Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / COLT GRAY, 14, MOTHER WARNS SCHOOL AFTER TEXT FROM SON: 13 SHOT, DAD ARRESTED

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COLT GRAY, 14, MOTHER WARNS SCHOOL AFTER TEXT FROM SON: 13 SHOT, DAD ARRESTED · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Gray. Colt Gray, now known as
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Speaker 1: the school shooter, just fourteen years old Bobshell evidence.
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Speaker 2: Did his mother actually warn the.
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Speaker 1: School of an extreme emergency after she gets a chilling
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Speaker 1: text from her son? Thirteen shot? And in a bizarre
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Speaker 1: twist almost unheard of in our American jurisprudence, his father
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Speaker 1: is also arrested.
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Speaker 2: I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories, Thank you for
0:41
Speaker 2: being with us.
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Speaker 3: Wednesday morning, Appalachi High School in winder Georgia, fourteen year
0:49
Speaker 3: old Colt Gray steps out of his algebra classroom. Moments later,
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Speaker 3: chaos unfolds as gunshots ring out. Parent in America's head
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Speaker 3: is spinning. How did he get in school with a gun?
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Speaker 1: Why was he let out of class to wander the
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Speaker 1: halls un chaperoned? And did the school know ahead of
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Speaker 1: time that he was an eminent threat to the other students?
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Speaker 1: This as we learn he had been underwatched by the
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Speaker 1: FBI and nothing was done by local authorities.
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Speaker 2: And how does his father end up in jail?
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Speaker 1: Maybe it's because he gave his troubled son an aar
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Speaker 1: for Christmas. Assault rifle with me an all star panel
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Speaker 1: to make sense of what we are learning now, but
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Speaker 1: straight out to special guests joining us as part of,
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Speaker 1: as I said, an all star panel. I want to
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Speaker 1: first speak to Sonya Turner joining us from winder Georgia,
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Speaker 1: mother of two girls at the school.
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Speaker 2: Ms Turner, thank you for being with us, Thank you
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Speaker 2: for having me. I know this is going to run
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Speaker 2: a chill down your spine, but listen.
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Speaker 4: The door flew open, and all I saw was when
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Speaker 4: I turned around for a few seconds, was a figure
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Speaker 4: with a pretty large gun aiming out on the students.
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Speaker 2: Ms.
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Speaker 1: Turner, when you think about your girls in that school,
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Speaker 1: the fact that they are alive today is a miracle.
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Speaker 2: And when that guy.
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Speaker 1: Says, yeah, we got to be quick, I guess so
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Speaker 1: because there's an active shooter in the school.
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Speaker 2: What happened?
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Speaker 5: So I had just dropped my oldest daughter, she's fifteen,
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Speaker 5: about to be sixteen, off, she's a sophomore, about forty
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Speaker 5: five minutes maybe less before this happened. She was late
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Speaker 5: going in that day. My other daughter was already there.
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Speaker 5: And then I was sitting down to rest because I
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Speaker 5: was still supposed to be on bed rest from a
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Speaker 5: major abdominal surgery the week before, and I got a
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Speaker 5: text that said, Mom, we're on lockdown. I hear gunshots.
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Speaker 5: And I think some of your producers had seen that
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Speaker 5: text at the Washington Post to put together in a video.
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Speaker 5: It's word by word. They left the typos even so
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Speaker 5: I started texting with her, trying to calm her, trying
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Speaker 5: to reassure her. I got the kids into a group text,
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Speaker 5: so I had Izzie and Abby both in that text
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Speaker 5: message together. In between that, I'm calling my husband telling
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Speaker 5: him to go.
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Speaker 6: Go to the kids.
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Speaker 5: He was on a job site not too far away.
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Speaker 5: The first text for my daughter came in at ten
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Speaker 5: twenty three, which is actually when I think they're reporting
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Speaker 5: that everything started. She was on that end of the hall.
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Speaker 5: She wasn't on that exact hall, but she was on
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Speaker 5: that end of the building. So I'm texting with her.
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Speaker 5: I'm texting my media. Other texts went to my pastor.
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Speaker 5: My pastor ended up getting on the fune with us
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Speaker 5: in praying. While I'm texting my daughters, they're telling me
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Speaker 5: they're scared, they hear gunshots. I'm having them assess their location.
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Speaker 5: Can you get anywhere safer? What can you do? Like
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Speaker 5: we're coming. They're telling me they hear sirens. I'm just
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Speaker 5: reassuring them that that's help on the way in the
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Speaker 5: meantime of texting my daughters and keeping that line of
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Speaker 5: communication open. I was born and raised here in winder
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Speaker 5: This is my home. I've lived here forty five years.
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Speaker 5: Everyone I know had someone at that school that day.
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Speaker 5: The sea of law enforcement, you could just hear it.
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Speaker 5: It was bone chilling, and all I could do. I
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Speaker 5: texted the Lord's Prayer. It's not all I could do.
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Speaker 5: It was the thing to do. I think the thing
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Speaker 5: that stands out to me the most right now that
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Speaker 5: I haven't really wrapped my head around is well, there's
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Speaker 5: a lot of things I haven't wrapped my head around.
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Speaker 5: But in the prayer with my pastor, which she didn't
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Speaker 5: not even remember, I'm sure you've thought most of these
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Speaker 5: don't end with the shooter alive.
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Speaker 2: In this case, my pastor.
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Speaker 5: Prayed with me for him to stop in his tracks
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Speaker 5: whatever he was doing, and lay that gun down. And
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Speaker 5: I'm telling you the timing is spot on. You'll never
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Speaker 5: convince me that wasn't my God that day that saved
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Speaker 5: those lives. And the quick response from our law enforcement
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Speaker 5: who have trained so hard for this moment that they
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Speaker 5: hoped they'd never have to.
