Police have released the mug shot of Colt Gray, the suspect in the Georgia school shooting, while his aunt revealed that the 14-year-old had been "pleading for help" before the incident. The mug shot reveals Gray with a youthful face, long dyed hair, and a blank expression.
The first images of Gray surfaced on Thursday, including one from his 2022 yearbook, where he's seen smiling, wearing a thick necklace, and a red Georgia Bulldogs T-shirt. At the time, the alleged shooter would have been around 12 or 13 years old. The 14-year-old was arrested on Wednesday at Apalachee High School in Winder, minutes after allegedly shooting at students and teachers.
Mugshot of Remorseless Killer
Gray faces four felony murder charges and will be tried as an adult, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. His aunt, Annie Brown, told the Washington Post on Thursday that the boy had been "pleading for help from everyone around him."
She said that he had been battling mental health issues before the shooting occurred. "The adults around him failed him," she lamented.
Brown, who lives in Florida, chose not to go into detail about her nephew's mental health challenges but mentioned that she had attempted to get him help from afar.
She added that his difficult home environment worsened his problems.
In January, Brown enrolled Gray at Haymon-Morris Middle School in Barrow County to help him complete the eighth grade after a period of absenteeism, she told the Washington Post.
He began ninth grade at Apalachee High School when classes resumed on August 1, just a little over a month before the shooting.
Gray was reportedly fixated on other notorious school shooters, including Nikolas Cruz, the perpetrator of the Parkland, Florida massacre.
By the time he surrendered his AR-style weapon, two students and two teachers were dead inside the school building, on what was the first day of classes after summer break.
The victims were identified as students Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and Christian Angulo, 14, along with teachers Richard Aspenwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53.
When police searched the teen's Georgia home after the tragic incident, they reportedly found evidence that he was 'obsessed' with mass shootings, particularly the 2018 Parkland tragedy that claimed 17 lives.
Dark Past of Baby-Faced Killer
Gray had been on the FBI's radar after multiple tips about him surfaced last year. In May 2023, officers from Jackson County investigated Gray and his father regarding a Discord channel believed to be connected to the then-13-year-old, which allegedly contained threats of a school shooting.
The Discord account had a username in Russian that, when translated, spelled out the name Lanza, a reference to Adam Lanza, the shooter responsible for the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, according to the officers.
Gray denied being the author of the threats, telling police he had shut down his Discord account after it was repeatedly hacked. He expressed concern over the accusations made against him.
The New York Times reported that Gray's father, Colin, told investigators at the time that his son understood the seriousness of weapons, including how and when to use them.
Colin reportedly assured the officers that he would be "furious" if he found out the allegations about his son making threats were true and that he would remove all the guns from their home.
