Father of Georgia shooting suspect Colt Gray charged with second-degree murder

The aunt of suspected Georgia school shooter Annie Polhamus Brown has lamented the loss of the four men and women who lost their lives, allegedly at the hands of her nephew Colt Gray.

Brown, who lives in Florida, said that she is “eager” to share her thoughts about what might have prompted the shooting suspect to allegedly gun down students and staff at Apalachee High School.

However, “it will not be at this time,” Brown said.

Gray’s motives are still under investigation, authorities said.

Ricky Aspinwall went by many titles — football coach, math teacher, father, husband, father — and after the Apalachee High School shooting, he was tragically given another: victim.

“[This shooting] makes every educator in the country more anxious because schools are supposed to be a safe place,” his best friend and fellow educator Nick Bach told The Independent.

The shooting has prompted scrutiny of Georgia’s gun laws.

In May of 2023, the FBI got a tip about online threats on the app Discord regarding a school shooting. It traced the threats to Georgia and forwarded information to the Jackson County Sheriffs’ Office, which interviewed the Gray family.

Colin Gray, the Georgia shooting suspect’s father, said he kept hunting guns in the house, but that Colt did not have unsupervised access to them. Colt, meanwhile, denied making the online threats.

“Colt expressed concern that someone is accusing him of threatening to shoot up a school, stating that he would never say such a thing, even in a joking manner,” according to a police report obtained by The Independent.

Gray also told deputies that “he stopped using Discord because too many people kept hacking his account and he was afraid someone would use his information for nefarious purposes.”

During the interview with the Grays, a deputy openly mused about the stakes of the 2023 investigation, saying, “God forbid” if the online threats turned into an actual shooting, according to audio of the interview obtained by CNN.

Further investigation of Colt’s Discord page showed he made the account after he said he’d deleted it, and used a Russian username that “spells out the name Lanza, referring to Adam Lanza, who is the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooter in Newton, Conn.,” per the report.

Police notified local schools and no probable cause for an arrest was found at the time, according to the FBI.

Read Rhian Lubin’s story for more information.

As police continue to investigate yesterday’s mass shooting at a Georgia high school, a family member of Colt Gray is providing new insights into the 14-year-old’s home life.

Annie Polhamus Brown spoke with The Independent about her older sister Marcee Polhamus Gray and Marcee’s estranged husband Colin Gray.

Learn more in Justin Rohrlich’s full story.