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Speaker 1: Use sown up When you said you are texting Lord's prayer?
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Speaker 2: What else could you do? There was nothing more you
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Speaker 2: could do.
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Speaker 5: It was the first thing I needed to do. It
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Speaker 5: wasn't the last, it was the first, and I have
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Speaker 5: somehow become a mama to the mamas. It's a long story.
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Speaker 5: It started back during COVID, where I'd created a group
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Speaker 5: where eight thousand moms have come together and stayed together
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Speaker 5: since twenty twenty, and that has I was inspired to
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Speaker 5: do that group for moms of parents at Appalachi, and
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Speaker 5: I've started that online and I'm watching the stories feed
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Speaker 5: in and I'm hearing the pain and their voices and
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Speaker 5: what they need. And it's a place that we can
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Speaker 5: all safely come and try to share what is working,
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Speaker 5: what is not working, what our students are going through,
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Speaker 5: how we're helping. I have friends who were bus drivers
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Speaker 5: who were trapped sitting there waiting to evacuate that school
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Speaker 5: and get those babies home while their kids were there
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Speaker 5: and they couldn't do anything. I have friends that were
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Speaker 5: teachers in the school immediately next door. One of those
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Speaker 5: her daughter was waiting on this child to get back
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Speaker 5: to go to the bathroom, and one of her classmates
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Speaker 5: just happened to get up to go let him in
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Speaker 5: and looked out and saw that he had a gun
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Speaker 5: and did not open that door. She saved that entire
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Speaker 5: classroom that day.
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Speaker 1: Sonya, when you get the text, When you get a text,
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Speaker 1: mommy so scared?
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Speaker 2: What went through your mind?
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Speaker 5: I wasn't sure if I was going to see my
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Speaker 5: kids at the end of the day. I kept thinking,
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Speaker 5: this can't be our story, this can be our town.
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Speaker 5: It doesn't happen here, which I think everybody thinks. I
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Speaker 5: just knew that. I kept telling them that Mommy was coming, God,
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Speaker 5: he was coming. We were coming. Obviously we knew we
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Speaker 5: couldn't get in that school, but they needed the reassurance
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Speaker 5: that it didn't matter. We were coming and everybody was coming.
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Speaker 5: There were parents that happened to be passing the school.
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Speaker 5: I live a mile and a quarter from the school
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Speaker 5: to my subdivision entrance. There were parents that were just
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Speaker 5: in the area that have kids in those schools that
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Speaker 5: saw the sea of law enforcement and paramedics and firefighters,
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Speaker 5: and they were freaking out because they didn't know what
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Speaker 5: was going on, or they had kids in all three
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Speaker 5: schools of the cluster and didn't know which school to
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Speaker 5: go to first.
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Speaker 2: Joining us.
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Speaker 1: In addition to Sonya Turner, the mom of two girls
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Speaker 1: at the school, is another Atlanta parent with children in
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Speaker 1: the Atlanta schools. And I'm wondering, straight out to Chris
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Speaker 1: Hubbard is joining us, how does what Sonya Turner is saying,
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Speaker 1: how does that affect all the other parents in the
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Speaker 1: area and frankly across the country. When you heard about
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Speaker 1: the schools shooting right here under your nose, what goes
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Speaker 1: through your mind? I mean, how can you keep sending
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Speaker 1: your children to school when this happens over and over
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Speaker 1: and over. There were warnings, there were calls, there were reports,
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Speaker 1: but yet thirteen shot Nanta.
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Speaker 6: It's heart wrenching.
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Speaker 7: Yeah.
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Speaker 6: I was coming out of a meeting and I saw
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Speaker 6: the news alerts on my phone and then I was like,
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Speaker 6: another school shooting. This is unbelievable. And then I saw
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Speaker 6: it is in Georgia, and my heart dropped even further.
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Speaker 6: And Sonya, I can't imagine what you're going through and
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Speaker 6: what those families are going through. Too close to home
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Speaker 6: in winder Georgia, too close to home here in Atlanta,
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Speaker 6: and it's just too much the norm in this country
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Speaker 6: and it's hard to deal with.
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Speaker 1: I mean, when I'm looking at these texts, I text
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Speaker 1: my children all during the day, even though they have
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Speaker 1: a no phone policy. I think, well, somehow during the
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Speaker 1: day they might check their phone and not get caught.
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Speaker 1: But Sonya, when you have your child saying Mommy, I'm scared,
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Speaker 1: and all you can.
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Speaker 2: Say back is stay down, stay hidden. I will come
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Speaker 2: and get you. And then when you get there, you
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Speaker 2: can't get close to the school. YEP, it's paralyzing again.
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Speaker 1: Joining us In addition to Sonya Turner and Chris Hubbard,
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Speaker 1: right now, Chase McGee is joining us. Senior newsroom producer GPB. Chase,
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Speaker 1: thank you for being with us. What do we know
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Speaker 1: about exactly what happened that morning? But before you start,
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Speaker 1: take a listen to this.
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Speaker 8: It approximate me ten twenty am this morning, the Barrett
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Speaker 8: County Sheriff's Office received alerts about reports of an active
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Speaker 8: stood and radio traffic from school resource officers concerning the
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Speaker 8: same concern or having the same concern.
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Speaker 9: All of our teachers are armed with a form of
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Speaker 9: an ID called scentigics and scientigics alarms us and alerts
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Speaker 9: the law enforcement office. After buttons are pressed on an
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Speaker 9: ID and it alerts us that there is an active
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Speaker 9: situation at the school for whatever reason. And that was
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Speaker 9: pressed and we've had that about a.
