"GAVE HIS SON A GUN: THE COLIN GRAY TRIAL, AMERICAN IDOL PASTOR'S 911 CALL & KURT COBAIN'S 'MURDER'"

0:03 Caalarogu Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Reed Carter Tuesday, February twenty fourth, twenty twenty six. Last week we brought you the first two days of the Colin Gray trial in winder Georgia, the father of Appalachi High School shooter, Colt Gray, facing two counts of second degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter for giving his fourteen year old son an assault style rifle and ignoring every warning sign that child was planning a massacre. Days three, four and five filled in the picture, and it is ugly forensic testimony about what one hundred three cartridges due to a school hallway, a medical examiner saying none of the four victims could have survived their wounds even if it happened on the steps of a hospital, and Colt Gray's maternal grandmother on the stand revealing that before the shooting, her grandson asked her a question that should haunt everyone who let this happen.

0:56 That's the main event today. Then. Caleb Flynn, thirty nine years old. You might remember him from American Idol in twenty thirteen, music pastor worship leader devoted Christian at two thirty in the morning on February sixteenth, he called nine to one one from his Tip City, Ohio home, hyperventilating, said someone broke in and shot his wife, Ashley, twice in the head. Police say he did it, charged with murder, and finally, a peer reviewed forensic paper just published in the International Journal of Forensic Science says Kurt Cobain didn't kill himself, says he was overdosed on heroin by an assailant and then shot. The Seattle Police Department isn't interested.

1:41 We are. I'm Reed Carter. Today a father's trial, a pastor's nine one one call, and a thirty one year old murder mystery. This is celebrity trials. Let's go back to Barrow County, Georgia. Winder Barrow County Courthouse the trial of Colin Gray, fifty four years old, accused of giving his son the weapon used to kill four people at Appalachi High School on September fourth. Di Vituxtoshi Divdesmitchetri. We covered days one and two. Last week, opening statements, survivor testimony from the students and teachers in the classrooms the moment. Colt Gray, just fourteen years old, only in his fifth day at a new school, walked out of a bathroom in yellow work gloves, carrying an AR style rifle concealed inside a rolled up poster board. Day three picked up with the forensic reconstruction of what happened. Next. Zay Zeen, now eighteen years old and graduated from Appalachi, took the stand.

2:40 He was a student there that morning. He described seeing a white male with blondish hair carrying what appeared to be an AR style weapon. Colt Gray pointed the gun directly at him. Zaye ran. His teacher wouldn't open the classroom door to let him back in, following lockdown protocol, and told him to hide in the bathroom instead. He did. He told the court he was prepared to defend himself if it came to that. De Martin, the assistant principal, testified next. On the morning of the shooting, Colt's first period teacher, Suzanne Harris, had already emailed the school with concerns about this student. He'd asked her whether the school held active shooter drills. He had a heavy, awkward looking backpack that alone should have set off alarms. And then the detail that absolutely floors you Colt's mother, Marcy Gray, called the school four minutes before her son stood up from his desk to leave class. She was worried about his emotional well being, and she told them he had access to firearms. Four minutes later, Colt left his second period algebra class, supposedly to go to the counseling office.

3:49 He didn't. He went to the bathroom. He stayed there for thirty two minutes. The school was already searching for him. They had a name confusion problem. Another student was also named Colton Gray also went by Colt. It slowed them down. At ten twenty two in the morning, he walked back into that hallway. The forensic testimony in day three was methodical and devastating. GBI crime scene specialist Daniella Stewart showed the jury a video scan of the school, the entire crime scene captured and preserved. The stocking cap Colt had in his backpack was found in the men's bathroom. The poster board he'd wrapped around the gun barrel was recovered on the ground in the hallway. Then GBI firearms examiner Sarah van Holm testified about the weapon and the ammunition thirty six cartridge casings were recovered from the scene, meaning Colt Gray fired at least thirty six shots. There were sixty seven unused cartridges also recovered. He could have fired sixty seven more. He brought one hundred and three cartridges to school that morning one hundred and three. The rifle itself, a modified AR fifteen style Big sour M four hundred, cost approximately one thousand dollars. It had a vertical foregrip and sights added after purchase. Required seven point twenty five pounds of trigger pressure to fire, the equivalent of lifting a gallon of milk. A fourteen year old doing it over and over, and then Doctor Samantha Maddox, the GBI

