A candlelight vigil was held on Sunday night in Winder, Georgia, as residents paused to remember the four people killed in a shooting in a high school last week.
14-year-old Colt Gray has been charged with four counts of murder.
Officials say Gray shot and killed students Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, both 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53. Eight other students and a teacher were injured — seven of them shot — and are expected to recover.
Annie Brown told The Washington Post that her sister, Colt Gray’s mother, texted her saying she spoke with a school counselor and warned staff of an “extreme emergency” before the killings. Brown said Marcee Gray 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 at 9:50 a.m. Warrants for Gray’s arrest say the shooting started at 10:20 a.m.
Brown confirmed the reporting to The Associated Press on Saturday in text messages but declined to provide further comment.
Marcee Gray expressed remorse for the shootings Saturday to The Washington Post and The New York Post.
“I am so, so sorry and cannot fathom the pain and suffering they are going through right now,” Gray told The Washington Post in a text.
“It’s horrible. It’s absolutely horrible,” Gray told The New York Post outside her father’s home in Fitzgerald, Georgia, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) south of Atlanta.
Charles Polhamus, the boy’s grandfather, has told multiple news outlets that Marcee Gray got a text from her son on Wednesday saying he was sorry. Polhamus told CNN that Marcee Gray drove to Winder, more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) from Fitzgerald, immediately after the shooting.
The Washington Post also reported that texts show relatives contacted the school about the boy’s mental health a week before the shooting, and that Brown told a relative he was having “homicidal and suicidal thoughts.” The newspaper reported that the teen’s grandmother, Deborah Polhamus, met with a school counselor to request help.
The boy “starts with the therapist tomorrow,” Polhamus wrote in a text to Brown after that meeting.
Investigators haven’t said what they believe might have motivated Gray or whether they believe he targeted particular victims.
Authorities have said Gray’s father, Colin Gray, gave him access to the semiautomatic AR-15 style rifle used in the shooting. It’s not clear how Gray brought the gun to campus or what he did with it in the two hours between school starting at 8:15 a.m. and when shots first rang out.
Colin Gray became the first parent of a school shooting suspect to be charged in Georgia, District Attorney Brad Smith said Friday. He’s accused of second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children for providing his son with the rifle.
Colin Gray is jailed in Barrow County after declining to seek bail in a brief court hearing Friday in Winder. Colt Gray is being held in a juvenile detention center after declining to seek bail. Neither has been indicted or entered a plea.
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