Colt Gray was given the gun he used to allegedly shoot dead four people at his Georgia high school as a Christmas present from his father.
The 14-year-old was arrested on Wednesday at Apalachee High School in Winder, minutes after authorities say he opened fire on students and teachers.
Law enforcement sources told CNN Thursday that the teenage shooter received the gun for the holidays this past December.
His father Colin Gray has told authorities that he bought the gun for the boy himself. Colin Gray has yet to make any public comment on the shooting.
Gray has been charged with four felony counts of murder, and will be tried as an adult, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation confirmed.
The teenager and his father were interviewed in 2023 by local law enforcement in connection with online threats about carrying out a school shooting made on the gaming social-media platform Discord, according to investigators.
Both Grays told investigators they had not made the threats. The father also told officials that he had hunting guns locked in a safe in the house and his son did not have access to them.
Gray appears in the booking photo with long hair that has been dyed blond – a far cry from the smiling, baby-faced boy pictured in his middle school yearbook just two years earlier.
The boy reportedly had an obsession with other infamous school shooters such as Parkland, Florida killer Nikolas Cruz.
Two students and two teachers were dead inside the school building – on its first day of classes after the summer break – by the time he laid down his AR-style weapon.
Students Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and Christian Angulo, 14, and teachers Richard Aspenwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, were named as the deceased.
When police searched the teen’s Georgia home following the bloodbath, they reportedly found clues the teenager was ‘obsessed’ with mass shootings – specifically the Parkland massacre in 2018, which left 17 people dead.
Gray was known to the FBI after several tips came in about him last year.
In May 2023, officers from Jackson County questioned both Gray and his father about a Discord channel believed to be linked to the then-13-year-old which allegedly made threats about a school shooting.
The Discord account had a user name written in Russian, and the translation of the letters spelled out the name Lanza, referencing Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary school tragedy, officers said.
Gray denied he was the author of the threats, telling police he’d shut down his Discord after being repeatedly hacked. He expressed concerns that someone would make those accusations about him.
According to the NYT, Gray’s father Colin told investigators at the time that his son ‘knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do, and how to use them and not use them.’
Colin reportedly assured officers that he would be ‘mad as hell’ if he learned the allegations about his son making threats were true, and that ‘all the guns [would] go away.’
Online, his aunt vowed ‘full throttle blood’ as she claimed he’d been subjected to ‘abuse’ his entire life. Those comments were deleted last night after a barrage of backlash.
Gray remains in juvenile custody in Georgia, awaiting his first court appearance, which is scheduled for Friday morning. He will be charged as an adult, sheriffs said.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said Gray immediately surrendered when confronted by school resource officers at the scene.