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Speaker 1: Week now, Chase McGee, let me understand. Let me understand
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Speaker 1: what I'm hearing. So all the teachers are equipped with
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Speaker 1: some type of device on their person or at their desk,
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Speaker 1: and if they press it, that sends out the alarm.
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Speaker 10: Hey, yeah, right, Nancy, thanks for having me to my understanding.
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Speaker 10: A lot of schools in Northeast Georgia started rolling out
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Speaker 10: this program. I believe these schools and Winder had these
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Speaker 10: cards for about two days on their person, so that's
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Speaker 10: two days training ahead of the shooting. And it essentially
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Speaker 10: works like a you press it and it lets law
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Speaker 10: enforcement know where in the buildings that there's this incident
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Speaker 10: going on. And in early press conferences they credit that
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Speaker 10: and school resource officers on campus with a really quick
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Speaker 10: response time to stop the shooting.
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Speaker 1: School resource officers on campus and one student. You heard
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Speaker 1: Sonia Turner her children at that school stay that one
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Speaker 1: of the children had gone out to the bathroom and
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Speaker 1: was coming back in as I understand and sees the
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Speaker 1: shooter in the hall, that child that close to death
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Speaker 1: and would not let him in the door. Listen to
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Speaker 1: Chris HOSEYGBIO.
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Speaker 8: Resource officers assigned here to the school, who immediately encountered
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Speaker 8: the subject within just minutes of this report going out.
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Speaker 9: Obviously the shooter was armed and our school resource officer
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Speaker 9: engaged him, and the shooter quickly realized that if he
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Speaker 9: did not give up that it would end with an
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Speaker 9: ois an officer involved shooting.
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Speaker 3: A fourteen year old Appalachi High School student steps out
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Speaker 3: of his algebra class. Returning moments later, classmates refused to
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Speaker 3: open the door after seeing the student is now armed
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Speaker 3: with an assault style rifle.
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Speaker 2: What do we know about what happened that morning?
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Speaker 1: Yet another school shooting and now the father of the shooter,
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Speaker 1: Cole Gray, has also been arrested. The grandfather calling him
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Speaker 1: pure evil.
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Speaker 2: The home of Colt Gray.
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Speaker 1: Sounds chaotic, But can we just focused on the thirteen
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Speaker 1: people shot by Colt Gray? Straight back out to Chase
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Speaker 1: mcgeey newsroom producer GPB.
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Speaker 2: Chase again that morning? How did it unfold?
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Speaker 7: Yeah?
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Speaker 10: So what we know from before the shooting? Over this
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Speaker 10: past week, and we've heard reporting that Marcy Gray, the
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Speaker 10: mother of cult Gray, had received an alarming text from
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Speaker 10: her son and then gone on to contact school administrators.
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Speaker 10: We know that call lasted about ten minutes according to
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Speaker 10: call records, and what was said is yet unclear, but
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Speaker 10: we do know that a school administrator responded to the
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Speaker 10: classroom where cult Gray was supposed to be. There was
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Speaker 10: some confusion with another student who has a very similar
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Speaker 10: name apparently, and the school administrator went to leave the
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Speaker 10: class room after not finding either student in the classroom.
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Speaker 10: And that was just moments before the shooting started.
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Speaker 1: To Sonya Turner joining us, the mom of two little
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Speaker 1: girls at the school, Sonya, do your children know either
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Speaker 1: of them?
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Speaker 2: Know Coult Gray. No, he's not.
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Speaker 5: He's not from here. He had only he had been
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Speaker 5: enrolled to my knowledge, two weeks. However, he had only
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Speaker 5: been in the school for maybe a total of two days.
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Speaker 5: I have a friend that saw him the day before
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Speaker 5: in the attendance office when they were you know, interviewed,
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Speaker 5: like you know, processing him as a new student, and
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Speaker 5: then that was literally his second day maybe in our school.
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Speaker 5: He's not one of our students.
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Speaker 2: So what we have heard about him. Being bullied and
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Speaker 2: call names did not happen at this school, Absolutely not.
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Speaker 5: I was contacted by Again, I've been here forty five years.
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Speaker 5: I know people that talked with this individual and I
15:03
Speaker 5: refuse to say his name as a very young child,
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Speaker 5: and they begged for their parents to get him help.
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Speaker 5: They begged for the system to get him help. He
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Speaker 5: struggled with mental illness from as early as you can
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Speaker 5: fathom of going into a school system.
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Speaker 8: Listen, therefore, individuals who are deceased from this incident, Nine
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Speaker 8: that have been taken to local hospitals with various injuries.
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Speaker 8: Those that lost their life in this tragic event. Mason Shermerhorn,
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Speaker 8: aged fourteen, who is a student here at the school,
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Speaker 8: Christian Angelo who was fourteen, also a student here at
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Speaker 8: the school. Richard Aspenwall, I'm not sure of his age,
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Speaker 8: but he was a teacher here at the school. And
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Speaker 8: Christina here, Marie, I'm sorry for my pronunciation, who was
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Speaker 8: also a teacher at the school.
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Speaker 1: The victims four dead and yet another school shooting.
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Speaker 2: To Chris Hubbard, Atlanta, father with children.
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Speaker 1: In school right now, how often do one of your
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Speaker 1: children say, you know when you're asking them what happened today.
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Speaker 2: Who did you have lunch with them all that?
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Speaker 1: Have you heard them say, yeah, that kid is there's
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Speaker 1: something off about that kid he fill in the blank
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Speaker 1: or sheep fill in the blank.
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Speaker 2: I remember one.
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Speaker 1: Child all the way back to I believe it was
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Speaker 1: second or third grade, was drawing pictures of hanging people
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Speaker 1: and shooting people, and alarm bells were going off in
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Speaker 1: my hit. It happens all the time. But Chris, how
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Speaker 1: often do we think, oh, Okay, that troubled child is
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Speaker 1: going to be a school shooter. We got to kick
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Speaker 1: him out.
