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The teenage suspect in the Georgia mass shooting told police he would never shoot up a school when he was questioned over online threats about a potential school shooting one year before the attack, it has been revealed.
Colt Gray, 14, who previously appeared on the FBI’s radar, is accused of opening fire with an AR-style rifle, at Apalachee High School in the city of Winder on Wednesday which left four people – two students and two teachers – dead. He surrendered to authorities on the scene and will be charged with murder and tried as an adult.
Now it has emerged that the FBI and the police had interviewed Gray and his father Colin Gray in May 2023 over “online threats to commit a school shooting,” from the social media platform Discord, which contained photographs of guns, the FBI’s Atlanta office said in a statement.
After receiving several anonymous tips, the FBI confirmed the online threats originated from Georgia and referred the information to the Jackson County Sheriffs’ Office.
Police allegedly traced the online threats to Gray, then 13 years old, and interviewed him and his father, who said he had guns in the house.
When deputies visited Gray’s home on Rice Creek Court in Jefferson, Georgia, in 2023, they spoke to Gray who claimed he had deleted his Discord account before he and his father moved to their new home, according to a report obtained by The Independent.
“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 the report.
But further investigation of Gray’s Discord account showed that the account was made after the teen said he’d deleted his account.
The account had a username that was “written in Russian. Translation of the Russian letters spells out the name Lanza, referring to Adam Lanza, who is the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooter in Newton, Conn.,” according to the report.
When Gray’s father was questioned about the inconsistencies in his son’s statements, he insisted that the associated email address was not his or his son’s and that his son does not know or speak Russian, according to the report.
The investigation also revealed that the IP addresses associated with the Discord account appeared to come from different parts of Georgia, as well as New York and Virginia.
“The father stated he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them,” the statement said.
“The subject denied making the threats online. Jackson County alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the subject.”
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.”
Authorities told Colin Gray to keep his son out of school until the matter was “resolved.”
Following the interview, police determined there was “no probable cause for arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action”, the statement added.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation director Chris Hosey confirmed authorities are investigating links between the 2023 threats and Wednesday’s shooting.
“This is not recent,” he told a press conference on Wednesday night. “This is in the past, but we wanted to bring that to your attention because we are pursuing that, working with the FBI on this in any connection to that incident that could be connected to today’s incident as well.”
It was also revealed that Gray and his family had contact with the department of family and children’s services in the area.
Gray has been described by a classmate as “quiet” student who would often “skip class”.
Student Lyela Sayarath told CNN that she wasn’t surprised when she heard Gray was the suspected gunman because he fitted the description of a shooter.
Sayarath, who said she was sitting next to Gray in their algebra class just moments before the shooting, recalled how he left the room around 9.45am. He didn’t take the bathroom pass with him, so she assumed he was skipping class.
“He wasn’t there most times,” Sayarath said. “He either wouldn’t be there or skip class. But even when he would’ve talked, it was one-word answers and short statements.”
Tributes are now pouring in for the four victims, named as Mason Schermerhorn, Christian Angulo, both 14, and math teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53.
