July 30, 2026
BREAKING: Georgia Father Sentenced To 15 Years In Prison For Son’s Murderous Rampage
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RSS Feed 55-year-old Collin Gray will spend the next 15 years behind bars, after a judge sentenced the father of 16-year-old Colt Gray for the 2024 school shooting that left 4 dead and 9 others wounded. Collin Gray gifted the assault rifle to his mentally unstable son who had shown an affinity towards school shooters in the months leading up to the mass shooting. Both father and son were sentenced on the same week, Colt getting life in prison without the possibility of parole, while Collin will be eligible for parole when he’s 70 years old.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey the folks that it's Thursday, July thirtieth, and on Tuesday, COLP Gray, a sixteen year old kid, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for a school shooting. And now here we are on Thursday, his dad has been sentenced to time in prison for the same school shooting. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Another I guess, a landmark case, one of the very few we've seen in the country where a parent also being held responsible for a school shooting. What a week robes, father and son days apart, both going to prison.
00:00:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a stunning week in terms of historic precedents, truly, for both father and son to be going to prison at the same time for very different lengths of time. But we have not seen this before, and certainly this is the first time in Georgia state history that a parent has been charged or convicted in connection to a shooting done by their child. So this is historic in the state, and it's only the second time we've seen something like this in the country.
00:01:15
Speaker 1: And we could see more and more of this. I assure you parents are paying attention and prosecutors around the country are paying attention. As well, but this happened just a short time of goal. So this is a breaking story. Everybody was watching the courtroom there in Georgia to see how this was going to go. The Sun, Yes, life in prison without the possibility of parole and rose the prosecutors in this case, again, the dad is being held responsible because he provided the gun, didn't see the warning signs, but Robes the prosecutors wanted, and they made a case today that this dude should be in prison for a long long time.
00:01:46
Speaker 2: Yes, the prosecution asked for the maximum sentence to be imposed. The district attorney told a judge before he took some time to make his final decision, that he believed that Colin Gray deserved a sentence of eighty years in prison. And we heard the victims' families. They have had a hell of a week. By the way, victim impact statements for Sun started on Friday, continued into Monday, and now they're back with victim impact statements for the father. So we have some of the same people making yes, some of the same people, and I mean that's just overwhelming to imagine you stand there in a court and you tell what they wanted to say to the judge about the sun, but then they had different feelings towards the father. But in both cases they asked each judge to give the defendant the maximum sentence, and when it came to Cold Gray, he did get the maximum sentence, life in prison without the possibility of parole for a sixteen year old. In terms of the sentence, the defense was asking for a much lighter sentence. They were asking for a twenty year sentence, only serving ten years behind, and the judge ended up leaning more towards the defense than the prosecution.
00:03:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's a big, big discrepancy. We always see that, of course ropes. Once I wants the max, once I wants the minimum, But eighty years versus ten years, and I don't know, you know what I'm I can't off the top of my head. Remember, I don't think necessarily do judge judges end up falling somewhere in the middle. That wasn't the case on this one. Eighty and ten. I mean, you could settled on forty or fifty, but the judge went went much lower and much closer to given the defense exactly what they wanted.
00:03:36
Speaker 2: I was a little surprised by this as well. So Colin Gray was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. He's a fifty five year old man, so that means he will not be eligible for or to get out I guess until he's seventy.
00:03:51
Speaker 1: But look, has to serve the fifteen.
00:03:53
Speaker 2: He has to serve the fifteen. And so look, when you consider what he was convicted of, and this was again a landmark case because he's the person to actually get a murder conviction. So he was convicted of two counts of second degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter in addition to twenty three counts of child cruelty and reckless conduct charges because they were also considering all the kids who were in that classroom, who were nearby, who were emotionally traumatized by what they witnessed, what they experienced, something they will never soon forget, and so all of those charges amounted to Look, there were different totals about what he was facing. I saw one headline that he was facing one hundred and eighty years. I saw another headline saying he was facing two hundred and eighty years. But ultimately the prosecution asked for the maximum, which they said in court today would have been eighty years behind bars. That does seem like an exceptionally long sentence. And look, not that he isn't responsible in some way, shape or form, but for someone who never pulled a trigger, for someone who did not know what his son was going to do that morning, that was a lot to ask.
