By KATE BRUMBACK Associated Press
A judge on Tuesday sentenced a teenager who killed two students and two teachers in a shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole, calling his crimes “deliberate, contemplated evil.”
Colt Gray, 16, had pleaded guilty Friday to 55 counts, including murder, in the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting at the school about 45 miles (73 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta.
Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm handed down the sentence after hearing from family members of those killed and victims, as well as investigators, Gray’s grandmother and a forensic psychologist who had evaluated Gray.
Murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison in Georgia, so the only decision Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm had to make was whether Gray should ever be eligible for parole. He decided the teen should never be allowed out.
“You do not seem to be tormented by what you did. You seem to relish following in the footsteps of the murderers you idolize. You aren’t wracked with guilt. You’re proud of yourself,” Primm said.
“We’ve seen no evidence he has any ability to develop a conscience or any ability ever to fully value human life,” District Attorney Brad Smith had said during his closing argument, insisting that Gray “cannot be in society.”
Defense attorney W. Charlton Allen told the judge his client was “not irretrievably broken.” Allowing him the possibility of parole would give him “an opportunity of hope,” Allen said, adding that a lack of hope “takes away the ability for him to change.”
The victims got the sentence they asked for
“This is not a happy day. This is a relief day, I would say,” Smith told reporters after the sentencing, adding that he hoped his team had “done honor” to the victims and their loved ones.
Teachers Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, died in the shooting. Another teacher and eight more students were wounded, seven of them hit by gunfire.
Victims of the shooting and family members of those killed conveyed their anger and grief to Primm on Friday, almost all of them asking him not to allow the possibility of parole.
Shayna Aspinwall, the wife of math teacher and football coach Richard Aspinwall, described “a life sentence of grief and trauma for those left behind.”
Investigators say Gray aspired to be a mass shooter
Investigators testified during the three-day sentencing hearing that Gray idolized mass shooters, talking about them online with other members of the “true crime community,” a group of young people online who are fascinated with such attacks. Gray had chatted online about gaining notoriety through a school shooting.
Prosecutors played recordings of phone conversations Gray had with his mother, Marcee Gray, from a youth detention center in the months after the shooting. During those calls, he directed his mother to look up what people were saying about him online. He was excited when she described “fan art” drawings depicting him or comments people made about him and the attention he was getting online.
Gray had the “mental wherewithal” to mimic details of other mass killings on the day of the shooting, Smith said. He placed those “Easter eggs,” anticipating that they would be mentioned in court one day and would perpetuate his fame, the prosecutor said.
“The shooting was not the culmination of the plan. The shooting was just one of the steps of the plan. The plan was ultimate and lifelong fame inside of the TCC,” Smith said, referencing the “true crime community.”
Gray’s grandmother says he needed help
“Colt got less stability than he needed, which made him even more vulnerable,” Allen, the defense attorney, argued. He said his client got wrapped up in an online community where he found the acceptance he craved but wasn’t getting at home.
Gray’s maternal grandmother, Debbie Polhamus, testified that the teen had a troubled childhood and that his parents failed him. Her grandson had grown “highly agitated and aggressive” in the weeks before the shooting, she said, adding that she had urged his parents to get him some help but they didn’t follow through.
“I tried to help Colt because nobody else was helping him,” she said.
Polhamus said she visits her grandson once a week at a youth detention center and that he has improved enormously with treatment and medication. She said her grandson has been doing a lot of reading and wants to study to get a GED diploma.
“I’d like to see him have a chance at some point to prove himself,” Polhamus said.
Gray was put in foster care while in detention because his father was in prison and there were concerns about his mother’s contact with him. Candice Broce, director of the state Division of Family & Children Services and commissioner of the Georgia Department of Human Services, managed his case.
Broce testified that Gray appeared to show improvement. After Marcee Gray was barred from speaking with her son by a July 2025 no-contact order and he started taking medication, staff at the youth detention center told Broce it “changed him essentially into a different child,” she said.
The judge acknowledged that Gray had been failed by his parents, his extended family and, to a certain extent, society.
“But that failure does not absolve you from who you chose to idolize, worship and become,” Primm told Gray.