Prosecutors: Georgia school shooter tracked online fame with mother after deadly attack
WINDER, Ga. — The teenager who admitted killing four people at Georgia's Apalachee High School closely followed his growing online notoriety after the shooting, asking his mother to check social media posts and discussing plans for a shrine dedicated to him, prosecutors said Tuesday.
The testimony came on the third day of Colt Gray's sentencing hearing in Barrow County. Watch our livestream below:
Gray, who is now 16, pleaded guilty Friday to 55 charges, including murder, in the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting at Apalachee High School, about 45 miles northeast of Atlanta.
Thirty-nine-year-old teacher Richard "Ricky" Aspinwall, 53-year-old teacher Cristina Irimie, and 14-year-old students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo were killed.
Prosecutors played recordings of phone calls Gray had with his mother, Marcee Gray, while he was being held in a youth detention center after the shooting.
Investigators testified that Gray repeatedly asked his mother to search online for posts about him and tell him what people were saying. When she described "fan art" or online comments, he wanted to know how much attention the posts were receiving and appeared excited when they were widely shared.
Marcee Gray told her son she planned to print some of the images.
"Have you made the shrine?" Colt Gray asked during one call.
His mother replied that she still needed to print photographs.
"Then I'll make my Colty shrine," she said.
Prosecutors said the recorded conversations became so concerning that Marcee Gray was later barred from contacting her son.
Ashley Gilleland, an investigator with the district attorney's office, testified that Gray had spent time in online communities fascinated with mass shootings before the attack. She said he admired previous school shooters, discussed gaining notoriety through a school shooting and showed behavior that mirrored other mass killers before and after the attack.
When Marcee Gray told her son that a journalist wanted to make a documentary about the case, Colt Gray responded, "Yes. Go for it."
Prosecutors argued the conversations, along with Gray's online activity and a notebook outlining a step-by-step plan for the attack, contradict statements he made to investigators shortly after the shooting. At the time, Gray denied seeking attention and said he thought mass shooters who did so were "really childlike."
The defense also called Candice Broce, director of Georgia's Division of Family & Children Services and commissioner of the Georgia Department of Human Services.
Broce testified that Gray experienced abuse and neglect and that child welfare investigators had looked into his family years before the shooting. She said she was surprised by the lack of medical care he had received.
"I was really surprised by the complete absence of care," Broce testified.
Broce also said Gray appeared to improve after his mother was prohibited from contacting him in July 2025 and he began taking medication. Staff at the youth detention center later told her the treatment "changed him essentially into a different child," she testified.
Gray pleaded guilty without a plea agreement. Judge Nicholas Primm will decide whether he spends the rest of his life in prison with or without the possibility of parole.
Gray's father, Colin Gray, was convicted in March of charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter after prosecutors said he gave his son the assault-style rifle used in the shooting. He is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.