A Canadian former Olympic snowboarder is wanted in a US drug trafficking case

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former Olympic snowboarder for Canada has been charged with running a drug trafficking ring that shipped vast amounts of cocaine across the Americas and killed four people, authorities said Thursday.

The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and extradition of Ryan James Wedding, a Canadian citizen who was living in Mexico and is considered a fugitive. The 43-year-old is charged in the United States with running a criminal enterprise, murder, conspiring to distribute cocaine and other crimes, U.S. prosecutors said.

U.S. authorities said Wedding's group moved large shipments of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico and California to Canada and other locations in the United States using long-haul semi-trucks. Wedding, who also faces years-old charges in Canada, is one of 16 people charged in connection with a ring that moved 60 tons of cocaine a year, and four of them remain fugitives, said Martin Estrada, U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles.

“He chose to become a major drug trafficker and he chose to become a killer,” Estrada told reporters.

Krysti Hawkins, FBI special agent in charge in Los Angeles, said a dozen people were arrested in Florida, Michigan, Canada, Colombia and Mexico in connection with the case.

U.S. authorities allege the group killed two members of a family in Canada in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment in what officials there said was a case of mistaken identity as well as two other people, according to officials and federal court filings. Authorities said they seized cocaine, weapons, ammunition, cash and more than $3 million in cryptocurrency in connection with their investigation.

Wedding competed for Canada in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, authorities said.

Wedding faces separate drug trafficking charges in Canada that date back to 2015, said Chris Leather, chief superintendent with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. “Those charges are very much unresolved,” Leather said.

Wedding previously was convicted in the U.S. of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and was sentenced to prison in 2010, federal records show. Estrada said U.S. authorities believe that after Wedding's release, he resumed drug trafficking and has been protected by the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico.

An image of former Canadian Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding, 43, who is a fugitive and been charged with allegedly running and participating in a transnational drug trafficking operation, is displayed on a video monitor along with bricks of cocaine, foreground, during a news conference at the FBI offices in Los Angeles, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

United States Attorney Martin Estrada, at podium, smiles as he's joined by federal, local, and international officials, to announce federal charges and arrests of alleged members of a transnational drug trafficking operation that routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, to Canada and other locations in the United States, during a news conference at the FBI offices in Los Angeles, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Los Angeles Police Department K9 dog Queza, jumps on top of bricks of cocaine after federal, local, and international officials announced federal charges and arrests of alleged members of a transnational drug trafficking operation that routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, to Canada and other locations in the United States at a news conference at the FBI offices in Los Angeles, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

United States Attorney Martin Estrada, right at podium, joined by federal, local, and international officials, announces federal charges and arrests of alleged members of a transnational drug trafficking operation that routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, to Canada and other locations in the United States, during a news conference at the FBI offices in Los Angeles, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

FBI Special Agent in Charge Krysti Hawkins, at podium, joined by federal, local, and international officials, announces federal charges and arrests of alleged members of a transnational drug trafficking operation that routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, to Canada and other locations in the United States, during a news conference at the FBI offices in Los Angeles, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Canadian former Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding, 43, who is a fugitive, is seen top left, with 15 other defendants who have been charged in a 16-count superseding indictment for allegedly running and participating in a transnational drug trafficking operation that routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine, from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, to Canada and other locations in the United States, are displayed on a video monitor as federal, local, and international officials announce federal charges and arrests of alleged members at a news conference at the FBI offices in Los Angeles, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Chris Leather, chief superintendent with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, at podium, joined by U.S.. federal, local, and international officials, announces federal charges and arrests of alleged members of a transnational drug trafficking operation that routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, to Canada and other locations in the United States, during a news conference at the FBI offices in Los Angeles, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

ATLANTA (AP) — A grand jury indicted both a father and son on murder charges Thursday in a mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia.

A Barrow County grand jury indicted 14-year-old Colt Gray on a total of 55 counts, including murder in the deaths of four people and 25 counts of aggravated assault. Grand jurors formally charged his father, Colin Gray, with 29 counts, including two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Both also face multiple counts of cruelty to children.

