Teenager pleads guilty to all 55 counts in 2024 fatal shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia

A teenager has pleaded guilty to all 55 counts in a deadly shooting nearly two years ago at Apalachee High School in Georgia. Colt Gray, 16, entered the plea Friday without having reached a deal with prosecutors. He had previously pleaded not guilty to charges in the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting that killed two students and two teachers, and left several others wounded, at the high school about 45 miles northeast of Atlanta. Before accepting the plea, Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm asked Gray a series of questions meant to ensure that the teenager was aware of the consequences of his plea and was entering it voluntarily. To each question, Gray responded, 'Yes, your honor.' Because he pleaded guilty to murder, Gray faces a minimum sentence of life in prison. The judge must decide whether he should be eligible for parole after hearing victim statements, evidence and each side's summary of the case. Gray, who was 14 at the time of the shooting, was charged as an adult with the 55 total counts, including murder in the four deaths and 25 counts of aggravated assault. A jury in March convicted his father, Colin Gray, on charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, and he is scheduled to be sentenced next week. 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. Breanna Schermerhorn, whose son Mason was killed, told the judge she does not forgive Colt Gray. She said that while adults around him missed multiple warning signs, he was the one who decided to bring a gun to school and to pull the trigger, saying, 'Those decisions were his and his alone.' Shayna Aspinwall, Richard Aspinwall's wife, told the judge the 'grief of losing him is constant' and lamented that the lives of her daughters, who were 2 and 5 when their father died, will be 'forever marked by his absence.' 'It is a life sentence of grief and trauma for those left behind,' she said. Investigators have said Colt Gray carefully plotted the shooting at the high school of 1,900 students. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent testified that the teen left a notebook in his classroom with step-by-step instructions and a diagram to prepare for the assault, including an estimate that he could kill as many as 26 people and wound as many as 13 others.