Lawyer signals teen accused in Georgia school shooting that killed 4 is likely to plead guilty
Defense attorney Alfonso D. Kraft told Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nick Primm in a brief hearing that Colt Gray could be ready for a plea hearing in October. A psychologist is scheduled to meet with Gray soon, Kraft said, adding that his client would likely be ready for a plea hearing after the psychologist's report is ready.
'We should be good to go,' Kraft said.
The Sept. 4 shooting killed teachers Richard 'Ricky' Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14. Another teacher and eight more students were wounded, seven of them hit by gunfire.
Colt Gray, then 14, was indicted on a total of 55 counts, including murder in the deaths of four people and 25 counts of aggravated assault. Grand jurors formally charged his father, Colin Gray, with 29 counts, including two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Both also face multiple counts of cruelty to children.
Colt Gray was charged as an adult. Both initially pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors said in court Tuesday they were looking to accept a non-negotiated plea, which would mean they would not recommend a lower sentence. The key issue in any plea is likely to be whether Gray is sentenced to life without parole or will get a chance at later parole. As a juvenile, he cannot be sentenced to death.
Primm told Kraft and prosecutors to work out a date after the scheduled September trial of Colin Gray.
'I think the October timing works well because Colin Gray's trial is scheduled in September,' Primm said, saying a later plea would avoid pretrial publicity that could be taint the ability to find unbiased jurors in Colin Gray's case.
Primm in April ordered that jurors in Colin Gray's trial would not be drawn from Barrow County, granting a rare change of venue.
Colt Gray appeared by video Tuesday from a juvenile detention center where he is being held.
Relatives of Aspinwall said after the hearing they want a sentence of life without parole for Gray.
'If he wants to plead guilty it would be a better route for everybody, get it behind us,' said Kevin Zink, Aspinwall's father-in law. 'I'd like to see it end. The sooner it ends, the better for all of us.'
Zink said District Attorney Brad Smith had told relatives he would not accept a lighter sentence in exchange for a guilty plea.
Richard Aspinwall Sr., Ricky's father, said he might favor a trial to make an example of Gray.
'Maybe it'll make other people think twice about trying to pull something.' Aspinwall said.
Investigators have testified that Colt Gray carried a semiautomatic assault-style rifle given to him by his father onto the school bus with the barrel wrapped in a poster board. They say the boy left his second-period class and emerged from a bathroom with the rifle, shooting people in a classroom and hallway.
Investigators have said the teenager carefully plotted the shooting at the 1,900-student high school northeast of Atlanta. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent testified that the boy left a notebook in his classroom with step-by-step instructions and a diagram to prepare for the assault, including an estimate that he could kill as many as 26 people and wound as many as 13 others.
Colt and Colin Gray were interviewed about an online threat linked to Colt Gray in May 2023. Colt Gray denied making the threat at the time. He skipped eighth grade, enrolled as a freshman at Apalachee after the academic year began, and then skipped multiple days of school.
Family members had been seeking psychological help for Colt Gray before the shooting, but it appears he never saw a counselor.
Colt's mother, Marcee Gray, who lives separately, told investigators that she had argued with Colin Gray in August, asking him to secure his guns and restrict Colt's access. Instead, over time, he bought the boy ammunition, a gun sight and other shooting accessories, records show.
Colt Gray even created a 'shrine' to school shooters over his home computer, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Agent Kelsey Ward said in court.
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The Independent
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- The Independent
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The Sun
16 minutes ago
- The Sun
How brutal Hells Angel leader led gang in deadly riots, rape & rock gig killing…as ex-wife opens up on savage beating
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'He didn't kill me, but I should have just ran.' Now, the life and times of Sonny Barger is told by those who knew him in the documentary Secrets of the Hells Angels, airing tonight on Channel 4. Four months after he was born in 1938, his mother ran off with a bus driver and he was raised by his alcoholic father and sister in the rough port district of Oakland, California. School was attended just to pick fights with his fellow classmates, and at 16 he was expelled for hitting a teacher with a baseball bat. Then he tried the army - but after forging his birth certificate so he could join without parental permission, he was given an honourable discharge just 18 months later. Instead he joined a bike club, popular with other ex-military men, named the Oakland Panthers. Bloodsoaked world of UK's Hells Angels as Mafia-style bikers drag bodies of rivals down streets and stash rocket launchers & uzis for war 'I needed a second family,' Sonny wrote in his autobiography about this time. 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'Altamont may have been some big catastrophe to the hippies, but it was just another Hells Angels event to me.' 14 Misogynistic violence Though the Angels were a lawless rabble, they maintained a strict code of honour within themselves. Disloyalty meant death - as Paul 'German' Ingalls found out in 1968. After being found guilty of stealing Sonny's valuable coin collection by an internal Hells Angels 'court', Ingalls was forced to consume barbiturates until he suffered an overdose. Equally brutal were the Hells Angels' sexual crimes, with wives and girlfriends seen as the 'property' of the men. Sonny's first wife, Elsie Mae, had died of an embolism in 1967 after a (then illegal) abortion, and he split with his second wife, Sharon, in 1996. 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Daily Mail
16 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Wealthy Boston neighborhood faces uptick in drug-related incidents
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