00:05:07
Speaker 1: There is an argument he should have known what was going to happen. He should have known. It's stupid to put a semi automatic excuse me, an automatic rifle into the hands of a kid who has a shrine in his room that you have seen every single frickin' day a shrine to a school shooter ropes. The mom is a key witness to me, and at least her experience here. She's warning the dad, don't give him a gun, don't let him near the weapons, lock it up. He's a threat. If she knows it, the dad is clueless.
00:05:45
Speaker 2: If the dad must think he knows better, I'll help him channel all of this rage into hunting. I don't know how. I really can't get my head around. You know, I don't like guns. I'm not a gun person. I've never been around guns, so I don't understand this world, and I don't want to take away what people appreciate and grew up with and consider to be an important part of their culture or what they do. And so I don't want to, but I don't understand. I can't get my head around this at all. It seems absolutely the opposite of what someone should do. If you know you have a mentally unstable child who is struggling and who again has shown an absolute obsession with school.
00:06:32
Speaker 1: Shooters, that's what we're talking about. This is not a debate about whether or not there are plenty of parents out there who have those kids twelve thirteen years old out shooting and doing it safely. And you might not agree with that, but yes, people grow up in different cultures. Well that's okay, and hunting, it's different robes. This is not the argument. We're talking about a kid that if you don't know he's troubled, then you should have known he was troubled and robes. Even if you think I never think thought he would blame blank blank blank blank, you're still you're gonna roll the dice. He gave a kid with a shrine to a school shooter in his bedroom, gave him an automatic rifle.
00:07:17
Speaker 2: And then left the gun in his son's bedroom to do with as he played robes of fourteen year old.
00:07:24
Speaker 1: That's hard to understand now to your point about the eighty years, that seems excessive robes when you hear some more of the details about just the negligence there. Ah, it's hard. We didn't sit there and listen to everything like the jury did, of course, but a rose what they lay out as far as how could you even if you didn't know, you knew better than to give him this gun?
00:07:46
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and look one of the some of the outspoken parents who lost their children to Two fourteen year olds were killed. Two teachers were killed, but one of the moms of one of the fourteen year old boys who was killed said, this wasn't unavoidable. This was preventable because of the choices made inside the gray household. Four families were handed life sentences of grief. Thought that was a good way to put it when you measure the amount of time he's looking at behind bars versus the lifetime of pain and grief that four families are forced to endure because of his poor parenting.
00:08:24
Speaker 1: Igam Robi, this is just one It crosses. This crosses a line. I just don't understand either way. You could argue, if the kid was perfectly normal, had no issues, and you give him an automatic rifle, you could even argue, there that's not the right thing to do. But ropes a kid. That's what they explain over and over again, and that these weren't just these weren't overlooked. They were in your face. These were things that weren't overlooked. They were ignored. That's different. That's different. There's no other way to interpret what we're talking about. We don't know what's in this guy's heart. You know. I always leave room robes and give people a little grace. But what they lay out from what is known, it makes no sense that this kid would be handed an automatic weapon.
00:09:10
Speaker 2: It does not at all. And the fact that he acted as if he didn't know or he didn't realize that his son was capable of this. I understand parents don't want to think the worst of their kid. I understand that you always it's just a paternal intinc instinct, a maternal and a paternal instinct, a parental instinct. I should say, to defend your child, to assume the best of them, to think that they wouldn't have that kind of evil inside of them. And yet I have to say, if I saw my son with a shrine to a school shooter, that would be a massive red flag. And I don't know how you overlook that. I don't know how you brush that aside. I don't know how you say, well, that's just an innocent fascination with the bombas a nation. No, that is something altogether different. And I can't understand how that was ignored or overlooked or just brushed on, like brushed aside as if it was nothing.
00:10:13
Speaker 1: I had Michael Jordan posters on my on my wall, you had Michael Jackson. That's what you're supposed to have on your wall when you're thirteen, fourteen years old. Oh, he just has a morbid fascination with and the mom is talking about mental illness, and the mom is talking about he's a threat. Robes. That's negligent. And yes, you don't want to believe, but that's the point, bro. The parenting part comes in not in what you believe your kid is capable of, but in knowing your kid and recognizing that something is wrong and paying attention, being aware. We say that all the time, what's on the phone, what is your kid doing, who's your kid talking to?
