The verdict, delivered on 3 March 2026, stems from the September 4, 2024, attack at Apalachee High School in Winder, where Colin’s then-14-year-old son, Colt Gray, allegedly opened fire with an AR-style rifle, killing two students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and two teachers, Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie, and injuring nine others.

Gray had pleaded not guilty to all 29 counts against him, arguing he did not foresee his son’s actions and believed he was acting responsibly as a parent. Prosecutors, however, depicted him as recklessly negligent, knowing Colt’s mental health had deteriorated and that the boy had been questioned by law enforcement about online threats to commit a school shooting months before the attack.

Central to the prosecution’s case was the fact that Gray bought his son the rifle as a Christmas gift in late 2023, despite having received warnings about Colt’s disturbing behaviour and fixation on school shootings. According to prosecutors, Gray had the capacity to secure or remove access to the weapon but failed to do so. “After seeing sign after sign of his son’s deteriorating mental state, the defendant had sufficient warning that his son was a bomb just waiting to go off,” Barrow County Assistant District Attorney Patricia Brooks told jurors.

The verdict places Colin Gray among a very small number of parents in U.S. history held criminally responsible for a child’s mass shooting. According to CBS News, this is only the third instance nationwide in which a parent has been prosecuted in connection with a mass shooting committed by their child.

Colt Gray has pleaded not guilty to 55 felony counts and is awaiting trial as an adult. His case is scheduled for later proceedings in Georgia.

Sentencing for Colin Gray has not yet been scheduled, though he faces decades in prison under Georgia law.