Georgia school shooter handed victims’ families ‘life sentence of trauma’, court hears | Georgia

The wife of a teacher killed in a Georgia high school shooting two years ago told a court Friday that the families of the four victims were sentenced to “a lifetime of pain and trauma” by the teenage student who killed them.

Shayna Aspinwall, whose husband, Richard, died Sept. 4, 2024, at Apalachee High School, about 45 miles northeast of Atlanta, was speaking at the sentencing hearing for 16-year-old Colt Gray, who previously pleaded guilty to 55 charges, including second-degree murder.

Gray admitted to carrying out the attack at a state court hearing in Barrow County Superior Court in Winder, Georgia; His “unnegotiated” plea deal with prosecutors eliminated the need for a trial scheduled for October.

The deal meant no sentence was agreed upon, and instead superior court judge Nicholas Primm heard a summary of the case and evidence from the defense and prosecution before determining the sentence for Gray’s conviction on 55 counts, including second-degree murder.

In the fire that opened, 39-year-old teachers Aspinwall and 53-year-old Cristina Irimie, as well as 14-year-old students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, lost their lives. Another teacher and eight other students suffered seven gunshot wounds.

Shayna Aspinwall told the court the lives of her daughters, who were aged two and five when their father died, “will forever be marked by his absence”.

“This means a lifetime of grief and trauma for those left behind,” he said.

Breanna Schermerhorn, whose son Mason was killed, said she has not forgiven Colt Gray. While the adults around him missed the warning signs, he decided to bring the gun and pull the trigger, he said.

“Those decisions were his alone,” he said. “Mason deserved a future, and we all deserved a future with Mason, and Colt got that from Mason and everyone who loved him.”

Gray’s father, Colin Gray, was convicted in March of charges including second-degree murder and manslaughter and is scheduled to be sentenced next week. He gave his son the assault-style rifle used in the school shooting, prosecutors said.

Colt Gray appeared in court for Friday’s hearing with his feet shackled together and watched by several relatives of the victims in the public gallery.

The judge questioned Gray to make sure he understood the implications of his plea and agreed to it voluntarily. Each time, Gray responded, “Yes, your honor.”

Murder carries a minimum sentence of life imprisonment. The judge must decide whether Gray will be eligible for parole after hearing the victim’s statements, the evidence, and both parties’ case summaries.

Several family members of those killed and students who were shot gave statements expressing anger and sadness. Many asked the judge to sentence Gray to life in prison without parole.

A young student who was injured, whose identity the Guardian has withheld, recalled the day of the shooting and said he remembered being “really scared and confused because I saw Colt standing at the door with the gun.”

He said he realized he had been shot and asked a friend to hold his hand. He asked other friends to call his brother and let him know that he had been shot and that he didn’t know if he would survive. He had multiple surgeries and was unable to walk for nearly a year.

“After the shooting, I struggled with a lot of anxiety and felt like my life was over,” she said.

Apalachee High School principal Jessica Rehberg said Colt Gray’s “cruel actions” deserved “the harshest consequences.”

Of the 55 charges, four were murder and 25 were aggravated assault. Gray, who was 14 at the time of the shooting, was charged as an adult.

According to detectives with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Gray carried his rifle with the barrel wrapped in poster board to the school bus, then left the second period classroom and exited the bathroom with the rifle, shooting at people in the classroom and in the hallway.

They said Gray carefully planned the attack and left instructions and a diagram in his notebook indicating he believed he could kill as many as 26 people and injure 13 others.

Investigators said they found a shrine in Gray’s bedroom to Nikolas Cruz, who killed 18 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida in 2018. Cruz was sentenced to life in prison in 2022.

Sheriff’s deputies interviewed Colt and Colin Gray in May 2023, 14 months before the attack, about an online threat linked to their son. Colt Gray denied making the threat.

Records show he skipped eighth grade, enrolled as a freshman at Apalachee after the academic year began, but did not attend school regularly. During Colin Gray’s trial, an investigator testified that he was aware of his son’s deteriorating mental health and considered providing him with counseling but did not arrange it.

The trial is expected to last until next week.

Associated Press contributed reporting