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Speaker 2: How often do parents actually think it's going to go
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Speaker 2: this far?
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Speaker 6: It's unfortunately, with the way things are going, you know,
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Speaker 6: that's something that comes to mind now, But I agree
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Speaker 6: with you, that's not something you ever considered to happen
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Speaker 6: at your school. Is happening way too often, and we're
17:12
Speaker 6: missing the signs. We're missing the mental health, the troubled
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Speaker 6: signs that are completely obvious, that are making direct threats,
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Speaker 6: you know, really going out of their way to cry
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Speaker 6: for help in some other way, and we're not doing
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Speaker 6: anything about it.
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Speaker 2: We're not doing enough about it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear you, Chris, and I'm weighing that out.
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Speaker 1: I'm listening to what Sonya Turner has just told us
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Speaker 1: that a teacher of Cole Gray all the way back
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Speaker 1: years ago was saying, this kid is troubled, but I
17:45
Speaker 1: got to balance his troubles, his inner demons with the
17:50
Speaker 1: dead students and the dead teachers.
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Speaker 2: So how was he allowed out of class? How did
17:57
Speaker 2: that happen? Listen?
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Speaker 11: Or why these school allow this boy to come and
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Speaker 11: go from the class all the time. He would go
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Speaker 11: and sign up for the restroom, pass, leave the class
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Speaker 11: and come back sometimes and sometimes never come back. He
18:11
Speaker 11: has been wandering this school.
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Speaker 1: So why was he allowed out? You know, my son
18:18
Speaker 1: has gotten in trouble at school. One time it was
18:22
Speaker 1: in the fourth grade. I said, son, what did you do?
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Speaker 1: Just assuming you know something had gone horribly wrong? And
18:29
Speaker 1: went mom, I went to the library.
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Speaker 2: And I know you, John David, what's wrong with going.
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Speaker 1: To the library is I didn't ask first, Big trouble,
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Speaker 1: Big trouble, because he went to the library at the school.
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Speaker 2: So how is this kid wandering around with a gun?
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Speaker 1: To Chase Gronick joining us out of Dallas, Texas Active
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Speaker 1: Shooter Expert managing principle for Active shooter Prevention Project. Chris,
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Speaker 1: wouldn't that be written in bedrock that students don't wander
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Speaker 1: freely in the hall?
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Speaker 7: And that's absolutely correct, And the protocols only work if
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Speaker 7: we use them. And as you said at the beginning
19:11
Speaker 7: of the show, the school was notified by the mother
19:13
Speaker 7: of some type of threat. And if the administration is
19:16
Speaker 7: going to go to the room, you would think the
19:17
Speaker 7: school resource officers would too. And while I think the
19:20
Speaker 7: police did an excellent job here, I again will come
19:24
Speaker 7: back and say, for the last ten years, we cannot
19:26
Speaker 7: respond our way out of this, and they keep responding
19:29
Speaker 7: to these instead of preventing them. And we have to
19:32
Speaker 7: shift as a whole nation, just like we did for fires.
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Speaker 7: We haven't let a child die in a school fire
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Speaker 7: in seventy years. We can do this, We just want
19:41
Speaker 7: we don't want to.
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Speaker 1: Another issue that Chris Grolnik has just brought up, Chase
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Speaker 1: McGee is the specter that has reared its ugly head
19:50
Speaker 1: that the mother of this childhood has I mean, this family.
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Speaker 1: The dad gives him an ar when he's got all
19:57
Speaker 1: these troubled thoughts and his express blessing them, and the
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Speaker 1: mother has wrapped sheet as long as I seventy five
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Speaker 1: for Pete's sake, and neighbors say she locks the children
20:06
Speaker 1: out of the house when she's angry. Okay, that said,
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Speaker 1: Chase McGee, what can you tell me? Chase joining us
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Speaker 1: from GPB, What can you tell me about the mom's
20:18
Speaker 1: claim she texted a school contacting them just before the
20:23
Speaker 1: shooting happened, before her son opens fire, shooting thirteen people,
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Speaker 1: students and teachers, what does she text them?
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Speaker 10: Yeah, we don't know quite get the contents of the
20:35
Speaker 10: conversation and any requests for call records looking forward to
20:38
Speaker 10: the Piedmont Circuit here in northeast Georgia where the trial
20:41
Speaker 10: is going to be held, But we do have a
20:44
Speaker 10: photo proofs from a call record that a ten minute
20:47
Speaker 10: call did go out from the mother to the school system.
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Speaker 1: Oh well, wha wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on, Chase,
20:54
Speaker 1: did you just say.
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Speaker 2: A ten minute call?
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Speaker 1: If they had acted immediately, could anyone's life have been saved?
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Speaker 2: Chase?
21:05
Speaker 10: I can't speak to that, but we do know that
21:09
Speaker 10: the call took place about thirty minutes before the shooting started,
21:12
Speaker 10: and judging by the reports that administrator made it to
21:17
Speaker 10: the classroom, it sounds like some response took place. Now,
21:21
Speaker 10: I can't speak to the idea of a lockdown or
21:24
Speaker 10: anything other than that.
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Speaker 3: As shots ring out in the halls of Georgia's Appalachi
21:30
Speaker 3: High School, students and teachers take cover. As a teen
21:35
Speaker 3: shooter opens fire, a.
21:37
Speaker 12: School administrator goes looking for Cold Gray after receiving a
21:41
Speaker 12: panicked call from mom Marcy Gray. Gray says someone needs
21:46
Speaker 12: to find and check on her son immediately, it's an
21:49
Speaker 12: extreme emergency. Minutes before that call, a school counselor informed
21:54
Speaker 12: Gray that cult mentioned school shootings in their meeting that morning.