5:21 medical examiner, took the stand. Mason Shermerhorn fourteen years old, shot three times in the head, and Torso Christian Angelo fourteen years old, shot once, but the bullet passed through both of his arms and then into his chest. He was trying to protect himself trying to block the shot. Christina Eremi fifty three years old, teacher, shot once. The bullet struck her. Aorda Richard Aspinwall thirty nine years old, teacher coach, shot three times. Doctor Maddox described all four injuries as catastrophic, and then she said something that will stay with you. She testified that none of the victims would have survived their wounds even if those injuries had occurred just outside the hospital. None of them. There was nothing anyone could have done to save them. Once Colt Gray pulled that trigger. Nothing. Day four moved the focus from the school itself to the question at the center of this trial, what did Colin Gray know and when did he know it? The prosecution brought a parade of witnesses through social services, school systems, and law enforcement to build the case that Colin wasn't just negligent, he was actively, repeatedly warned and repeatedly looked away. A school employee testified that back in twenty twenty one, Colt had used a school computer to search the terms abuse and how to kill my Dad. The school sent a resource officer to the home. They spoke with Marci, They did not contact

6:53 Colin directly. A DFCS caseworker testified that a case was opened in September twenty twenty one after Marci struck Colt. Marcie told the caseworker she would get Colt into counseling. Colin was aware the case had been opened. He took Colt back to North Georgia and told the caseworker he would get his son counseling. He did not get his son counseling. A witness from a ministry in Barrow County testified there are no records of Colin Gray ever seeking counseling for Colt. In October twenty twenty three. A mental health therapist testified she received an inquiry about counseling for Colt in August twenty twenty four, just weeks before the shooting. She spoke to Colin Gray once the appointment was never set up. She never heard from him again. One of the most significant witnesses on Day four was Dan Miller of the Jackson County Sheriff's Office. In May twenty twenty three, the FBI received a tip about a discord user making school shooting threats. The tip traced back to Colt Gray's address.

7:55 Law enforcement visited Colin Gray's home. Colt claimed his discord account had been hacked. The officer told Colin as a matter of standard protocol, to secure the weapons in the home. The next month, June twenty twenty three, a DFCS caseworker visited the home. Colin Gray did not tell her about the school shooting threat that had been investigated the month before. A Child Protective Services investigator also did a home safety assessment. Colin Gray did not tell her about the other DFCS cases. Colin Gray's body camera footage from the day of the shooting was played in court. He's at home when police arrive. He can be heard saying he knew something had happened, that his daughter had texted him. He told officers he was hoping to God that his son hadn't done anything, and then he told them Colt was in counseling. He was not. Day five Friday, the jury saw photographs of Colt Gray's bedroom and the shrine Nicholas Cruz, the Parkland shooter.

8:57 February twenty eighteen, seventeine students and staff murdered at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. Colt Gray had a shrine to Nicholas Cruz next to his computer, multiple photographs, a deliberate, organized tribute to one of the deadliest school shooters in American history. This shrine was in the bedroom in a home. Colin Gray lived in in a house where he was, by his own defense attorney's argument, a full time father trying to help his struggling son. Colt's maternal grandmother, Debbie pul Haemis, took the stand. She described Colt's chaotic upbringing. Colin and Marcie moved back and forth between North and South Georgia multiple times between twenty twenty and twenty twenty four. Marci had documented drug problems and legal issues. Colt was bounced between households, between school systems fourteen different schools over his academic career, with his eighth grade year effectively missing from the record entirely, no evidence of homeschooling, no enrollment anywhere, just gone and then pull Hamos Toda described a moment that stopped the courtroom. After a panic attack at school, Colt Gray asked his grandmother a question if I do something terrible, would you still love me? That question was asked before September fourth, twenty twenty four. A fourteen year old child with a shrine to a mass murderer in his bedroom, a history of threats, cutting himself, breaking windows, hearing voices, asked his grandmother if

10:27 she would still love him if he did something terrible. Marcy Gray was scheduled to testify after her mother, but she was late to the courthouse. She went briefly missing. The judge released the jury early for the weekend while the parties waited for her. Day six continues today, we'll bring you updates. Richard Aspenwall was thirty nine years old. He was a teacher, a coach, a man who walked towards students to protect them and was shot three times for it. He should be in a classroom right now. Christina Hearramie was fifty three years old, a teacher who looked out from her classroom and was shot once, one bullet through the aorda. She should be grading papers right now.

11:10 Mason Shermerhorn was fourteen years old. Christian Angulo was fourteen years old. They were in their first weeks of high school. They should be in class right now. Rest in peace to all four. We'll be right back with the American idol contestant now charged with murdering his wife while their children slept in the next room. Welcome back to celebrity trials. I'm reed Carter February sixteenth, twenty twenty six two thirty in the morning. Tip City, Ohio, a small town about twenty miles north of Dayton. A nine to one to one operator picks up a call. There's a man on the line. He is hyperventilating, sobbing, barely getting words out.

