Georgia school shooter copied prior shooters to gain ‘notoriety,’ testimony shows

The multi-day hearing will continue Tuesday with more witness testimony.

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

There were 25 victims in the shooting, including 15 children who were inside a classroom when Gray fired shots, according to his indictment. It shows at least eight people were shot, including the four who died, as well as three children who were wounded. Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, both 14-year-old students, and teachers Ana Cristina Irimie and Richard Aspinwall were killed in the shooting.

Victims and family members gave statements Friday, some urging the judge to sentence the now 16-year-old to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The hearing continued in Barrow County Court Monday as attorneys called witnesses and made their arguments on how he should be sentenced.

Prosecutors say they found thousands of photos, case documents and other research Gray compiled on the shooters, along with mimicry of them in his own drawings and pictures, Barrow County District Attorney’s office investigator Ashley Gilland testified Monday.

Gray, who sat quietly watching the proceedings alongside his attorney, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his hand when some of his Discord messages were read aloud.

“I’m committing a mass shooting,” he wrote in online messages back in May 2023. “I’m waiting a good 2-3 years.”

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

‘Planting Easter eggs’

Earlier in the day, a forensic psychologist testified his evaluation of the Gray’s mental state showed he was a “lonely, dysfunctional kid” fascinated by mass shooters.

Dr. Kevin Richards said he interviewed Gray and reviewed thousands of online messages from the teen, who was “immersed” in an online site for people interested in mass shooters. In those messages, Gray discussed prior school shooters in extreme detail and spent hours researching their cases, according to the testimony.

The forensic psychologist, hired by the defense, told the judge the teen was lonely, isolated and constantly online in the “true crime community,” where Gray and others gather online to obsessively discuss and research mass shooters.

For years, Gray was “immersed in this highly dysfunctional world where people were obsessed with school shootings,” to the point where he had panic attacks if he tried to talk with people in the real world and developed paranoia about his computer being watched by the government, Richards testified.

He had a “chaotic” upbringing, moved around frequently, and was in and out of school, which led him to become more isolated. His parents were both on drugs at various times, had significant financial struggles, and were at times neglectful, Richards said.

“He didn’t have like a normal childhood where he had friends and things to do,” he said. “It kind of drove him into a very isolated position.”

Richards said he believes Gray has stunted interpersonal and emotional development, paranoia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression and anxiety. He testified that Gray could benefit from therapeutic intervention.

“You’re not talking about somebody who did this in their 20s, mid-20s, as an adult,” Richards said. “When you’re dealing with kids in adolescence … there’s, I think, room to intervene at this point.”

Emotional outbursts and some of the phrases he said in his interviews with investigators were actually callbacks and references to other school shooters, prosecutors said.

“There were portions where Colt did actually cry,” investigator Jason Smith said of his interview with Gray after the shooting. “But I believe a majority of that interview to be performative.”

District Attorney Brad Smith said Gray has changed his story several times, lied in interviews with investigators and mental health professionals and “embellished” his mental illness symptoms.

Gray had so heavily researched other school shooters that he mimicked them in interviews with investigators by “planting Easter eggs” for the true-crime community, the prosecutor said.

For example, the morning of the shooting, he disassembled his computer and laid it out on his bedroom floor, just like Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooter. He also told investigators that he had hallucinations and may have blacked out during the shooting, the prosecutor said.

“It seems like he already has those things ready to say,” Smith said. “That was the same thing (Nikolas) Cruz said when he was arrested.”

Cruz was convicted of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. That shooting, which killed 17 people and injured at least 17 others, is the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.

Those “Easter eggs” are signals to others in the online true-crime community to gain social capital and notoriety for Gray, said Peter Smith, an extremism researcher who testified as an expert witness for the state.

“Individuals who do carry out these attacks do seem to understand the type of content the community would be interested in,” Smith said. “They tailor what they’re leaving behind for media and researchers to find.”

Prosecutors also presented audio recordings of calls between Gray and his mother while he was in jail in which he asked her to search his name on online sites. She found posts about him and “fan art” that she promised to bring him, along with printed out images of other mass shooters.

The teen was so obsessed with prior school shootings that some of Gray’s Discord messages in the true crime community were sexual in nature, Richards said. Days before the incident, Gray messaged that the shooting was his way “to prove my love and affection” for Cruz, prosecutors showed in court.

Monday’s testimony matched evidence presented in the trial of his father earlier this year on related charges.

In jail calls with Gray and his mother that the prosecutor played in court, the two discussed the possibility of him pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. Instead, he changed his plea to guilty and was convicted last week.

The teen’s father, Colin Gray, is separately scheduled to be sentenced in Barrow County next week after being found guilty in March of second-degree murder and other charges tied to the school shooting. He gave his son the gun used in the shooting, prosecutors said.