21:59
Speaker 12: Marcy Gray also received a text from our son, reading,
22:02
Speaker 12: I'm sorry, Mom.
22:04
Speaker 1: We are understanding that the discussion of school shootings happened
22:11
Speaker 1: that morning in a meeting. Sonya Turner, do you know
22:16
Speaker 1: anything about the meeting that morning where school shootings were discussed.
22:22
Speaker 2: I don't know specifics.
22:23
Speaker 5: Of what was discussed, but I do know they in
22:26
Speaker 5: took him the day before. I think it was.
22:29
Speaker 2: They in took him. What does that mean just because
22:31
Speaker 2: he was a new student.
22:33
Speaker 5: I think they met with him to sit down to
22:35
Speaker 5: determine what his needs were. Our counseling staff is excellent
22:41
Speaker 5: with trying to make sure all of our children's needs
22:44
Speaker 5: are met.
22:44
Speaker 1: Joining us now Crime online dot Com investigative reporter Sydney Sumner. Sidney,
22:48
Speaker 1: let me understand something Sidney did. Was there a meeting
22:55
Speaker 1: that morning with a school counselor, And in that meeting
22:59
Speaker 1: the morning of the shooting, thirteen shot, fourth dead, Colt
23:06
Speaker 1: Gray mentioned a school shooting.
23:10
Speaker 13: That's what I'm understanding. And yes, there was some sort
23:13
Speaker 13: of meeting with the school counselor that morning where Colt
23:16
Speaker 13: mentioned school shooting. And it's unclear exactly when Marcy Gray
23:21
Speaker 13: was informed of this. It seems like the school counselor
23:24
Speaker 13: informed Marcy Gray of this during that ten minute call
23:28
Speaker 13: at nine to fifty am from reports say she learned
23:31
Speaker 13: this before. We're not exactly sure what led to Marcy
23:35
Speaker 13: Gray's call to the school that morning.
23:37
Speaker 1: Hold On said, said the school shooter, Colt Gray contacted
23:43
Speaker 1: his mother and said something that was so disturbing she
23:48
Speaker 1: called the school and had a ten minute conversation with
23:51
Speaker 1: them before they went out with the warning. So a
23:56
Speaker 1: lot of time lost.
23:59
Speaker 2: You know.
23:59
Speaker 1: Brian is joining us for now criminal defense attorney and
24:04
Speaker 1: specifically lived through the Mandalay.
24:09
Speaker 2: Mass shooting and live to tell the.
24:12
Speaker 1: Tale, Brian Claypool, I mean, what more will it take?
24:18
Speaker 1: For Pete's sake? Did you hear Hubbard a few moments ago?
24:22
Speaker 1: Every time you see your school child is school, you're
24:25
Speaker 1: wondering what's going to happen today. When your child at
24:28
Speaker 1: the supper table says, God, that kid's really off, there's
24:31
Speaker 1: something wrong, you wonder is that going to be a
24:34
Speaker 1: school shooter? I mean that morning, Claypool, this shooter is
24:40
Speaker 1: talking about school shootings. You heard Sonya Turner, who is
24:45
Speaker 1: living through this. Her children were in the school, and
24:50
Speaker 1: it goes way back to when he was in elementary school.
24:54
Speaker 2: I mean, what more has to be done? Claypool?
24:57
Speaker 14: First of all, I want to share with Sonya that
25:01
Speaker 14: this is horrific, But in time, being a survivor of
25:05
Speaker 14: a mass shooting myself, She's going to realize, and her
25:08
Speaker 14: daughter's going to realize that there's a bigger cause for
25:11
Speaker 14: her daughter surviving and her family going through this. And
25:15
Speaker 14: part of that cause is going to be what I've
25:17
Speaker 14: tried to do the last five or six years is
25:20
Speaker 14: to make change throughout our country to try to safeguard
25:24
Speaker 14: not only schools, but all public places that we go
25:26
Speaker 14: to and how do we do that, you know, Nancy,
25:30
Speaker 14: Shortly after the Vegas shooting, when I thought I was
25:33
Speaker 14: going to die and I saw other people on the
25:35
Speaker 14: ground shot and dealt with, you know, remorse for not
25:38
Speaker 14: helping them, and similar to what Sonya went through too,
25:41
Speaker 14: I sent a text to my daughter's I'm a single parent.
25:44
Speaker 14: I've got two daughters now, but my teen daughter at
25:47
Speaker 14: the time it was tulx Terrs. So I texted her
25:50
Speaker 14: mom and I just said, you know, if I get killed,
25:53
Speaker 14: you know, you know, send my love to Toulana, my daughter.
25:59
Speaker 14: But that the thing is that nobody should have to
26:02
Speaker 14: go through that, and the way that we make change
26:05
Speaker 14: is not through What I was trying to get at
26:07
Speaker 14: before I got emotional was I thought that this they're
26:11
Speaker 14: a ban on assault weapons with help the first year
26:14
Speaker 14: or two. And I've changed my thought because of what
26:17
Speaker 14: we're seeing in this shooting too, that in nearly every
26:20
Speaker 14: school shooting and nearly every mass shooting, Nancy, there are
26:25
Speaker 14: red flags. There are massive red flags here and until
26:31
Speaker 14: local schools. It's not just a federal issue. Everybody's quick
26:34
Speaker 14: to blame the federal government. What are we doing to
26:36
Speaker 14: solve these this is a local issue too. Luck could
26:40
Speaker 14: have been done here.
26:41
Speaker 1: Well, well, you know what, Claypool, You're right, the FBI
26:45
Speaker 1: had been watching Colt Gray. They contacted, as you are prescribing,
26:52
Speaker 1: local authorities who.
