearms and safety and how to do it all and get him… interested
in the outdoors,” in part to get him away from video games.
“He knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do and how to use them and not use them,” Colin Gray said.
In his interview, Colin Gray told investigators that he had
separated from his wife, who took their two younger children with her.
The suspect’s father said that Colt – the oldest of three siblings – had
“had some problems” at a middle school in Jackson County but had since
moved to another school and “it has gotten a lot better,” one of the
investigators wrote.
Gray was only enrolled in the Jackson County school district
between February and August 2022, said Edward Hooper, the spokesperson
for the district. Jackson County is next to Barrow County, where Colt
Gray is accused of killing two fellow students and two teachers at
Apalachee High School.
In October 2023, Barrow County Sheriff’s deputies responded
to a wellness check on the Gray family after Marcee Gray reported that
she hadn’t heard from her husband or their children in two weeks. Colin
Gray, who was at their residence, said all of their children were with
him, a sheriff’s deputy wrote in a report.
Colin Gray gave the deputy a paper from the Georgia Division
of Family and Children Services that showed “a safety plan was put in
place for him to have the children with him” and Marcee Gray “could not
see them without supervision,” the deputy wrote.
A spokesperson from the Georgia Department of Human Services
said Thursday she could not comment on the case due to confidentiality
laws. But Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said at a
press conference Wednesday that the bureau was aware that the division
had previously had “some previous contacts” with the Gray family, and
“we are pursuing that avenue as well too to see if that has any
connection with today’s incident.”
In November 2023, Colin Gray called law enforcement and
accused his wife of keying a truck he drove for his work at a
construction company, writing “abuse” and “liar” on it, according to a
sheriff’s report.
Two days later, police arrested Marcee Gray at a Walmart in
Winder due to an active warrant from another county. Police found
methamphetamine, fentanyl, pain pills, and a glass pipe in her car, and
she and another man who was in the vehicle were arrested, another
sheriff’s report said.
After being arrested, Marcee Gray admitted keying her
husband’s truck, saying she “lost it” after he refused to let her see
her kids, the report said.
Marcee Gray pleaded guilty the following month to criminal
damage to property, “criminal trespass - family violence,” and use of a
license plate to conceal identity, and was sentenced to a total of five
months’ probation after serving more than a month in custody. As part of
her guilty plea, she was barred from contacting her husband except
through a third party for divorce negotiations and custody discussions.
A friend of Marcee Gray, who asked not to be named for
privacy, told CNN that the legal trouble she faced was “not the Marcee
we know,” calling her a “sweet, caring, and smart woman” who had
changed.
“Something happened in that relationship that went wrong,” the friend said.
According to Polhamus, Marcee Gray’s father, she lost
custody of her children after failing a drug test, moved back in with
her parents in south Georgia and is going through rehab.
Polhamus said he had never thought his grandson would be capable of such a deadly attack.
“I understand that Colt chose to do what he did, and I
understand he has to pay for it,” he said. “But I’m telling you, the
environment that he lived in… you put somebody in a situation like that
for 10 or 11 years, guess what’s gonna happen? Nothing good.”
The Discord account that the FBI had linked to Colt Gray
last year referenced plans for a future mass shooting and shared
screenshots of firearms, according to documents obtained by CNN.
“im committing a mass shooting and im waiting a good 2-3
years,” stated the account user, according to screenshots included in an
FBI incident report from May 2023 obtained by CNN. “I cant kill myself
yet, cause I’m not contributing anything to culture I need to go out
knowing I did.”
The account referenced Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary
School shooter, and in separate posts shared a desire to target an
elementary school and expressed frustration with the acceptance of
transgender people.
Above a photograph of two firearms, the account posted, “I’m ready.”
The FBI tip was shared with the Jackson County Sheriff’s
Office, which closed the investigation after finding that “the user
behind the Discord account that made the threat cannot be
substantiated.”
A Discord spokesperson told CNN on Wednesday the platform
removed an account “believed to be associated with” Gray in May 2023 for
violating Discord’s policy against extremism.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
CNN’s Isabelle Chapman and Amanda Jackson contributed reporting.
