A grand jury handed down dozens of charges Thursday for the alleged Apalachee High School shooter and his father, also accused in connection with the deadliest school shooting in Georgia’s history.
New charges against 14-year-old Colt Gray include 4 counts of “malice murder,” 22 counts of aggravated assault and 18 counts of cruelty to children in the first degree. He faces a total of 55 counts.
District Attorney Brad Smith said the indictment includes charges related not only to victims who were killed and physically injured, but the people who were in the room the alleged shooter entered and those in the hallway.
“You had an entire county that was affected by this,” Smith told CBS News on Thursday. “All of them are victims in certain ways.”
Four people — two students and two teachers — were killed and nine others were wounded in the September shooting at the high school in Winder, Georgia.
They are expected in court for their arraignment on Nov. 21, when they are anticipated to enter their pleas. The alleged shooter is being charged as an adult, and could face life in prison.
Neither his attorney nor the attorney for his father Colin Gray responded to CBS News’s request for comment.
Colin Gray, 54, faces 29 counts, including second-degree murder, second-degree cruelty to children, involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct.
The indictment and new charges come one day after chilling new details about Colt Gray’s alleged plans were revealed in testimony from investigators at a hearing Wednesday where a judge determined the case could go forward against the alleged shooter’s father.
During Wednesday’s hearing, authorities revealed details from the alleged shooter’s notebooks that included detailed plans of the attack as well as violent drawings. Witnesses testified Colin Gray knew of his son’s struggles with his mental health but purchased a laser sight, tactical vest and ammunition for him in the months leading up to the shooting.
Investigators also said that the alleged shooter made a “shrine” to school shooters in his room, and hung a picture of the Parkland shooter, who killed 17 people at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018. Their testimony revealed his father was aware of his obsession with school shooters, and that the teenager had even discussed the Parkland shooting with his grandmother around a week before the shooting.
