Inside the broken home of school ‘shooter’ Colt Gray as grandad opens up on ‘abuse’ and mom’s drug arrest revealed
DISTURBING details about Colt Gray’s upbringing have been revealed after the teen was arrested for the Apalachee High School shooting.
The 14-year-old was arrested and charged on Wednesday with four counts of felony murder after allegedly carrying out Georgia’s deadliest school shooting that killed four and injured nine.
By Thursday evening, his father, Colin Gray, 54, had also been arrested and charged after admitting to gifting his son the rifle that was allegedly used in the attack.
He was charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder, and eight counts of cruelty to children.
Now, family members and former neighbors of the Grays have revealed the teenager’s troubled upbringing and his mother’s lengthy rap sheet.
He was “a good kid” who “lived in an environment that was hostile,” Gray’s maternal grandfather told CNN on Thursday following the arrest of his ex-son-in-law.
What we know so far…
- Four people are dead, and nine others were injured, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations confirmed.
- Students Mason Schermerhorn, 14, Christian Angulo, 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall and Christina Irimie were identified as those killed.
- 14-year-old student Colt Gray was named as the suspected shooter.
- Gray’s father arrested and charged with murder over school shooting
- Gray and his dad were interviewed by the FBI a year before after authorities received online threats of a possible school shooting.
- A classmate said Gray was blocked from entering a classroom by a student who spotted his gun.
- Devastating texts revealed student’s fear.
- New panic buttons hidden in school prevented ‘much larger tragedy’
Charles Polhamus revealed his shock at his grandson being named the prime suspect in Wednesday’s shooting but said that “nothing good” was going to come from the events of his childhood.
“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.”
Polhamus claimed that Gray’s father would regularly “beat up on him” and his mother Marcee by “screaming and hollering” at them.
“The adults in his life let him down,” Gray’s aunt, Annie Brown told The New York Times.
‘CONSTANT ABUSE’
Meanwhile, a former neighbor of the Grays shed light on the behavior of Marcee who lost custody of her children after she separated from their father and failed a drug test.
Lauren Vickers who lived next door to the Grays when they moved to Jefferson, a neighborhood 60 miles east of Atlanta in 2022, claimed Marcee would regularly lock them outside and fail to clean their clothes.
“There were nights where the mom would lock him and his sister out the house,” she told The New York Post.
“And they would be banging on the back door, just screaming like ‘Mom! mom! mom!’ and crying. It was absolutely devastating,”
Vickers added that Marcee’s youngest child would sometimes appear in her yard asking for food and that the children often had “no clean clothes.”
Timeline of Apalachee High School shooting
Below is a timeline of the shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, on September 4:
8:30 am – First period begins at AHS
9:45 am – Suspect Colt Gray leaves algebra class, according to his classmate
10:20 am – Police start to receive calls about an active shooter
10:23 am – Law enforcement officers are dispatched to school and arrive in minutes
10:45 am – AHS sends message to parents saying the school is in a hard lockdown
11:20 am – Students are evacuated to the football field
11:56 am – Barrow County Sheriff’s Office reports a suspect is in custody
2:13 pm – Georgia Bureau of Investigation confirms four people were killed and nine were hospitalized with injuries
“It was constant abuse. It’s very, very sad,” she said.
“She was locking them out in inclement weather. Freezing weather,” the Grays’ former landlord told the outlet.
Both Vickers and the landlord detailed how Marcee struggled with drug and alcohol addiction and would regularly be “passed out in the driveway” or would drive her son around while under the influence.
Growing up, Gray was quiet and would often miss school, choosing instead to go to the nearby woods or hang around unbuilt properties, she claimed.
Despite calling child services over the events next door, “they came, talked to me, and did nothing,” she added.
The landlord reported Marcee to Family & Children Services and took her off the lease, noting how the children “had been quite traumatized” by her behavior.
When asked about Colt and the shooting at the high school, the landlord said that the teen had “fallen between the cracks” and should have had support from protective services.
MOM’S RAP SHEET
Marcee Gray has a lengthy criminal record dating back to 2007 and spanning four counties in Georgia, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Her crimes include drug use, domestic violence, property damage, and civil claims of fraud.
The 43-year-old most recently served time in Ben Hill County in April with her most lengthy sentence being 12 months of probation and 40 hours community service.
Colin Gray called the cops in November 2023 claiming his ex-wife had damaged his work truck by carving the words “abuse” and “liar” into it with a key.
She was arrested under an active warrant in another county and was found with drugs and paraphernalia, after which she admitted to damaging her husband’s car after he refused to let her have access to their children.
In December, she pleaded guilty to vehicle fraud, property damage, and family violence and was sentenced to five months of which she served 46 days.
Marcee was also banned from having any contact with her ex-husband without a third-party mediator and had to take part in a rehab and family violence intervention program.
Then in April, she was charged in connection to an aggravated battery case from November 2023, theft, false imprisonment, criminal trespass, and failing to appear.
In this incident, she allegedly threw an elderly woman at a wall, taped her hands and feet to keep her from leaving, and broke a bathroom mirror in the woman’s home.
Her other charges include various traffic offenses in 2007, 2014, and 2019.
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.
Charles Polhamus
After splitting from her husband in 2022, Marcee took to LinkedIn to claim that he had been “abusive” to her over their 14-year marriage and that she and the children were “in good hands.”
Marcee then ended up leaving the family home and moving back in with her family.
DAD’S ARREST
After Wednesday’s shooting, cops revealed that Gray surrendered to them when he was surrounded by officers and that he told them, “I did it” as he was being read his Miranda rights, per the Daily Mail.
The family home was raided later that day with FBI investigators seizing firearms and evidence as they searched for a motive.
It was then revealed that Gray and his father had been interviewed by the FBI in May 2023 over online threats about a school shooting that had been traced back to them.
Gray denied making the threats on his Discord account, claiming he had been hacked, and cops did not have enough evidence to arrest him.
However, they warned his father to keep him away from school until the issue was resolved and to revoke his access to firearms.
In a clip from an interview with cops at the time, Gray’s father appeared to boast about his son’s first kill with a hunting rifle, discussing a picture of the blood-covered 13-year-old.
Despite the warnings by officers, the 54-year-old bought his son an AR-15-style rifle as a Christmas gift just months later.
It is alleged that this is the firearm used in the school shooting.
On Thursday, cops arrested Gray’s father, charging him in connection to the attack after “knowingly” letting his son possess a weapon, Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said during a press conference.
He is being held at the Barrow County Detention Center and was booked into jail on Thursday night.
Meanwhile, his son is at the Gainesville Regional Youth Detention Center and appeared in court on Friday morning where Judge Currie Mingledorff informed the teen that he faces life in prison.
The families of the victims sat in the first row of the courtroom, according to CNN.
Less than an hour after his son was arraigned, Colin faced the judge in the same courthouse room and was told that if convicted on all charges, he could face up to 180 years behind bars.
He appeared to be crying and was rocking back and forth during the hearing.