00:10:50
Speaker 2: It's part of a job of a parent. So one of the one of the parents got up and said, look, you talk about being a new single dad and how hard it was and how difficult it was. That was part of his defense that he didn't know he was so overwhelmed and he was trying to just basically maneuver around or adjust to a new way of life, being recently separated from his wife. And she said, I was a single parent. It's not easy. It's hard, but it doesn't mean that you get to ignore needs like this, that your child was exhibiting. He needed help, and instead of giving him help, instead of giving him therapy, you gave him a gun. And that does not make any sense.
00:11:33
Speaker 1: And I wondered as well, how things I didn't get an explanation, or if I overlooked it, or it's just not out there. Why he was with the dad, right? Isn't that where he spent his full time? He was with the dad And that might have had to do with that. Maybe she thought he could give better guidance because the kid was struggling, or maybe the kid wanted to go with dad, or who actually knows but with this kid have had a gun, Would he have been the same threat if he was staying with mama. I don't know, be hindsight and just.
00:12:00
Speaker 2: And that is why prosecutors made the choice to prosecute the father and not the mother. They made that decision because he was in his care under his guidance. And look the prosecution when they were asking the judge to give him the eighty years the maximum sentence, the prosecutor even said the risk. This was the risk he was ignoring that there would be a mass shooting of children out of school, and he gave us on the exact tool he would need to accomplish this. He is the reason four people are dead, seven were injured, and countless others were traumatized. He is the reason a sixteen year old boy was sentenced two days ago to the rest of his life in prison. I thought that was that was really powerful, he said. Colin Gray, fifty five year old Colin Gray, you the father, You're the reason why your son is going to prison for the rest of his life.
00:12:53
Speaker 1: Could they care have gotten his hand on an automatic weapon?
00:12:56
Speaker 2: Doubt Otherwise doubtful.
00:12:58
Speaker 1: If he's resourceful enough. Maybe I know we talk about guns are easy to acquire, but you're fourteen looking to go get a freaking ar style rifle.
00:13:07
Speaker 2: It's not legal for a fourteen year old to be able to do that for the obvious reasons.
00:13:11
Speaker 1: How do all the school shooters get the guns?
00:13:14
Speaker 2: Robes usually from the parents, usually from the family home.
00:13:17
Speaker 1: He didn't have to unlock anything. It was handed to him with literally a bow on it at Christmas time.
00:13:23
Speaker 2: Newtown, Connecticut was very similar, almost exactly the same scenario, except for instead of the mom paying with a prison sentence, he killed her first before he went to the school, but she gave him the gun. She took him to target practice. She thought that this would help focus or channel some of his anger. Here's a big, obvious to me warning. If your child is troubled, if your child is struggling, the last thing you should give them is a gun and take them to target practice as an outlet for their rage.
00:13:59
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe I don't know robes who would suggest, you know, they're doing the best they can and this is what they thought. I don't know, baby, But to think a troubled kid, a kid who's had violent tendencies and all this that putting a gun in the hand is going to help. Let this be the last lesson we learn about this exactly. How could you ever turn to that? And we know how difficult it is to parents. I'm always I want to back off a little bit. And maybe these folks were doing the best they could and they just made a bad call. But I just don't understand how anybody could say I was doing the best I could or I thought this was a good.
00:14:39
Speaker 2: Idea exactly, And this case proves that exact point. When we come back, we're going to tell you what the judge had to say to Colin Gray when he handed down his sentence of fifteen years behind bars. And we'll also talk about how this actually is now officially the longest prison sentence any parent has received for their child crime, but there was a first in Michigan. We'll tell you the precedent sent setting case that now Colin Gray has actually well I guess he has now paid a different road now for other prosecutors to potentially seek even more time for parents who may be responsible. And and and welcome back everyone. We are now just getting word about the sentence handed down to fifty five year old Colin Gray. He is going to be spending the next fifteen years behind bars. He was convicted of second degree murder, in voluntary manslaughter, lots of charges, all because his son Yes shot and killed four people at a Georgia high school two years ago, wounding nine others, and now he is now paying for his son's crimes, but because of his role in all of this. And the judge made that very clear. He said, the weight of your crimes is tethered and tied to the acts of someone else, your son. Two scenarios you fail the same way in both. You fail to get cold counseling. You fail to remove the guns from the house. And that's it.