12:07 Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god. Somebody broke into my home and shot my wife. The dispatcher asks if the intruder is still inside. He doesn't know. Please hurry, please, please hurry. Asked what he can see, the man says, my wife. She's got two shots to her head. There is blood everywhere. Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god. Officers arrived at the home and found Ashley Flynn, thirty seven years old, dead in the master bedroom, two gunshot wounds to the head. The man on the phone was Caleb Flynn, thirty nine years old, the husband and now the defendant. Prosecutors alleged that Caleb Flynn shot his wife himself and then called nine to one one to stage a break in scenario. Some of you may know the name Caleb Flynn appeared on American Idol in twenty thirteen. He made it through a auditions, talking about his faith and his family, spoke about how much he loved his wife. I absolutely love the Lord.

13:06 I love my wife more than anything. She is very, very pretty. I love her. That's him on national television over a decade ago. After the show, Caleb became a music pastor and worship leader at Christian Life Center in Butler Township, Ohio. A figure of the faith community, a family man, Ashley Flynn was a beloved figure two. A graduate of Tippecanu High School and Lee University, she coached girls volleyball at Tippecanu Middle School, worked as a substitute teacher for Tip City Schools, taught at LifeWise Academy, a nonprofit providing Bible based education to public school students. Her district described her as someone known for her beautiful smile, warmth, kindness, and the positive impact she had on so many both in and out of the classroom and on the court.

13:58 A go fund me for her daughters raised more than one hundred thousand dollars in a single day. Their two children were sleeping in nearby rooms when this happened two thirty in the morning. Here's what investigators say. They found two shell casings near the foot of the bed, the center console of Caleb's twenty twenty four Ford pickup truck was open and that is where he told police he kept his handgun. And in the garage a large refrigerator had been positioned directly in front of the garage's side door. In order for an intruder to enter through that door, they would have had to push that refrigerator aside. They didn't because there was no intruder. Caleb Flynn has been charged with murder, two counts of felonious assault with a deadly weapon, and two counts of tampering with evidence. His bond was set at two million dollars. He was booked into Miami County Jail on Thursday evening and was due back in court for a preliminary hearing. Police Chief Greg Adkins pushed back on reports circulating online that a suspect had confessed. The Flynn family is coping with an unam imaginable loss and the department will not try this case in the media. This matter will be resolved through the judicial process and adjudicated in a court of law. The FBI, Miami County Sheriff's Office, and Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation are all assisting with what they describe as a complex investigation.

15:21 Complex is the right word, because whatever this is staging, premeditation, or something, investigators are still unraveling. It happened in a house with sleeping children, in the middle of the night, in a home that the entire community trusted belonged to a godly, loving family. We will track this case as it develops. Ashley Flynn was thirty seven years old. A teacher, a coach, a mother, the kind of person who gave Bible lessons to public school kids and could make a gym full of middle school volleyball players believe in themselves. She should be planning her spring season right now. She should be home with her daughters. Rest in peace, Ashley coming up. A peer reviewed forensic paper says Kurt Cobain was murdered, the evidence, the experts, and why Seattle police still aren't interested. Welcome back to celebrity trials. I'm reed Carter, April fifth, nineteen ninety four, Seattle, Washington. The greenhouse above the garage at Kurt Cobain's Lake Washington home. The lead singer of Nirvana is found dead by an electrician who came to install a security system. Shotgun wound to the head Remington Model eleven twenty gage. He is twenty seven years old. The King County Medical Examiner rules it a suicide.

16:53 The case is closed for thirty one years. It stays closed now. A peer reviewed forensic paper published in the International Journal of Forensic Science is arguing that Kurt Cobain was murdered. That someone or multiple people forced a heroin overdose on him to render him unconscious, then shot him, placed the gun in his arms, and left behind a forged suicide note. The paper was produced by an unofficial, private sector forensic team. The lead analyst is Brian Burnett, a specialist with decades of experience. He's known for work on the marine Colonel James Sabocase and others where his forensic reconstructions challenged official findings. Independent researcher Michelle Wilkins worked with the team and has spoken publicly about their conclusions.

17:40 Burnett reportedly said, after just three days reviewing the evidence, this is a homicide. We've got to do something about this. The paper presents ten points of evidence. Let me walk you through the most compelling ones. First, the organ damage. Cobain's autopsy showed fluid in the lung bleeding in the eyes, and necrosis tissue death in the brain and liver. According to the forensic team, those specific injuries don't happen in an instantaneous gun shot death. They happen in a prolonged overdose where oxygen slowly stops reaching the organs, the brain and liver starve. The necrosis of the brain and liver happens in an overdose, Wilkins said, it doesn't happen in a shotgun death. Second, the blood spatter, or the lack of it. In shotgun suicides, the hands and surrounding area are covered in blood. The forensic team says Cobaine's left hand was unusually inexplicably clean. Their theory his left hand was placed on the weapon after death to create the appearance he held it, which is why there's no spatter.

