Colt Gray gets life in prison for killing 4 in Apalachee High School shooting

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.Colt Gray, 16, had pleaded guilty Friday to 55 counts, including murder, in the Sept.4, 2024, shooting at the school about 45 miles northeast of Atlanta.

Gray, who was 14 at the time, was charged as an adult.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, a forensic psychologist who had evaluated Gray, a youth detention center counselor and Gray’s grandmother.The minimum penalty for murder in Georgia is life with the possibility of parole.That left Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm with the decision of whether Gray should ever be eligible for parole.

He decided the teen should never be allowed out.Primm acknowledged that Gray was 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,” the judge said, alluding to Gray’s fascination with mass shooters.District Attorney Brad Smith had argued that Gray “cannot be in society.”“We’ve seen no evidence he has any ability to develop a conscience or any ability ever to fully value human life,” Smith said.Defense attorney W.Charlton Allen told the judge his client is “not irretrievably broken.” Giving him the possibility of parole would give him “an opportunity of hope,” Allen said, adding that without hope, “that takes away the ability for him to change.”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 ange...