00:16:23
Speaker 1: Even if you didn't get them counseling. That's a lot of us might not know that and understand that and come up with that's That's one thing rops. Locking up a gun is just one oh one, ain't it? When it comes to any kid.
00:16:37
Speaker 2: In the house, it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be. And the hope is that this type of a ruling, followed by this prison sentence, will be a deterrent to any parent who thinks it's okay to give a miner an assault rifle, and not just any minor, but especially a troubled miner. We have seen this way too many time, and now yes, parents being held accountable. Will it change things? That's the hope.
00:17:07
Speaker 1: This is And I'm not sure. I think some argument was trying to be made in court and maybe some people listening and watching the story or making the argument that it was he shouldn't be punished. It was the kid who did the action. It was the kid who pulled the trigger. It was a kid who made the decision to do all these things. That kid would not have had the opportunity to do that, He would not have had it not been for his dad. Robes in that way, and maybe something it is a stretch, but it was a direct result. Maybe the kid would have been super resourceful and found a way to order a gun online. I don't know. But Robes this the dad.
00:17:44
Speaker 2: Put this in motion, absolutely.
00:17:47
Speaker 1: And for the families and the prosecutor, I can see that argument. Robes, this is the dad's fault, even though somebody else pulled the trigger. It's that's a weird thing to say, But Robes, this doesn't happen without the dad's action.
00:18:03
Speaker 2: It's absolutely true and a jury of his peers unanimously agreed. And look, this is a first in the state of Georgia, as we mentioned, but Michigan paved the way. Jennifer and James Crumbley were officially the first parents here in this country to face charges after their son Ethan killed four students and wounded others. This was at a high school in Michigan in twenty twenty one. They, much like Colin Gray, said they had no idea of their son's plans. They had no idea he would do something like this, but they were the ones who gifted him a gun before the shooting. It's almost identical. It's just that both parents were aware, and both parents gifted their son that gun. They are serving a ten year prison term for involuntary manslaughter.
00:18:57
Speaker 1: May that's a deterrent, you know what? If turn maybe if nothing else, it's not just parents trying to keep themselves out of jail. It's parents being aware of their kid's behavior. That just you have to be aware. You know when your kid is off, when they're different, when they're and yes, we notice when our kids are off for little things, right, you notice everything about your child. Your kid is off and exhibiting behavior robes that is described, how could you not think, well, like you said, because you're a parent and you never want to think your kid is messed up or has a problem, or needs serious help, or is a threat to anybody. Maybe that plays a big role in all this. But maybe these stories now robes will get parents to say, uh uh, I can't think like that.
00:19:41
Speaker 2: Yes, And even if perhaps you want to remove yourself from the idea that your child or that you're responsible for your child harming others, I just thought the argument that he's responsible. Colin Gray is responsible for harming his own child, for putting his own son in a position to be able to do what he did, And I do think that's the way to look at it. As a parent, you love your children. You love your children more than you love yourself, and maybe you make stupid decisions because you think of them as part of you, as a piece of you, and so you can't imagine that they would do anything that you wouldn't do, and so you get blinded by this strange connection that you believe you have control over. But if you think about it in those terms, that by handing his son the gun, he ended his son's life and the lives afore others.
00:20:38
Speaker 1: It's strange as it sounds. He might be the biggest culprit. He might be the one most responsible for the tragedy we saw. And the victims include the shooter. The shooter is a victim of Colin Gray. Then Colt Gray had victims as well. This is a this is awful, and we need to pay attention and robes change something we're doing. And maybe parents would just pay different attention to their kids. But this is a tough one to hear, it prohabs. It's as simple as the dad making a decision not to gift a gun to a fourteen year old could have prevented where we are.
