The ‘evil’ father of Georgia school shooting suspect Colt Gray deserves to die for turning his son into a mass murderer, the boy’s grandfather has said.
Colin Gray faces four counts of manslaughter and two counts of second-degree murder amid claims he gave his son the AR-15-style rifle used in the massacre at Apalachee High School on Wednesday.
Gray’s ex-father-in-law said the 14-year-old was ‘driven by his father to do what he did’ as it emerged that Colt’s grandmother visited the school outside Winder just hours before the shooting to discuss his behavior.
‘Spending 11 years with that son of a bitch screaming and hollering every day, it can affect anybody,’ Charles Polhamus, 81, told the NY Post.
‘He needs the death penalty.’
Colin Gray, 54, the father of alleged Georgia school shooter Colt Gray shook in court on Friday as he appeared to face four counts of manslaughter and two counts of second-degree murder
Colt Gray, 14, was ‘driven’ by his abusive father to carry out the massacre that left four dead, his grandfather Charles Polhamus claimedÂ
Gray, 54, appeared in court on Friday after he was arrested over his role in the shooting that killed two students and two teachers, and left nine injured.
The alleged gunman’s parents split in 2022 after they were evicted from their home and Colt was living with Gray when the shooting took place.
‘Colt has to pay for what he did, but I’m telling you, he was driven, no question in my mind,’ Polhamus said from his home in Fitzgerald.
‘Colt is like a lot of young kids these days with the tablets and some of the garbage they pull up, the blood and all the fighting.
‘If you don’t think that has an impact on young kids, you’re missing the boat, and that was also part of Colt’s problem.
‘It’s part of it — and living with a dysfunctional dad who was a screamer and a hollerer.
‘No question about it. Prior to going through this, he was a good kid. I will preach that forever.’
Polhamus said his wife Deborah had gone to the school a day before the shooting as family concern about Colt mounted.
‘They were having some problems with him not going to school, and this kind of thing,’ he told CBS.
Colt Gray’s mother Marcee was previously ordered by a court to have only limited contact with Colt’s father after she pleaded guilty in December to a charge of family violence
Mason Schermerhorn, 14, an autistic student at Apalachee High School, was the first victim to be identified. He was among four people killed in the mass shootingÂ
Heartbreaking messages between a student at Apalachee High School and his mom have revealed the moment kids learned there was an active shooter
Teachers Richard Aspinwall and Christina Irimie were also killed in the tragedyÂ
‘My wife had gone up there the day before and met with the teachers to get him some.’
Polhamus spoke out after it was claimed that his daughter, Marcee Gray, called her son’s school to warn them of an ‘extreme emergency’ minutes before the shooting started.
‘I told them it was an extreme emergency and for them to go immediately and find [my son] to check on him,’ the mother told her sister in text messages seen by the Washington Post.
The outlet reported that a call log from the family’s shared phone plan shows Gray made a 10-minute call to the school at 9.50am on Wednesday, about half an hour before Colt allegedly opened fire.
She then got in her car and started driving toward the school, more than three hours away.
But about half-way there she learned that the tragedy she was racing to prevent had already taken place.
‘I was the one that notified the school counselor at the high school,’ he told her sister.
Further text exchanges reported from Marcee’s sister showed that Colt’s school and family were also in contact regarding his deteriorating mental health at least a week before the shooting.
Georgia school shooter Colt Gray made his first court appearance on Friday
Colin Gray appeared shortly after his son in the same courtroom
In one text, Brown reportedly told a relative that Colt was having ‘homicidal and suicidal thoughts.’
‘He shouldn’t have a gun, and he should’ve been in THERAPY months ago,’ she added in the text.
Brown said that her nephew had spent months ‘begging’ for mental health help, but the ‘adults around him failed him.’
Colt Gray’s AR-15-style rifle can be seen in the corridor of Apalachee High SchoolÂ
Marcee was previously ordered by a court to have only limited contact with Colt’s father after she pleaded guilty in December to a charge of family violence.
Months earlier in May 2023, the family had been visited by local law enforcement after receiving an FBI tip about threats to carry out a school shooting.
Colt denied making the threats, and Gray told cops that although he kept hunting rifles in the home his son was not allowed to use them unsupervised.
But the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said the boy’s father allowed him access to the AR-style rifle used in the shooting, as investigators probe claims it was gifted him as a Christmas present in December last year.
Polhamus said his former son-in-law cost the family their ‘half-million-dollar farm’ after spiraling into drug addiction following a back injury.
And he said his daughter was dragged into her then husband’s addiction but had always remained committed to their three children.
‘She is a good person and a mom,’ he insisted. ‘But I’m back to what I said about narcissists: They can change anybody.
‘Marcee never did anything to Colt. All she did is help him out.’
He also said his grandson sent her a message on the morning of the shooting, telling her ‘I’m sorry Mom’.
‘Colt didn’t cause that to happen. He did it,’ Polhamus said.
‘He didn’t wake up one day and decide I’m going to kill people. No, he didn’t do that. He came out of an environment.
‘If you step in a wad of s***, what happens to your foot? You step in a wad of s***.
‘This is no different. To live in that for 11 years, my daughter and her children.
‘If you live in that kind of relationship for 11 years you’re not going to stay stable.’
People wept at a vigil for the victims of Georgia’s deadliest ever school shootingÂ
Several classmates shared similar stories describing how Colt quietly slunk out of algebra class at around 10am on Wednesday, before he returned minutes later with a gun.
Another student, Bri Jones, 14, said she almost opened the door to Gray but stopped herself ‘as he was pulling his gun out.’
‘I froze up, like I froze up and I said ‘no’ to myself,’ Jones told CNN. ‘He would have got every single one of us in that class.’
Jones said she almost opened the door, but stopped herself thanks to a tip from her mother.
‘I always look out the door before I open it… it’s a habit my mom taught me,’ she said.
Although she saw the gun, Jones said her teacher urged her to open the door ‘because she didn’t know he had a gun because she was at her desk.’
‘She was going to walk over there, open it, and I was like, ‘no, he has a gun’,’ Jones recalled.
‘The shooter, he looked up,’ Jones continued. ‘He was looking at me, my teacher, and then somebody was in the hall. He turned his head, and he just started shooting.
‘Once he started shooting, it’s like he kept going, it was so many gunshots after gunshots… It felt like he was just shooting forever – and then like it stopped.’
Students said when Gray failed to enter his own classroom, he opened fire into the one next door as their door was open.
At that moment, teacher Richard Aspinwall was shot dead in front of his horrified class, which student Malaysia Mitchell said left her traumatized.
‘We had to drag our teacher’s body fully into the classroom,’ she told CNN. ‘We heard him take his last breath.’
Fourteen-year-old students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo also died in Georgia’s deadliest ever school shooting, along with math teacher Christina Irimie, 53.
‘He pulled the triggers,’ Polhamus said. ‘He killed people and he’s my grandson, and it breaks my damn heart.
Colt is being tried as an adult and was told at his court appearance on Friday that he could spend the rest of his life behind bars for the violent present.
His father faces eight counts of cruelty to children as well as his murder and manslaughter charges.
He’s getting what he deserves. My grandson is getting what he deserves, too,’ Polhamus said.
‘Vengeance is mine, say the lord.’