Colin Gray, the father of accused Georgia school shooter Colt Gray, testified in his own defense on Friday, telling a jury in Atlanta that he handed his son a rifle as a Christmas present in the hope it would help him bond with the boy. Gray said he wanted to connect through hunting and trips to the gun range, and he portrayed his relationship with his son as one marked by shared activities rather than foreboding danger, according to testimony reported by the Associated Press.
The trial comes after prosecutors said Colt Gray, who was 14 at the time, used a rifle to attack Apalachee High School in Winder, northeast of Atlanta, on Sept. 4, 2024. Prosecutors have accused the teen of carefully planning the attack that killed two teachers and two students and wounded several others. Colt Gray faces 55 counts, including murder, in connection with the deaths and 25 counts of aggravated assault, the report said.
Colin Gray, who is not accused of planning the school attack, faces 29 counts, including two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter, according to the same reporting. Defense attorneys called him to the stand after the trial had already included testimony from Marcee Gray, Colt Gray’s mother, who testified that she urged her husband to lock up the guns so their son could not access them. Marcee Gray was not charged, and witnesses at Colin Gray’s trial testified that Colt Gray kept a gun in his bedroom in the days before the shooting.
During Friday’s testimony, Colin Gray became emotional after his attorney asked whether there were any “red flags” that would have made him believe his son was capable of a school shooting. Gray told jurors, “No, I struggle with it every day,” as he tried to hold back tears, according to the report. He then added that his son “is a good kid,” saying, “He wasn’t perfect, and nor was I,” and describing the result as “evil.”
“He’s a good kid,” Gray said, adding that he did not recognize “that kind of evil” as part of the Colt Gray he knew, and the report said he also told jurors there was “this whole other side of Colt I didn’t know existed.” In a cross-examination that at times turned combative, prosecutors pressed him on what he did and did not tell social workers and others who were checking on the children before the shooting, according to the AP account.
Gray responded that he was still “learning on the fly being a single parent working full time just trying to get my feet under me,” and he told the court that he did not remember every detail from the years leading up to the attack. He also said the fact that he was unable to recall all the information requested by prosecutors reflected “my bad,” while explaining that his focus afterward included processing what happened and his own incarceration.
The testimony also addressed Colin Gray’s efforts to get his son into therapy. Gray testified that “that’s not the only thing I had to worry about while I had those kids,” according to the report. The trial’s evidence has included surveillance video played for jurors showing Colt Gray boarding a school bus on the morning of the attack with a backpack that prosecutors said carried the rifle, with the weapon protruding and poster board used to conceal it.
In the video, prosecutors have said Colt Gray then entered the school, walking past dozens of students and some employees who did not take notice of the large backpack, before beginning classes. The report said the footage also showed him spending several minutes in a bathroom shortly before the shooting, and it noted that video of the gunfire was played for jurors but not shown to the general public watching a livestream of the trial.
The case also included emotionally detailed testimony from students at the high school, who described being shot in their algebra class and recounting through tears seeing a classmate in a pool of blood, then seeing blood on their own bodies and fearing they might die. The trial has further included testimony about what prosecutors described as a “shrine” to Nikolas Cruz, the Florida school shooter convicted in 2018, that Colt Gray kept on a wall next to his computer at home, the report said.
Both sides have now rested, the Associated Press reported, with closing arguments scheduled for Monday afternoon.