00:21:18
Speaker 2: It could have and it almost certainly would have. And that was the message from the judge today to Colin Gray and the headlines everywhere. You know what, as awful as this was, maybe perhaps this will prevent another or a future tragedy. And without everyone, we always appreciate you listening to us. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ. Holmes. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 1: Hey the folks that it's Thursday, July thirtieth, and on Tuesday, COLP Gray, a sixteen year old kid, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for a school shooting. And now here we are on Thursday, his dad has been sentenced to time in prison for the same school shooting. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Another I guess, a landmark case, one of the very few we've seen in the country where a parent also being held responsible for a school shooting. What a week robes, father and son days apart, both going to prison.
00:00:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a stunning week in terms of historic precedents, truly, for both father and son to be going to prison at the same time for very different lengths of time. But we have not seen this before, and certainly this is the first time in Georgia state history that a parent has been charged or convicted in connection to a shooting done by their child. So this is historic in the state, and it's only the second time we've seen something like this in the country.
00:01:15
Speaker 1: And we could see more and more of this. I assure you parents are paying attention and prosecutors around the country are paying attention. As well, but this happened just a short time of goal. So this is a breaking story. Everybody was watching the courtroom there in Georgia to see how this was going to go. The Sun, Yes, life in prison without the possibility of parole and rose the prosecutors in this case, again, the dad is being held responsible because he provided the gun, didn't see the warning signs, but Robes the prosecutors wanted, and they made a case today that this dude should be in prison for a long long time.
00:01:46
Speaker 2: Yes, the prosecution asked for the maximum sentence to be imposed. The district attorney told a judge before he took some time to make his final decision, that he believed that Colin Gray deserved a sentence of eighty years in prison. And we heard the victims' families. They have had a hell of a week. By the way, victim impact statements for Sun started on Friday, continued into Monday, and now they're back with victim impact statements for the father. So we have some of the same people making yes, some of the same people, and I mean that's just overwhelming to imagine you stand there in a court and you tell what they wanted to say to the judge about the sun, but then they had different feelings towards the father. But in both cases they asked each judge to give the defendant the maximum sentence, and when it came to Cold Gray, he did get the maximum sentence, life in prison without the possibility of parole for a sixteen year old. In terms of the sentence, the defense was asking for a much lighter sentence. They were asking for a twenty year sentence, only serving ten years behind, and the judge ended up leaning more towards the defense than the prosecution.
00:03:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's a big, big discrepancy. We always see that, of course ropes. Once I wants the max, once I wants the minimum, But eighty years versus ten years, and I don't know, you know what I'm I can't off the top of my head. Remember, I don't think necessarily do judge judges end up falling somewhere in the middle. That wasn't the case on this one. Eighty and ten. I mean, you could settled on forty or fifty, but the judge went went much lower and much closer to given the defense exactly what they wanted.
00:03:36
Speaker 2: I was a little surprised by this as well. So Colin Gray was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. He's a fifty five year old man, so that means he will not be eligible for or to get out I guess until he's seventy.
00:03:51
Speaker 1: But look, has to serve the fifteen.
00:03:53
Speaker 2: He has to serve the fifteen. And so look, when you consider what he was convicted of, and this was again a landmark case because he's the person to actually get a murder conviction. So he was convicted of two counts of second degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter in addition to twenty three counts of child cruelty and reckless conduct charges because they were also considering all the kids who were in that classroom, who were nearby, who were emotionally traumatized by what they witnessed, what they experienced, something they will never soon forget, and so all of those charges amounted to Look, there were different totals about what he was facing. I saw one headline that he was facing one hundred and eighty years. I saw another headline saying he was facing two hundred and eighty years. But ultimately the prosecution asked for the maximum, which they said in court today would have been eighty years behind bars. That does seem like an exceptionally long sentence. And look, not that he isn't responsible in some way, shape or form, but for someone who never pulled a trigger, for someone who did not know what his son was going to do that morning, that was a lot to ask.
