Mother of Georgia shooting suspect called school to warn of emergency, aunt says

The mother of the 14-year-old who has been charged with murder over the fatal shooting of four people at his Georgia high school called the school before the killings, warning staff of an “extreme emergency” involving her son, a relative said.

Annie Brown told the Washington Post that her sister, Colt Gray’s mother, texted her saying she spoke with a school counselor and urged them to “immediately” find her son to check on him.

Brown provided screen shots of the text exchange to the newspaper, which also reported that a call log from the family’s shared phone plan showed a call was made to the school about 30 minutes before gunfire is believed to have erupted.

Brown confirmed the reporting to The Associated Press on Saturday in text messages but declined to provide further comment.

Colt Gray, 14, has been charged with murder over the killing of two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, outside Atlanta, on Wednesday. His father, Colin Gray, is accused of second-degree murder for providing his son with a semiautomatic AR 15-style rifle.

Their attorneys declined to immediately seek bail during their first court appearance on Friday.

The Georgia teenager had struggled with his parents' separation and taunting by classmates, his father told a sheriff's investigator last year when asked whether his son posted an online threat.

“I don’t know anything about him saying (expletive) like that,” Gray told Jackson County sheriff’s investigator Daniel Miller, according to a transcript of their interview obtained by the AP. “I’m going to be mad as hell if he did, and then all the guns will go away.”

Jackson County authorities ended their inquiry into Colt Gray a year ago, concluding that there wasn’t clear evidence to link him to a threat posted on Discord, a social media site popular with video gamers. The records from that investigation provide at least a narrow glimpse into a boy who struggled with his parents’ breakup and at the middle school he attended at the time, where his father said others frequently taunted him.

“He gets flustered and under pressure. He doesn’t really think straight,” Colin Gray told the investigator on May 21, 2023, recalling a discussion he’d had with the boy’s principal.

Middle school had also been rough for Colt Gray. He had just finished the seventh grade when Miller interviewed the father and son. Colin Gray said the boy had just a few friends and frequently got picked on. Some students “just ridiculed him day after day after day.”

“I don’t want him to fight anybody, but they just keep like pinching him and touching him,” Gray said. “Words are one thing, but you start touching him and that’s a whole different deal. And it’s just escalated to the point where like his finals were last week and that was the last thing on his mind.”

Shooting guns and hunting, he said, were frequent pastimes for father and son. Gray said he was encouraging the boy to be more active outdoors and spend less time playing video games on his Xbox. When Colt Gray killed a deer months earlier, his father swelled with pride. He showed the investigator a photo on his cellphone, saying: “You see him with blood on his cheeks from shooting his first deer.”

“It was just the greatest day ever,” Colin Gray said.

There’s no mention in the investigator’s report and interview transcript of either Gray owning an assault-style rifle. Asked if his son had access to firearms, the father said yes. But he said the guns weren’t kept loaded and insisted he had emphasized safety when teaching the boy to shoot.

“He knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do,” Gray said, “and how to use them and not use them.”

An eviction upended the Grays' family in summer 2022. On July 25 of that year, a sheriff’s deputy was dispatched to the rental home on a suburban cul-de-sac where Colin Gray, his wife, Colt and the boy’s two younger siblings lived. A moving crew was piling their belongings in the yard.

The Jackson County deputy said in a report that the movers found guns and hunting bows in a closet in the master bedroom. They turned the weapons and ammunition over to the deputy for safekeeping, rather than leave them outside with the family's other possessions outside.

The deputy wrote that he left copies of receipt forms for the weapons on the front door so that Gray could pick them up later at the sheriff's office. The reason for eviction is not mentioned in the report. Colin Gray told the investigator in 2023 that he had paid his rent.

It was following the eviction, he said, that his wife left him, taking the two younger siblings with her. Colt Gray “struggled at first with the separation and all,” said the father, who worked a construction job.

"I’m the sole provider, doing high rises downtown,” he told the investigator. Two days later, there was a follow-up interview with Colin Gray while he was at work. He said by phone: “I’m hanging off the top of a building. ... I’ve got a big crane lift going, so it’s kind of noisy up here.”

The investigator also interviewed the boy, then 13, who was described in a report as quiet, calm and reserved.

He denied making any threats and said that months earlier he’d stopped using the Discord platform, where the school threat was posted. He later told his father his account had been hacked.

“The only thing I have is TikTok, but I just go on there and watch videos,” the teen said.