26:55
Speaker 2: Did an interview and nothing was done.
26:58
Speaker 1: Doctor Jillian Peterson wanting me forensic psychologists and the executive
27:03
Speaker 1: director of the Violence Prevention Project, author of the Violence Project,
27:08
Speaker 1: how to stop a mass shooting epidemic? Okay, Doctor Jillian Peterson,
27:13
Speaker 1: lay it on me.
27:14
Speaker 15: Yeah, I mean it's so heartbreaking and difficult to hear
27:18
Speaker 15: the story because we've studied these school shootings and it's
27:21
Speaker 15: the same thing over and over again. It's a troubled
27:25
Speaker 15: young man who's a student of the school. He's making threats,
27:29
Speaker 15: he's posting things online, he's telling people things are going
27:32
Speaker 15: to happen. The people are around him are concerned, and
27:36
Speaker 15: still every warning sign gets missed when this happens.
27:39
Speaker 1: So, doctor Jillian Peterson, they had a meeting with the
27:42
Speaker 1: counselor that morning and he's talking about school shootings. Sonya
27:45
Speaker 1: Turner says she knows an instructor that dealt with Colt
27:50
Speaker 1: Great years ago, same thing.
27:53
Speaker 2: Then he's like, uh Vesuvius waiting to erupt.
27:58
Speaker 1: Yet nothing happened. The parents aren't going to do anything.
28:02
Speaker 1: What they did is given an AR an assault rifle,
28:06
Speaker 1: so that's not helpful. The only thing I believe that
28:09
Speaker 1: saved lives at all.
28:12
Speaker 2: And I think Sonya turns backing me up on this.
28:14
Speaker 1: As a school administrator and one of the students listen,
28:18
Speaker 1: a school administrator goes looking for Cold Gray after receiving
28:22
Speaker 1: a panicked call from mom Marcy Gray.
28:25
Speaker 12: Gray says someone needs to find and check on her
28:28
Speaker 12: son immediately, it's an extreme emergency. Minutes before that call,
28:33
Speaker 12: is school counselor informed Gray that Colt mentioned school shootings
28:38
Speaker 12: in their meeting that morning. Marcy Gray also received a
28:41
Speaker 12: text from our son reading, I'm sorry, Mom.
28:45
Speaker 16: The assault rifle gifted to Gray at Christmas last year
28:47
Speaker 16: is reportedly the same gun used in the attack on
28:49
Speaker 16: Appalachi High School. Many are questioning how the fourteen year
28:52
Speaker 16: old managed to get the large gun into the school.
28:55
Speaker 16: Appalachi does not have metal detectors, but the school does
28:58
Speaker 16: not provide lockers to every While an AR fifteen will
29:01
Speaker 16: break down into two pieces, they are still too large
29:04
Speaker 16: to conceal in a typical school backpack.
29:06
Speaker 1: So how did he get the gun into the school,
29:09
Speaker 1: How did he transport it?
29:11
Speaker 2: How did he get out in the hall with it?
29:13
Speaker 2: Did he stash it somewhere?
29:15
Speaker 1: He was out according to Sonya Turner, whose children go
29:18
Speaker 1: to the school with a legitimate bathroom pass, so he
29:22
Speaker 1: was not wandering the halls as.
29:25
Speaker 2: Has been characterized to us.
29:27
Speaker 1: That's not what happened. He had a bathroom pass, So
29:31
Speaker 1: how did he get the gun? Joining us an all
29:35
Speaker 1: star panel to make sense of what we know right
29:37
Speaker 1: now to mary Lynn Ryan joining us VP at GPB
29:43
Speaker 1: Mary Lynn in the last hours, the father, Colt Gray's father,
29:48
Speaker 1: which is quite a departure and American jurisprudence.
29:52
Speaker 2: It has happened before, but.
29:53
Speaker 1: Very rarely the father has been put behind bars.
29:57
Speaker 2: Why that is a good question, Nancy.
29:59
Speaker 17: We asked that right away, because there's only been one
30:01
Speaker 17: other case in Michigan where you know, a parent was
30:04
Speaker 17: held liable for that for a gun used by a student.
30:08
Speaker 10: But I talked to.
30:08
Speaker 17: Law enforcement at the federal level after this, and I
30:12
Speaker 17: was told that it was because the father had knowledge
30:15
Speaker 17: of his mental health and still provided him with possessing
30:20
Speaker 17: a weapon and knew that he was in that state
30:23
Speaker 17: and those were available to him. So that's you're a lawyer,
30:27
Speaker 17: very good lawyer, Nancy, and I know you've done many
30:29
Speaker 17: stories on this, and that I believe is the reason
30:31
Speaker 17: why they're able to charge the father with accessory pretty
30:35
Speaker 17: much to this crime. So it will be a top
30:38
Speaker 17: story here in Georgia, and the gun debate rages on
30:42
Speaker 17: again as we head into this election, and it's at
30:45
Speaker 17: the top of mine today.
30:48
Speaker 1: Well, I don't want to make this at all about
30:50
Speaker 1: politics at all.
30:52
Speaker 2: I want to save lives.
30:54
Speaker 1: I don't care who's going to use this as some
30:57
Speaker 1: rhetoric right for an election to or they're their own interest.
31:01
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, you're right, you are right, Marilyn. Listen,
31:06
Speaker 2: if something like that happened for.
31:07
Speaker 7: Years, something like that reported, Yeah, it is hell to
31:10
Speaker 7: your dad. Tell the latter told him, I fromisone have
31:12
Speaker 7: never said something.
31:13
Speaker 6: So you haven't used this cord in a few months
31:16
Speaker 6: and you're you're you're saying you didn't say anything.
31:18
Speaker 2: I don't, No, the only thing I have is to sow.