00:05:07
Speaker 1: There is an argument he should have known what was going to happen. He should have known. It's stupid to put a semi automatic excuse me, an automatic rifle into the hands of a kid who has a shrine in his room that you have seen every single frickin' day a shrine to a school shooter ropes. The mom is a key witness to me, and at least her experience here. She's warning the dad, don't give him a gun, don't let him near the weapons, lock it up. He's a threat. If she knows it, the dad is clueless.
00:05:45
Speaker 2: If the dad must think he knows better, I'll help him channel all of this rage into hunting. I don't know how. I really can't get my head around. You know, I don't like guns. I'm not a gun person. I've never been around guns, so I don't understand this world, and I don't want to take away what people appreciate and grew up with and consider to be an important part of their culture or what they do. And so I don't want to, but I don't understand. I can't get my head around this at all. It seems absolutely the opposite of what someone should do. If you know you have a mentally unstable child who is struggling and who again has shown an absolute obsession with school.
00:06:32
Speaker 1: Shooters, that's what we're talking about. This is not a debate about whether or not there are plenty of parents out there who have those kids twelve thirteen years old out shooting and doing it safely. And you might not agree with that, but yes, people grow up in different cultures. Well that's okay, and hunting, it's different robes. This is not the argument. We're talking about a kid that if you don't know he's troubled, then you should have known he was troubled and robes. Even if you think I never think thought he would blame blank blank blank blank, you're still you're gonna roll the dice. He gave a kid with a shrine to a school shooter in his bedroom, gave him an automatic rifle.
00:07:17
Speaker 2: And then left the gun in his son's bedroom to do with as he played robes of fourteen year old.
00:07:24
Speaker 1: That's hard to understand now to your point about the eighty years, that seems excessive robes when you hear some more of the details about just the negligence there. Ah, it's hard. We didn't sit there and listen to everything like the jury did, of course, but a rose what they lay out as far as how could you even if you didn't know, you knew better than to give him this gun?
00:07:46
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and look one of the some of the outspoken parents who lost their children to Two fourteen year olds were killed. Two teachers were killed, but one of the moms of one of the fourteen year old boys who was killed said, this wasn't unavoidable. This was preventable because of the choices made inside the gray household. Four families were handed life sentences of grief. Thought that was a good way to put it when you measure the amount of time he's looking at behind bars versus the lifetime of pain and grief that four families are forced to endure because of his poor parenting.
00:08:24
Speaker 1: Igam Robi, this is just one It crosses. This crosses a line. I just don't understand either way. You could argue, if the kid was perfectly normal, had no issues, and you give him an automatic rifle, you could even argue, there that's not the right thing to do. But ropes a kid. That's what they explain over and over again, and that these weren't just these weren't overlooked. They were in your face. These were things that weren't overlooked. They were ignored. That's different. That's different. There's no other way to interpret what we're talking about. We don't know what's in this guy's heart. You know. I always leave room robes and give people a little grace. But what they lay out from what is known, it makes no sense that this kid would be handed an automatic weapon.
00:09:10
Speaker 2: It does not at all. And the fact that he acted as if he didn't know or he didn't realize that his son was capable of this. I understand parents don't want to think the worst of their kid. I understand that you always it's just a paternal intinc instinct, a maternal and a paternal instinct, a parental instinct. I should say, to defend your child, to assume the best of them, to think that they wouldn't have that kind of evil inside of them. And yet I have to say, if I saw my son with a shrine to a school shooter, that would be a massive red flag. And I don't know how you overlook that. I don't know how you brush that aside. I don't know how you say, well, that's just an innocent fascination with the bombas a nation. No, that is something altogether different. And I can't understand how that was ignored or overlooked or just brushed on, like brushed aside as if it was nothing.
00:10:13
Speaker 1: I had Michael Jordan posters on my on my wall, you had Michael Jackson. That's what you're supposed to have on your wall when you're thirteen, fourteen years old. Oh, he just has a morbid fascination with and the mom is talking about mental illness, and the mom is talking about he's a threat. Robes. That's negligent. And yes, you don't want to believe, but that's the point, bro. The parenting part comes in not in what you believe your kid is capable of, but in knowing your kid and recognizing that something is wrong and paying attention, being aware. We say that all the time, what's on the phone, what is your kid doing, who's your kid talking to?
