For nearly two years, the September 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School has loomed over Winder, Georgia.
Now, the community is about to enter what could be the final chapter in the criminal cases stemming from the state’s deadliest school shooting.
Colt Gray, now 16, pleaded guilty Friday to 55 charges, including four counts of murder for the deaths of teachers Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and the wounding of nine others.
His sentencing hearing resumes today as both sides present evidence before the judge determines whether Colt will spend the rest of his life in prison, with or without the possibility of parole.
Before the court turns to the question of punishment, families used the first day of sentencing to make clear the devastation left behind. Loved ones of those who were killed embraced, holding tightly to one another. Survivors, carrying both anger and sorrow, recounted the scars they still carry. Voices broke under the weight of memories.
“I stand before you as the mother of a child who survived that day, but surviving is not the same as being untouched by it,” Sarah Beaver wrote in a statement on behalf of her son, Jaxson, read aloud in court by Barrow County Assistant District Attorney Alix Daniel.
“Eight to nine pieces of metal are permanently embedded in his thigh. He is forced to carry the literal weight of a mass shooting inside his own flesh every single day.”
Today, the families will hear more of the truth as they inch closer to hearing the judge’s final decision, a sentence that will close one chapter of their painful journey while opening another: the long, uncertain road of healing.
Painful testimony, disturbing evidence
On Friday, the hearing opened with emotional victim impact statements, laying bare the devastation.
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