Two years after Colt Gray carried out a mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia, he was confronted by victims and family members after pleading guilty.
Gray, 16, pleaded guilty to 55 charges, including murder, in a Georgia courtroom on Friday, July 24, according to CNN. He has not yet been formally sentenced but is expected to get life in prison.
After Gray entered his guilty plea, family members of students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo and teachers Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie – all of whom died in the 2024 shooting – confronted him in the courtroom.
“Mason deserved a future, and we all deserved a future with Mason in it,” Schermerhorn’s mother, Breanna Schermerhorn, said, according to CNN. “And Colt took that from Mason and everyone who loved him.”
Angulo’s brother, Ismael Angulo Jr., also addressed Gray in court.
“The defendant’s family will still get to see their son, talk to him and know he is breathing,” Ismael said, according to the outlet. “My mother, my father don’t get that privilege. The only way to visit Christian now is by standing over his grave. There is no fairness in that reality.”
Not only did the victims’ family members speak out, but so did some of the victims that survived the attack.
“Those things are never completely are going to disappear,” Nautica Walton, who was shot in the leg during the mass shooting, said. “You took away the innocence of so many kids in that classroom that day, just because of what you were going through.”
The trial revealed many details about the shooting, including Gray’s claims that he wouldn’t try to justify his actions after he was arrested.
During his first interview with investigators, Gray repeatedly told one officer that what he did was “f***ing horrible.”
“Oh my God, this is f***ing horrible, man … having no control over these impulses I was doing,” he said in the recorded interview that was played in court, per CNN.
He then insisted that he wasn’t trying to use his “fogginess” to “justify” the shooting.
“I’m not trying to get remorse at all,” Gray added. “This is f***ing horrible.
Gray pleaded guilty four months after his father, Colin Gray, was found guilty on two counts of second-degree murder in connection with the school shooting. Prosecutors previously argued that Colin, 55, bought an AR-15 for his son and allowed him to use it “despite warning signs about his deteriorating mental health,” per CNN.
Colin has not yet been sentenced.