00:10:50
Speaker 2: It's part of a job of a parent. So one of the one of the parents got up and said, look, you talk about being a new single dad and how hard it was and how difficult it was. That was part of his defense that he didn't know he was so overwhelmed and he was trying to just basically maneuver around or adjust to a new way of life, being recently separated from his wife. And she said, I was a single parent. It's not easy. It's hard, but it doesn't mean that you get to ignore needs like this, that your child was exhibiting. He needed help, and instead of giving him help, instead of giving him therapy, you gave him a gun. And that does not make any sense.
00:11:33
Speaker 1: And I wondered as well, how things I didn't get an explanation, or if I overlooked it, or it's just not out there. Why he was with the dad, right? Isn't that where he spent his full time? He was with the dad And that might have had to do with that. Maybe she thought he could give better guidance because the kid was struggling, or maybe the kid wanted to go with dad, or who actually knows but with this kid have had a gun, Would he have been the same threat if he was staying with mama. I don't know, be hindsight and just.
00:12:00
Speaker 2: And that is why prosecutors made the choice to prosecute the father and not the mother. They made that decision because he was in his care under his guidance. And look the prosecution when they were asking the judge to give him the eighty years the maximum sentence, the prosecutor even said the risk. This was the risk he was ignoring that there would be a mass shooting of children out of school, and he gave us on the exact tool he would need to accomplish this. He is the reason four people are dead, seven were injured, and countless others were traumatized. He is the reason a sixteen year old boy was sentenced two days ago to the rest of his life in prison. I thought that was that was really powerful, he said. Colin Gray, fifty five year old Colin Gray, you the father, You're the reason why your son is going to prison for the rest of his life.
00:12:53
Speaker 1: Could they care have gotten his hand on an automatic weapon?
00:12:56
Speaker 2: Doubt Otherwise doubtful.
00:12:58
Speaker 1: If he's resourceful enough. Maybe I know we talk about guns are easy to acquire, but you're fourteen looking to go get a freaking ar style rifle.
00:13:07
Speaker 2: It's not legal for a fourteen year old to be able to do that for the obvious reasons.
00:13:11
Speaker 1: How do all the school shooters get the guns?
00:13:14
Speaker 2: Robes usually from the parents, usually from the family home.
00:13:17
Speaker 1: He didn't have to unlock anything. It was handed to him with literally a bow on it at Christmas time.
00:13:23
Speaker 2: Newtown, Connecticut was very similar, almost exactly the same scenario, except for instead of the mom paying with a prison sentence, he killed her first before he went to the school, but she gave him the gun. She took him to target practice. She thought that this would help focus or channel some of his anger. Here's a big, obvious to me warning. If your child is troubled, if your child is struggling, the last thing you should give them is a gun and take them to target practice as an outlet for their rage.
00:13:59
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe I don't know robes who would suggest, you know, they're doing the best they can and this is what they thought. I don't know, baby, But to think a troubled kid, a kid who's had violent tendencies and all this that putting a gun in the hand is going to help. Let this be the last lesson we learn about this exactly. How could you ever turn to that? And we know how difficult it is to parents. I'm always I want to back off a little bit. And maybe these folks were doing the best they could and they just made a bad call. But I just don't understand how anybody could say I was doing the best I could or I thought this was a good.
00:14:39
Speaker 2: Idea exactly, And this case proves that exact point. When we come back, we're going to tell you what the judge had to say to Colin Gray when he handed down his sentence of fifteen years behind bars. And we'll also talk about how this actually is now officially the longest prison sentence any parent has received for their child crime, but there was a first in Michigan. We'll tell you the precedent sent setting case that now Colin Gray has actually well I guess he has now paid a different road now for other prosecutors to potentially seek even more time for parents who may be responsible. And and and welcome back everyone. We are now just getting word about the sentence handed down to fifty five year old Colin Gray. He is going to be spending the next fifteen years behind bars. He was convicted of second degree murder, in voluntary manslaughter, lots of charges, all because his son Yes shot and killed four people at a Georgia high school two years ago, wounding nine others, and now he is now paying for his son's crimes, but because of his role in all of this. And the judge made that very clear. He said, the weight of your crimes is tethered and tied to the acts of someone else, your son. Two scenarios you fail the same way in both. You fail to get cold counseling. You fail to remove the guns from the house. And that's it.
