The dad and mom of accused college shooter Colt Gray have instantly been thrust into the highlight, with studies of earlier arrests, a rocky marriage, and now, expenses towards dad for allegedly offering the weapon used to fatally gun down 4 individuals and injure 9 extra.
As tenants, Colin and Marcee Gray had been chaotic from the beginning, based on a former landlord, who instructed The Independent that when he lastly evicted the troublesome couple in 2020, they later got here again to retrieve their weapons whereas abandoning their pets to fend for themselves.
The property proprietor, who requested to not be named for skilled causes, mentioned he nearly instantly had a “bad feeling” concerning the couple, starting with Colin’s refusal to shake his hand or look him within the eye. On prime of that, Marcee, 37, who has an extended rap sheet for drug possession and different low-level crimes, together with a reported repute for unseemly habits in publicappeared “scared as hell” of her husband, based on the ex-landlord.
After the now-estranged pair fell too far behind on their lease, the owner instructed them that they and their three youngsters — amongst them, 14-year-old Colt, the freshman accused of fatally taking pictures two classmates and two academics earlier this week at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia — needed to vacate the house. They wound up leaving just a few random objects behind, together with the canines they moved in with, based on the surprised landlord.
“The craziest part of all is that they left [their] two German Shepherds,” the owner recalled on Friday, including that Colin and Marcee Gray merely ignored his makes an attempt to reunite them. “I imagine the next place where they were renting didn’t allow dogs, so they just left them.”
Colt Gray, who appeared in Barrow County Superior Court on Friday morning to face 4 counts of felony homicide over Wednesday’s horrific bloodbath, is being held with out bail. He will likely be tried as an grownup, based on authorities, and if convicted, faces life in jailhowever not the dying penalty as a result of he’s beneath 18.
His 54-year-old dad, Colin Gray, additionally appeared in courtroom on Friday, on 4 counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree homicide, and eight counts of cruelty to youngsters in reference to the bloodshed. He is accused of giving his son the AR-15-style firearm used within the taking pictures as a Christmas current final 12 months, a number of months after the FBI confirmed as much as query the boy about on-line threats he had allegedly made about finishing up a college taking pictures.
Marcee Gray, who’s reportedly cooperating with investigators, will not be charged with a criminal offense. She was unable to be reached on Friday for remark, together with Colin and Colt Gray, who stay detained. A smattering of relations, reached by cellphone and textual content, declined to be interviewed.
When the Grays had been instructed just a few years again to go away their rental house, additionally they ditched a handful of different objects, a few of which the owner instructed The Independent he has since put to good use: a golf bag, an archery set, and diverse instruments. And, in what may retrospectively appear to be one other foreboding signal, the 2 weren’t notably enthusiastic about preserving necessary reminiscences of their very own.
“They left their wedding photos,” the owner mentioned. “My wife tried to contact her to say, ‘Hey, do you want these? Like, you can have them.’ And she never responded. So we ended up having to throw away their wedding pictures.”
On the opposite hand, when the Grays had been sluggish to go away and the owner lastly modified the locks, he mentioned Colin Gray returned and “kicked in the door to get his guns out.” He and his spouse reported the intrusion to police, who the owner mentioned advisable they not pursue felony expenses for the reason that injury to the doorway was minimal and Colin had really solely “stolen” again his personal belongings.
The landlord mentioned he was by no means in a position to accumulate a number of thousand {dollars} in again lease the household owed, a element confirmed by courtroom information.
Until Thursday morning, when Colin and Marcee Gray’s names had been revealed, their previous landlord mentioned he and his spouse had “kind of forgotten about them.”
“And then it all comes back,” he mentioned, describing the second he made the connection between the taking pictures at Apalachee HS and his former tenants as “so shocking.”
“But in the same way, you’re kind of like, ‘Well, shoot, I mean, it was a weird, weird situation, so maybe it wasn’t as shocking as it seemed,” the owner went on. “… We thought it was a foul scenario, however shit, we’re like, ‘Oh man, we got lucky that [that] was all we dealt with.”
Having consumed a barrage of media coverage in the aftermath of this week’s unthinkable bloodshed, the owner mentioned he has run via the spectrum of feelings, feeling, after all, revulsion at Colt’s alleged actions, however a level of empathy, as effectively, for him and his two siblings.
“It’s just so sad,” he mentioned. “The more I’m reading these articles that are coming out, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, these kids didn’t have a freaking chance, man.’ Like, these parents just totally f***** them, you know?”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/georgia-school-shooter-gray-parents-allegations-b2608557.html