31:20
Speaker 7: But I just go around there and watching hears.
31:22
Speaker 13: Do you have weapons in the house?
31:23
Speaker 14: I did?
31:24
Speaker 1: Are they accessible to him?
31:26
Speaker 10: They are?
31:27
Speaker 18: I mean there's nothing, nothing loaded, but they are down.
31:30
Speaker 4: Okay.
31:31
Speaker 18: We we actually we do a lot of shooting. We
31:33
Speaker 18: do a lot of deer hut and he shot his
31:35
Speaker 18: first deer this year. Did you know so, like, I'm
31:40
Speaker 18: pretty much in shop to be honest with you, Well,
31:43
Speaker 18: I'm a little pissed off to be even really honest
31:46
Speaker 18: with you.
31:46
Speaker 2: If that, If that is what was.
31:48
Speaker 1: Said, he's pissed off. The father is pissed off. Well,
31:51
Speaker 1: this may help you understand it a little bit more.
31:54
Speaker 1: Earlier we heard Brian Claypool talking about lots of red flags.
31:58
Speaker 2: That interview was back.
32:00
Speaker 1: In May twenty twenty three, when the Jackson County Deputy
32:05
Speaker 1: sheriff went out to speak to Colt Gray's father and
32:11
Speaker 1: he's pissed.
32:11
Speaker 2: The father's pissed about.
32:13
Speaker 1: What And yes, the guns were easily accessible. To Cidy
32:19
Speaker 1: Sumner joining us Climeboline dot Com investigative reporter, it's my
32:23
Speaker 1: understanding that it's a lot more than just accessory to
32:26
Speaker 1: the crime that the father, Colin Gray, is facing four
32:31
Speaker 1: counts of manslaughter and two counts of second degree murder.
32:37
Speaker 1: He claims he gave his son an a R fifteen
32:41
Speaker 1: style rifle that was then used in the massacre at
32:44
Speaker 1: Appalachia II Ancy.
32:46
Speaker 13: That's absolutely correct. What we know is that Colin Griff
32:49
Speaker 13: gifted Colt this assault rifle, reportedly for deer hunting. It
32:54
Speaker 13: seems like they were out hunting very frequently. Colin Gray
32:58
Speaker 13: talks to the sheriff step about trying to get Colt outside,
33:03
Speaker 13: trying to get in a hobby. Was this the best
33:06
Speaker 13: hobby for cult to be in? Obviously not. So that's
33:09
Speaker 13: what we know about that, And it's obvious these text
33:12
Speaker 13: messages that are coming out between Marcy Gray, her sisters,
33:16
Speaker 13: her mother, and father. The family was very aware that
33:21
Speaker 13: Colt Gray was not doing well mentally. He had just
33:25
Speaker 13: been put into therapy a week before the shooting happened.
33:29
Speaker 1: But you know what's interesting, Sidney Sumner Sonya Turner, has
33:32
Speaker 1: pointed out that his file about all of his difficulties
33:38
Speaker 1: and all of his demons and homicidal suicidal ideation did
33:44
Speaker 1: not travel with him. Everyone is attacking Appalachi High. Appalachi
33:48
Speaker 1: High did not know about his trouble background. But as
33:54
Speaker 1: Sidney Sumner is telling us, we now know that law
33:59
Speaker 1: enforcement went to speak to the father and I guess
34:04
Speaker 1: you heard what she was saying about the home Listen.
34:07
Speaker 16: Colt Gray's home life is anything but stable. Colt's mother,
34:10
Speaker 16: Marcy Gray, has a long criminal history after falling into
34:13
Speaker 16: drug addiction. Colin and Marcy Gray separate shortly after being
34:17
Speaker 16: evicted from a rental home. Colt stays with his father
34:20
Speaker 16: while his two younger siblings go with their mom. After
34:23
Speaker 16: cops find drugs in her car. Marcy Gray has sent
34:25
Speaker 16: us to five years in prison, but serves only forty
34:27
Speaker 16: six days before release on parole. Months later, Gray is
34:31
Speaker 16: arrested for aggravated battery on her seventy three year old
34:34
Speaker 16: mother and barred from contact with Colin Gray outside of
34:37
Speaker 16: matters concerning their children.
34:45
Speaker 2: Crime stories, with Nancy Gray.
34:51
Speaker 1: Joining me Sonia Turner, who is the mom of two
34:53
Speaker 1: little girls that attend Appalachi. Hi, Sonia, I think all
35:00
Speaker 1: sorts of information. What have you learned about Gray's father?
35:06
Speaker 5: I got very reliable information that he was acting very
35:11
Speaker 5: peculiar that morning at work and was communicating back and
35:15
Speaker 5: forth supposedly with his son, and I wholeheartedly feel like
35:22
Speaker 5: he may have known more than something was up, that
35:24
Speaker 5: he may have known what was up.
35:25
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, it just makes me wonder
35:28
Speaker 1: did he not want to give up his son? Did
35:30
Speaker 1: he try to talk his son out of it? Was
35:32
Speaker 1: he trying to calm his son down at the expense
35:36
Speaker 1: of the other students?
35:39
Speaker 2: To Chris Grolnick, active shooter expert, what is the fix?
35:45
Speaker 2: What can we do? The FBI had flagged it, local
35:50
Speaker 2: law enforcement went to go speak to his family. That
35:54
Speaker 2: did no good.
35:55
Speaker 1: The new school Appalachi High, as Sonya Turner has pointed out,
35:59
Speaker 1: did not have access to any of Cole Gray's history.
36:03
Speaker 1: They let a ticking time bomb walk into their school unbeknownst.
36:08
Speaker 7: To them, and you know Natsi and so many others.
