Prosecutors in the trial of the Colin Gray, the father of the suspected Apalachee High School shooter, introduced a recorded interview Wednesday in court from shortly after the shooting.
Barrow County Investigator Jason Smith interviewed both Colin Gray and his son Colt after the 2024 shooting.
Prosecutors played his two-and-a-half-hourlong interview with Colin in front of the jury.
They say in that interview, he contradicted what he told the GBI on the morning of the shooting several times, on safe gun storage, how much he knew about his son’s mental health, and about how much he knew about Colt’s collage of Nicholas Cruz, the convicted killer in a school shooting in Parkland, Fla.
“This was in his room?” Gray asked, after being shown photos of Cruz and news clippings from the 2018 shooting.
After Smith answered that it had, he responded, “I’m telling you right now I never saw any of that. There was one picture, that one right there.”
Smith informed Colin Gray that two students and two faculty had been shot and killed by the shooter. Gray appeared remorseful, breaking into tears after hearing about the victims.
But Judge Nicholas Primm told the jury to disregard key moments where Investigator Smith tells Colin what Colt told him separately, because as far as evidence goes, it could be seen as hearsay.
Wednesday marked the eighth day of the trial, and prosecutors haven’t signaled that they’re done calling witnesses to testify. It’s unclear how long Gray’s attorneys will take to make their case to the jury, but the trial was forecast to run around three weeks.
Colin Gray has been charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, among other lesser charges, for allegedly providing his son Colt with the rifle used in the Apalachee shooting. Prosecutors have built their case by claiming Gray was negligent, and missed signs that his son was a danger to others.