A year before they would both end up charged in the high school shooting, Colin Gray insisted to the sheriff’s investigator that his son wasn’t the type to threaten violence.

“He’s not a loner, Officer Miller. Don’t get that,” the father said, adding: “He just wants to go to school, do his own thing and he doesn’t want any trouble.”

Rush reported from Portland, Oregon. Associated Press reporter Trenton Daniel contributed from New York.

A memorial is seen at Apalachee High School after the Wednesday school shooting, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

A memorial is seen at Apalachee High School after the Wednesday school shooting, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

A memorial is seen at Apalachee High School after the Wednesday school shooting, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

A memorial is seen at Apalachee High School after the Wednesday school shooting, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Mark Gorman holds a candle during a candlelight vigil for the slain students and teachers at Apalachee High School, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

A mourner wipes tears from their face for the slain students and teachers at Apalachee High School, on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Apalachee High School and its football stadium are seen a day after a mass shooting occured at the school, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Chimain Douglas, of Grayson, Ga., kneels near Apalachee High School as she mourns for the slain students and teachers on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Georgia Bureau of Investigation staff move through an entrance to Apalachee High School after Wednesday's multiple shooting, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)WLD

Flowers are displayed at a memorial outside Apalachee High School, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Winder, Ga., following a shooting at the school earlier in the week. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

Two students view a memorial as the flags fly half-staff after a shooting Wednesday at Apalachee High School, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

The rental home of Colt Gray, the 14-year-old suspect who has been charged as an adult with murder in the shootings Wednesday, Sept. 4., at Apalachee High School, is shown Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Linda Carter, of Grayson, Ga., kneels near Apalachee High School to place flowers as she mourns for the slain students and teachers on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

People embrace at a makeshift memorial after a shooting Wednesday at Apalachee High School, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Colin Gray, 54, the father of Apalachee High School shooter Colt Gray, 14, enters the Barrow County courthouse for his first appearance, on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

This combo of booking images provided by the Barrow County, Ga., Sheriff's Office shows Colin Gray, left, and his son Colt Gray, who have been charged in relation to the Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, shootings at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga. (Barrow County Sheriff's Office via AP)

A poster with images of victims Christian Angulo, top left, Richard Aspinwall, top right, Mason Schermerhorn, bottom left, and Cristina Irimie is displayed at a memorial outside Apalachee High School, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Winder, Ga., following a shooting at the school earlier in the week. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

MIAMI (AP) — Tropical storm conditions were expected along a stretch of the U.S. Southeast seacoast as the system bringing gusty winds, heavy rain and potential flooding has strengthened, forecasters said Monday.

The storm system was expected to reach the South Carolina coast Monday afternoon and then move inland across the Carolinas from Monday night through Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Strong winds were approaching the coast Monday morning and were expected to spread onshore.

A tropical storm warning was in effect from Edisto Beach, South Carolina, northward to Ocracoke Inlet, near the southernmost extreme of North Carolina's Outer Banks.

The low-pressure system was centered Monday morning about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Charleston, South Carolina, and about 85 miles (140 kilometers) south of Cape Fear, North Carolina. It had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph) and was moving to the northwest at 3 mph (6 kph), forecasters said.

The system still had a chance of becoming a tropical or subtropical storm, but forecasters have said those chances may have started to decrease since it seemed to have become less organized.

In an updated hurricane outlook last month the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was still predicting a highly active Atlantic hurricane season thanks to near-record sea surface temperatures and the possibility of La Nina. Emergency management officials have urged people to stay prepared.

Maximum winds were expected to decrease as the low approached the coast, but tropical-storm-force winds were still expected to occur within the warning areas. It would likely dissipate over the Carolinas by late Wednesday, forecasters said.

The storm was expected to dump 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain in northeast South Carolina into southeast North Carolina and up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) in isolated spots, with smaller amounts expected across the remainder of North Carolina through Tuesday, according to forecasters.

Over much of Virginia, 1 to 3 inches (2.5 to 8 centimeters) of rainfall, with locally higher amounts, were expected from Monday night through Wednesday. The hurricane center predicted the rainfall could lead to isolated and scattered flash and urban flooding, as well as minor river flooding.

The Southeast coast also could expect rough surf over the next few days, forecasters said.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Gordon weakened to a depression as it swirls through open ocean waters. Gordon could either dissolve in upcoming days or strengthen back into a tropical storm, forecasters said.

This image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows tropical storm conditions along a stretch of the U.S. Southeast seacoast, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (NOAA via AP)