The mother of the suspected gunman in last week’s Georgia shooting Apalachee High School He said he had informed the school on the morning of the attack, and that teachers had already seen the danger signs.
In an interview with ABC News published Tuesday, Marcy Gray said she had called the school counselor on the morning of Sept. 4, 2024, the day of the shootings, to alert authorities to a worrying message she had received from her son, Colt Gray.
“The counselor said, ‘Well, I wanted to let you know that this morning one of Colt’s teachers sent me an email that said Colt was referencing school shootings,’” Gray told the outlet. “Between my internal feelings, the text messages, and now this email, you should all rush to class.”
Gray said the last message she received from her son was, “Forgive me, Mom.” She said his father received similar messages, including one that said, “Forgive me” and “You’re not to blame for this.”
A woman believed to be Marcy Gray sits inside a car outside the home of suspected Apalachee school shooter Colt Gray and his father Collin Gray on September 6, 2024 in Winder, Georgia. (Ben Hendren, for Fox News Digital)
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She also said she called Apalachee about a week ago because “I wanted Colt to be hospitalized.”Patient treatment. Colt agreed.”
Gray said when she heard the shooting she “fell on the ground and started screaming.”
“I knew what had happened. I just knew in my gut,” he said, adding that what happened to the victims was “unimaginable.”
“If I had the chance to take his place, I would do it. I would want to do it right away,” Gray told ABC News.
Fox News Digital has contacted Gray and the district for additional comment.
Suspected shooter Colt Gray, 14 (Barrow County Sheriff’s Office)
Authorities say Colt Gray, 14, shot and killed students Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimi, 53. Eight other students and a teacher were injured — seven of them with gunshot wounds — and are expected to recover.
Marcy Gray’s sister, Annie Brown, told The Washington Post that her sister had texted her to tell her she had spoken to the school counselor and warned staff about an “extreme emergency” before the killings. Brown said Marcy Gray urged her to find and check on her son “immediately.”
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Brown provided screenshots of the message exchanges to the newspaper, which also said that a call log obtained from the family’s shared phone plan showed a call was made to the school at 9:50 a.m. The warrant for Gray’s arrest says the shooting began at 10:20 a.m.
In this image taken from a video monitor, suspected gunman Colt Gray (left) sits in the Barrow County Courthouse during his first appearance for the shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, on September 6, 2024. (Brin Anderson-Pool/Getty Images)
The boy’s grandfather, Charles Polhamus, told multiple news outlets that Marcy Gray received a message from her son on Wednesday saying he was sorry. Polhamus told CNN that Marcy Gray moved to Winder, more than 200 miles away from Fitzgerald, shortly after the shooting.
Authorities have said Gray’s father, Colin Gray, gave Colt access to the semiautomatic AR-15 style rifle used in the shooting. It’s unclear how Gray brought the gun to campus or what he did with it in the two hours between school starting at 8:15 a.m. and the first shots were fired.
Colt Gray was charged as an adult last week with four counts of aggravated murder in the shooting, and if convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life without parole or life with the possibility of parole.
Colin Gray has become the first parent of a school shooting suspect in Georgia to be charged, District Attorney Brad Smith said Friday. Colin Gray has been charged with second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children for providing his son with a rifle.
Colin Gray is jailed in Barrow County after he refused to ask for bail at a brief court hearing in Winder on Friday. Colt Gray is being held at the Juvenile Detention Center after also refusing to ask for bail. He has not been charged or entered a plea.
Alleged Apalachee school shooter Colt Gray and his father Colin Gray’s former neighborhood in Jefferson on September 6, 2024. The two lived in the home until their eviction in May 2022. (Ben Hendren, for Fox News Digital)
It is unclear whether Barrow County school officials knew prior to the shootings that Colt and Collin Gray had been interviewed by a sheriff’s deputy in neighboring Jackson County in May 2023 after reports of an online threat of a shooting at a middle school where Colt Gray, then 13, attended.
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Colin Gray told investigators at the time that Colt had unloaded guns in the home, but that he “knew how to use them and not to.” He also said his son had struggled since he and his wife separated and that Colt had been bullied at school.
Fox News Digital’s Timothy H.J. Nerozzi and Greg Norman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
