A judge on Tuesday sentenced a teenager who killed two students and two teachers in a shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole, calling his crimes “deliberate, contemplated evil.”Colt Gray, 16, had pleaded guilty Friday to 55 counts, including murder, in the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting at the school about 45 miles northeast of Atlanta. Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm handed down the sentence after hearing from family members of those killed and victims, as well as investigators, Gray’s grandmother and a forensic psychologist who had evaluated Gray.Murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison in Georgia, so the only decision Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm had to make was whether Gray should ever be eligible for parole. He decided the teen should never be allowed out.“You do not seem to be tormented by what you did. You seem to relish following in the footsteps of the murderers you idolize. You aren’t wracked with guilt. You’re proud of yourself,” Primm said.Defense attorney W. Charlton Allen told the judge his client was “not irretrievably broken.” Allowing him the possibility of parole would give him “an opportunity of hope,” Allen said, adding that a lack of hope “takes away the ability for him to change.”Teachers Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, died in the shooting. Another teacher and eight more students were wounded, seven of them hit by gunfire. Investigators testified during the three-day sentencing hearing that Gray idolized mass shooters, talking about them online with other members of the “true crime community,” a group of young people online who are fascinated with such attacks. Prosecutors played recordings of phone conversations Gray had with his mother, Marcee Gray, from a youth detention center in the months after the shooting. During those calls, he directed his mother to look up what people were saying about him online. He was excited when she described “fan art” drawings depicting him or comments people made about him and the attention he was getting online.Brumback writes for the Associated Press.
