Apalachee school shooter had chaotic childhood, was fixated on mass shooters, psychologist says

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — The hearing for the teenager who pleaded guilty on Friday to the deadly 2024 Apalachee High School shooting resumed Monday morning.

Colt Gray, now 16, pleaded guilty to all 55 charges in the shooting, which killed teachers Cristina Irimie and Ricky Aspinwall and 14-year-old students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo.

The plea was non-negotiated, meaning the state and defense did not offer Colt a deal or agree to a sentence.

Colt’s charges included several counts of malice murder, aggravated assault, aggravated battery and first-degree cruelty to children.

>> REWATCH MONDAY’S HEARING:

Psychologist says Colt Gray had a ‘chaotic’ childhood

A forensic psychologist who evaluated Gray after the shooting at the request of an attorney for the teen testified that during their first meeting in May 2025, Gray asked if he could pull his arms inside his sweatshirt to wrap them around himself.

“I thought he was kind of an odd kid,” Kevin Richards said. The psychologist said he did four interviews with Gray for a total of about 15 hours and also spoke to Gray’s mother twice for a total of about three hours.

“It was pretty chaotic,” the psychologist said of Gray’s upbringing, noting that the family had financial problems and moved around a lot, so he wasn’t enrolled in school for long stretches. His parents used drugs and fought a lot, and Gray had a lonely and neglected childhood, Richards testified.

Colt Gray discussed school shootings online

Gray talked about fearing that teachers were plotting against him, and that people in public were whispering about him. Richards said that while he believes Gray experienced paranoia and anxiety, he doubts that motivated the attack.

“I don’t think he was driven by hallucinations or delusions to do what he did. I think he planned it out,” Richards said.

Most of the teen’s social life was online, Richards said. He was a gamer but also became immersed in a community of young true crime enthusiasts who were particularly fascinated by mass shootings. Initially, Gray focused on Adam Lanza, who killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, as well as James Holmes, who killed 12 people in a Colorado movie theater. Richards said Gray was particularly interested in Nikolas Cruz, the shooter in the 2018 massacre at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

“He had just kind of disappeared into Discord and disappeared into the true crime community,” Richards said.

District Attorney Brad Smith showed Richards some of Gray’s online conversations on Discord, an online communication platform. They established that Gray would sometimes lie about his own mental health symptoms when talking to people online to establish common ground with them and get attention.

When asked by Smith if Gray studied and emulated school shooters, Richards responded that Gray was “kind of obsessed” with them.

In interviews with investigators, Gray lied about having called a suicide hotline right before the shooting, which Holmes had done, Smith said. He also told investigators he had damaged his computer the morning of the shooting and left it in the middle of his room, as Lanza had done. Smith called these “easter eggs” that Gray was planting to “gain fame and status” within the online community that fetishized those killings.

In an online conversation just days before the shooting, Gray mentioned Sept. 4. When the person he was chatting with asked what was happening that day, he wrote, “something i have for nik!” — an apparent reference to the Parkland shooter’s first name. He also noted that day was a Wednesday, just like the Parkland shooting.

Gray had more than 2,000 photos of Cruz saved on his phone and had 16 photos of Cruz printed and posted on his bedroom wall, Ashley Gilleland, an investigator with the district attorney’s office, testified. He shared photos of that “shrine” with another Discord user in the days before the shooting.

Similarly, he saved photos of other mass shooters and searched for details of those shootings, Gilleland said.

In phone calls with his mother while he was in custody just over a month after the shooting, Gray had her search online for mentions of his name within the “true crime community” and got excited when she found “fan art” drawings of him, Gilleland said. It appears his mother printed out some of the images she found to bring to her son, Gilleland said.

The judge also heard from victims and the lead investigator

After Gray entered his plea Friday, the judge heard from family members of those killed and victims of the shooting. Most asked the judge to sentence Gray to life without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors also played recordings of two interviews the lead investigator did with Gray, one that took place less than an hour after the shooting at the school and another that was done several hours later at the sheriff’s office. Though the teenager seemed hysterical, repeatedly apologized and described what had happened as “horrible” during the interview at the school, Barrow County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Jason Smith said Monday that he believed “a majority of that interview to be performative.”

A jury in March convicted his father, Colin Gray, on charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. He is scheduled to be sentenced later this week. Prosecutors said he gave his son the assault-style rifle used to open fire at the school.

Colt faces a minimum sentence of life in prison. Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm is now set to decide whether he will be eligible for parole, hearing from both sides and reviewing evidence to inform his ruling.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Teen pleads guilty to all 55 counts in deadly 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School

On Friday, several people took to the stand to share how the shooting impacted them, with most asking the judge to deny parole. Breanna Schermerhorn, Mason’s mother, acknowledged that adults ignored the warning signs but emphasized that Colt still pulled the trigger.

“Mason deserved a future, and we all deserved a future with Mason in it, and Colt took that from Mason and everyone who loved him,” she said.

Students who were shot also took to the podium. One of them recalled the overwhelming fear she felt when she saw Colt standing in the doorway with a gun.

“After the shooting, I struggled with so much anxiety, and I felt like my life was over,” the girl, who had multiple surgeries and couldn’t walk for about a year, said.

The court also looked at pages from a notebook in which Colt detailed his plans for the shooting step-by-step and heard an interview conducted with Colt about 30 minutes after the shooting. In the audio recording, Colt sobbed hysterically as he admitted to the shooting, detailing uncontrollable urges and voices telling him to do things.

Colt previously pleaded not guilty and was slated for a trial in October.

Colin Gray, Colt’s father, was convicted of multiple charges — including second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless conduct and second-degree child cruelty — in March after prosecutors said he gave Colin the gun used in the shooting despite knowledge of his son’s poor mental health. He is set to face sentencing on Thursday.

This is a developing story. Check back with Atlanta News First as we learn more.

MORE COVERAGE:

Accused Apalachee High School shooter due in court Friday, expected to enter non-negotiated plea

Sentencing date moved for father of accused Apalachee High School shooter

Tentative trial date set for accused Apalachee High School shooter

25 school resource officers approved for Barrow County under new agreement