00:16:23
Speaker 1: Even if you didn't get them counseling. That's a lot of us might not know that and understand that and come up with that's That's one thing rops. Locking up a gun is just one oh one, ain't it? When it comes to any kid.
00:16:37
Speaker 2: In the house, it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be. And the hope is that this type of a ruling, followed by this prison sentence, will be a deterrent to any parent who thinks it's okay to give a miner an assault rifle, and not just any minor, but especially a troubled miner. We have seen this way too many time, and now yes, parents being held accountable. Will it change things? That's the hope.
00:17:07
Speaker 1: This is And I'm not sure. I think some argument was trying to be made in court and maybe some people listening and watching the story or making the argument that it was he shouldn't be punished. It was the kid who did the action. It was the kid who pulled the trigger. It was a kid who made the decision to do all these things. That kid would not have had the opportunity to do that, He would not have had it not been for his dad. Robes in that way, and maybe something it is a stretch, but it was a direct result. Maybe the kid would have been super resourceful and found a way to order a gun online. I don't know. But Robes this the dad.
00:17:44
Speaker 2: Put this in motion, absolutely.
00:17:47
Speaker 1: And for the families and the prosecutor, I can see that argument. Robes, this is the dad's fault, even though somebody else pulled the trigger. It's that's a weird thing to say, But Robes, this doesn't happen without the dad's action.
00:18:03
Speaker 2: It's absolutely true and a jury of his peers unanimously agreed. And look, this is a first in the state of Georgia, as we mentioned, but Michigan paved the way. Jennifer and James Crumbley were officially the first parents here in this country to face charges after their son Ethan killed four students and wounded others. This was at a high school in Michigan in twenty twenty one. They, much like Colin Gray, said they had no idea of their son's plans. They had no idea he would do something like this, but they were the ones who gifted him a gun before the shooting. It's almost identical. It's just that both parents were aware, and both parents gifted their son that gun. They are serving a ten year prison term for involuntary manslaughter.
00:18:57
Speaker 1: May that's a deterrent, you know what? If turn maybe if nothing else, it's not just parents trying to keep themselves out of jail. It's parents being aware of their kid's behavior. That just you have to be aware. You know when your kid is off, when they're different, when they're and yes, we notice when our kids are off for little things, right, you notice everything about your child. Your kid is off and exhibiting behavior robes that is described, how could you not think, well, like you said, because you're a parent and you never want to think your kid is messed up or has a problem, or needs serious help, or is a threat to anybody. Maybe that plays a big role in all this. But maybe these stories now robes will get parents to say, uh uh, I can't think like that.
00:19:41
Speaker 2: Yes, And even if perhaps you want to remove yourself from the idea that your child or that you're responsible for your child harming others, I just thought the argument that he's responsible. Colin Gray is responsible for harming his own child, for putting his own son in a position to be able to do what he did, And I do think that's the way to look at it. As a parent, you love your children. You love your children more than you love yourself, and maybe you make stupid decisions because you think of them as part of you, as a piece of you, and so you can't imagine that they would do anything that you wouldn't do, and so you get blinded by this strange connection that you believe you have control over. But if you think about it in those terms, that by handing his son the gun, he ended his son's life and the lives afore others.
00:20:38
Speaker 1: It's strange as it sounds. He might be the biggest culprit. He might be the one most responsible for the tragedy we saw. And the victims include the shooter. The shooter is a victim of Colin Gray. Then Colt Gray had victims as well. This is a this is awful, and we need to pay attention and robes change something we're doing. And maybe parents would just pay different attention to their kids. But this is a tough one to hear, it prohabs. It's as simple as the dad making a decision not to gift a gun to a fourteen year old could have prevented where we are.
00:21:18
Speaker 2: It could have and it almost certainly would have. And that was the message from the judge today to Colin Gray and the headlines everywhere. You know what, as awful as this was, maybe perhaps this will prevent another or a future tragedy. And without everyone, we always appreciate you listening to us. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ. Holmes. We'll talk soon.