A Georgia judge sentenced Colin Gray to 15 years in prison after his son used a rifle Gray provided in a 2024 school shooting. The case is among a small number in which prosecutors have held a parent criminally responsible for enabling a child’s gun violence. A jury convicted Gray of second-degree murder for the deaths of two 14-year-old students and involuntary manslaughter for the deaths of two teachers.
His son, Colt Gray, previously pleaded guilty and received life in prison without parole for the September 4, 2024 shooting. Another teacher and eight students were wounded, seven by gunfire. Georgia’s second-degree murder statute covers a child’s death caused during cruelty to children even without an intent to kill.
Prosecutors said Colin Gray gave his son the semiautomatic rifle, ammunition and shooting accessories as a Christmas gift. Testimony described deteriorating mental health, an online fixation on mass shooters and requests from the boy’s mother that guns be secured. Michigan parents James and Jennifer Crumbley are serving 10-year terms after separate involuntary-manslaughter convictions tied to their son’s school shooting.
The prosecutor sought 80 years, the defense requested 10 years followed by probation and the judge imposed 15 years. The judge said the legal chapter was ending while the victims’ families would continue to carry the consequences.
The evidentiary boundary at publication is specific: The sentence applies Georgia law to a specific record, does not determine civil liability and may be reviewed through post-trial proceedings or appeal. The current account therefore distinguishes completed events from announced, proposed or still-contested steps. Statements by governments, companies, litigants and advocacy organizations establish what those parties said; they are not treated as independent proof of every underlying assertion. Numerical values describe the source period and category identified in the reporting and may be revised by the responsible institution.
The next public records expected to update this account are any appeal or sentencing challenge and whether other jurisdictions cite the case in parental-access prosecutions. Until those records appear, the dates, totals, procedural posture and attributed descriptions above are the latest checked account for the July 31 edition. A later filing, official release, verified field report or corrected dataset could change a total or timetable without erasing the documented sequence at this cutoff.