Both are scheduled to appear for arraignment on Nov. 21, when each would formally enter a plea. Colin Gray is being held in the Barrow County jail. Colt Gray is charged as an adult but is being held in a juvenile detention center in Gainesville. Neither has sought to be released on bail and their lawyers have previously declined to comment.

The Sept. 4 shooting killed teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14. Another teacher and eight more students were wounded, seven of them hit by gunfire.

Second-degree murder is an unusual charge under Georgia law, resulting from a death of a child when someone is committing the crime of cruelty to children. Colin Gray, 54, is accused of committing cruelty to children by giving his son access to a gun and ammunition “after receiving sufficient warning that Colt Gray would harm and endanger the bodily safety of another,” the indictment states.

District Attorney Brad Smith told reporters on Sept. 6 that he had never before prosecuted a second-degree murder charge.

Thursday, Smith told reporters he charged Colt Gray with 25 aggravated assault counts for everyone at the school who was in the line of fire, although Colt Gray shot 11 people. The 20 cruelty to children charges against Colin Gray are for every child Colt Gray is alleged to have shot at.

“Every person, every kid in that school was a victim," Smith told reporters. “Kids in all the other schools that were locked down during this were victims. Parents that were terrified about where their kids were.”

Colin Gray’s indictment is the latest example of prosecutors holding parents responsible for their children’s actions in school shootings. Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley, the first to be convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting, were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four students in 2021.

Investigators testified Wednesday during a preliminary hearing for Colin Gray that Colt Gray carried a semiautomatic assault-style rifle onto the school bus, with the barrel sticking out of his book bag, wrapped up in a poster board. They say the boy left his second-period class and emerged from a bathroom with the rifle before shooting people in a classroom and hallways.

Investigators have said the teenager carefully plotted the shooting at the 1,900-student high school northeast of Atlanta. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent testified that the boy left a notebook in his classroom with step-by-step handwritten instructions to prepare for the assault. It included a diagram of his second-period classroom and his estimate that he could kill as many as 26 people and wound as many as 13 others. "Surprised if I make it this far,” the boy wrote.

There had long been signs that Colt Gray was troubled.

Colt and Colin Gray were interviewed about an online threat linked to Colt Gray in May 2023. Colt Gray denied making the threat at the time. He enrolled as a freshman at Apalachee after the current academic year began and then skipped multiple days of school. Investigators said he had a “severe anxiety attack” on Aug. 14. A counselor said he reported having suicidal thoughts and rocked and shook uncontrollably while in her office.

In an Aug. 18 electronic message seeking help from a counseling service, according to Wednesday testimony, Colin Gray wrote of his son: "We have had a very difficult past couple of years and he needs help. Anger, anxiety, quick to be volatile. I don’t know what to do.”

Colt’s mother, Marcee Gray, who lives separately, told investigators that she had argued with Colin Gray in August, asking him to secure his guns and restrict Colt’s access. Instead, over time, he bought the boy ammunition, a gun sight and other shooting accessories, records show.

Colt Gray even created a “shrine” to school shooters over his home computer, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Agent Kelsey Ward said in court. When Colin Gray had asked his son who the people in pictures were, Ward testified, Colt told his father that one was Nikolas Cruz, the shooter in the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Ward said Marcee Gray told her in an interview that Colt Gray's "fascination with guns had gotten very bad” over the past year. At one point, Colt asked his dad to buy him an all-black “shooter mask,” saying in a joking manner that, “I’ve got to finish up my school shooter outfit, just kidding,” Ward said.

Colt’s parents had discussed their son’s fascination with school shooters, but decided that it was in a joking context.

After Colt Gray asked his mother to put him in a "mental asylum,” the family arranged to take him on Aug. 31 to a mental health treatment center in Athens that offers inpatient treatment, but the plan fell apart when his parents argued about Colt’s access to guns the day before, and his father said he didn't have the gas money, an investigator said.

Associated Press Writer Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this story.

A father and son are both indicted on murder charges in a mass school shooting in Georgia

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

A father and son are both indicted on murder charges in a mass school shooting in Georgia