18:51 The hand wasn't there when the gun fired. Third, the shell casing. The team replicated the weapon. They found that if a person's hand is positioned on the forward barrel the way Cobain's hand was described in the police report, the gun wouldn't eject a shell at all. Yet a shell was found at the scene, and it was found in the opposite direction from where physics says it should have ejected. Fourth, the gun itself. The shotgun Cobain allegedly used, weighed six pounds, it had a long barrel. The team argues it would be extraordinarily difficult for a person in a heroin induced coma, which the toxicology suggests he was, to hold that weapon in position and reach the trigger.

19:39 Imagine he's comatose and dying, Wilkins said, and also the way that he would have had to hold it, it's crazy. Fifth the blood on his shirt. There's a large blood stain on the bottom of Cobain's shirt. The team says the only way blood gets there is if the body was lifted with the head facing down after death. There's no blood on his hand, There's no blood on the rest of his shirt, but there's a big blood stain on the bottom, suggesting the body was moved after the shooting. Sixth, the heroin kit next to Cobain's body was a heroin kit capped syringes, cotton buds, pieces of black heroine of roughly equal size. The police concluded he had injected himself with approximately three times and at a level ten times what a heavy user would normally take, but the kit was found in perfect order, capped needles, everything tidy. We're supposed to believe. Wilkins said, he capped the needles and put everything back in order after shooting up three times, because that's what someone does while they're dying. And seventh, the note. The forensic team examined Cobain's suicide note and believes the top portion was written by Cobain himself, but about quitting the band, no mention of suicide. The final four lines, they argue, were written by someone else. If you even look at the note, Wilkins said, you can

21:09 see that the last four lines are written differently. It's bigger, it's more scrawly. Receipts for the gun and the shells were found in Cobain's pocket. The scene was immaculate to me, Wilkins said. It looks like someone staged a movie and wanted you to be absolutely certain this was a suicide. Now the pushback, the King County Medical Examiner's Office told The Daily Mail that they followed all procedures, conducted a full autopsy, and remain at their determination of suicide. They said they're open to revisiting conclusions if new evidence comes to light, but have seen nothing to warrant reopening the case.

21:50 The Seattle Police Department said their detective concluded it was a suicide and that remains the department's position. Both declined to reopen. The forensic team says they're not asking for arrests. They're asking for transparency, for someone to look at their evidence and prove them wrong. If we're wrong, just prove it to us. That's all we ask them to do. Here's where I land on this. The forensic paper went through peer review and was published in a legitimate journal that matters. These aren't YouTube conspiracy theorists with a podcast. These are people with credentials presenting physical evidence to scientific standards. The questions they're raising about the blood patterns, the shell casing, and the organ damage are specific, technical and not easily dismissed.

22:34 Does that mean Kurt Cobain was definitely murdered? No. Forensic analysis has been wrong before in both directions. The police investigation in nineteen ninety four was thorough by the standards of the time, but we looked into it thirty one years ago and we're comfortable. Is not the same as engaging with a peer reviewed forensic re examination, and the human cost of getting this wrong in either direction is real. Wilkins mentioned that in twenty twenty two, a young person took their own life because they believed Cobain had done the same. If the original ruling is wrong, the ripple effects go on for decades. Seattle should look at the paper.

23:14 That's not a radical ask. Kurt Cobain was twenty seven years old. One of the most important voices in American music gone on April fifth, nineteen ninety four, Whether by his own hand or someone else's. The world lost something irreplaceable that day. That's celebrity trials for Tuesday, February twenty fourth, twenty twenty six. Colin Gray trial in winder Georgia. Days three through five, one hundred and three Cartridges brought to a high school four victims whose injuries were unsurvivable from the first second. A grandmother on the stand describing a boy who asked if he'd still be loved if he did something terrible. Day six is today. Former American Idol contestant Caleb Flynn charged with murdering his wife Ashley, in their Ohio home while their children slept near by two thirty in the morning, two shots to the head, a staged break in bond set at two million dollars, and forensic scientists publishing peer reviewed research say Kurt Cobain was murdered in nineteen ninety four. Seattle is not interested. The evidence says they should be. I'm reed, Carter, join us tomorrow for whatever breaks. This is celebrity trials.