36:10
Speaker 7: Ninety percent of these shooters, cortin the FBI tell somebody
36:13
Speaker 7: they're going to do it before they do it, and
36:15
Speaker 7: they provide something called leakage, which is on social media
36:19
Speaker 7: that remains up at will until it's posted, flagged or
36:22
Speaker 7: other and then may come down later. If we just
36:24
Speaker 7: follow their history, listen to the people around, and when
36:27
Speaker 7: somebody says they're going to do something and we start
36:29
Speaker 7: believing them, then we can reduce these incidents. As great
36:33
Speaker 7: as this response was, we've still lost the lives of
36:35
Speaker 7: four people. Nine other shot, and a whole host of
36:38
Speaker 7: a community that's going to be in shambles for god
36:41
Speaker 7: knows how long over twenty five years. The watershed moment
36:46
Speaker 7: was Columbine. Of course, Uvaldi was absolutely the incorrect way
36:51
Speaker 7: to handle this.
36:51
Speaker 1: You know, Chris Hubbard, Atlanta area father of children, that
36:55
Speaker 1: he's got to stand right back into.
36:57
Speaker 2: School tomorrow morning. Kris Hubbern.
37:01
Speaker 1: One of the first stints I did at the Fulton
37:03
Speaker 1: County District Attorney's office was in juvenile and of course
37:08
Speaker 1: it's more of a revolving door there than it is.
37:11
Speaker 2: In adult jail.
37:12
Speaker 1: But I would see the level of crime committed by
37:17
Speaker 1: juveniles and then.
37:18
Speaker 2: Want right out the door.
37:20
Speaker 1: And I knew nothing could be done except for me
37:24
Speaker 1: trying to get treated as adults. So that in mind, Chris,
37:31
Speaker 1: what do you tell your children hide under your desk?
37:34
Speaker 2: I mean, what do you tell them?
37:36
Speaker 6: That's an impossible conversation, Nancy. We talk about recognizing signs,
37:42
Speaker 6: we talk about being nice to people. I know that
37:46
Speaker 6: sounds silly maybe in this context, but you know a
37:49
Speaker 6: lot of these kids you here were bullied. And again,
37:51
Speaker 6: I know this didn't happen to APPLEATCHI High because it
37:53
Speaker 6: was only his second day apparently, but had lived through
37:56
Speaker 6: that his entire life. But when something like that happens,
37:59
Speaker 6: all you can do is tell your kids to look
38:01
Speaker 6: out for themselves the best they can. I wish we
38:04
Speaker 6: had more physical barriers at the schools, lockdown doors, etc.
38:08
Speaker 6: The resource officers. I'm a huge proponent of, having sat
38:11
Speaker 6: on three school boards, two current and one in the past.
38:14
Speaker 6: School safety is something that we've talked about a lot,
38:17
Speaker 6: and I'm a huge proponent of the school resource officers.
38:20
Speaker 6: But again, that's a reaction thing. And again, we're not
38:23
Speaker 6: missing these signs. I don't believe we're ignoring these signs
38:26
Speaker 6: of this mental health. And again I.
38:28
Speaker 2: Don't know what you do.
38:29
Speaker 6: And Nancy, you've lived this in your legal career where
38:31
Speaker 6: you've had juveniles walk out the door and you knew
38:33
Speaker 6: something was going to happen.
38:34
Speaker 2: I don't know what the legal fix is.
38:35
Speaker 6: That's certainly not my area of expertise.
38:38
Speaker 1: Well, Chris, you point out something really valuable. And to
38:41
Speaker 1: Sonya Turner, following what Chris Hubbard has just said, the
38:45
Speaker 1: reaction by the school, and I want to defend the
38:48
Speaker 1: school along with you, now that I understand what you're saying,
38:53
Speaker 1: the school reacted, and.
38:54
Speaker 2: They reacted appropriately. So it's not the reaction what Hubbard
38:58
Speaker 2: just said, it's before that is, before the school has
39:02
Speaker 2: to react.
39:03
Speaker 1: How did he get the gun in there? Where did
39:05
Speaker 1: he get the gun? How did he know how to
39:06
Speaker 1: break down the gun? What kind of doors did the
39:09
Speaker 1: school have? Do they have metal detectors? Why didn't his
39:12
Speaker 1: file follow him to Appalachi High. I mean, it's like
39:16
Speaker 1: Appalachi's bringing a knife to a gunfight.
39:18
Speaker 2: They have no idea what they're dealing with. But let
39:22
Speaker 2: me ask you this, Sonya Turner.
39:25
Speaker 1: I know as a victim of violent crime and having
39:29
Speaker 1: dealt with crime victims my whole life. Now you're never
39:34
Speaker 1: the same after. How are your girls and how is
39:39
Speaker 1: this affecting them?
39:41
Speaker 5: I want to share something about one of the victims
39:44
Speaker 5: as quickly as I can. They said at our vidul
39:47
Speaker 5: last night, with which was absolutely amazing. Mason, the young
39:52
Speaker 5: man that was killed. One of his favorite video games
39:55
Speaker 5: was Kingdom of Hearts, and I'd never heard of it.
39:58
Speaker 5: But what they talked about is the whole premise of
40:00
Speaker 5: that video game was it's a story of light overcoming
40:04
Speaker 5: the darkness and the ultimate sacrifice. Did that child make
40:10
Speaker 5: but last night at that vigil, all we saw was light.
40:14
Speaker 5: But love will prevail in the situation. It's just I
40:18
Speaker 5: hate that those families lost their loved ones that day.
40:22
Speaker 1: We wait as justice unfolds, and as we put our
40:25
Speaker 1: heads on the pillar tonight, our prayers to the victims
40:31
Speaker 1: of this devastating school shooting at Appalachi Height. Nancy Grace
40:36
Speaker 1: setting off Goodbye friend,