A little more than a week before the deadly shooting at Apalachee High School, Colt Gray had an anxiety attack at school, jurors were told during testimony in his father’s trial on Friday.
He reached out to one of the few people in his life he could trust, his maternal grandmother, Deborah Polhamus, and asked her a question, she said.
“If I do something terrible, would you still love me?” Polhamus recounted from the witness stand Friday.
The incident prompted Polhamus to drive almost four hours from Fitzgerald to go see her grandson. In the days after, Colt Gray’s mental health began to spiral.
Polhamus spent hours Friday testifying about different incidents over the past five years that gave jurors, and the public, a first look into the teen’s tumultuous life at home as prosecutors try to prove his father, Colin Gray, knew about Colt Gray’s mental health problems when he gave him access to guns.
Credit: John Spink / John.Spink@ajc.com
Credit: John Spink / John.Spink@ajc.com
Colin Gray is facing 29 charges, while his son is facing 55 charges related to the September 2024 shooting that left two students — Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn — and two teachers — Cristina Irimie and Richard Aspinwall — dead.
Polhamus testified she knew about the gun Colin Gray had bought his son for Christmas, seeing it in Colt Gray’s room when she visited.
Her grandson even asked her to buy him ammunition, which she did, but only after Colin Gray gave her permission to do so, she said.
A series of incidents, including involvement from the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services, further affected the teen’s at home, Polhamus said.
The Grays had moved around the state multiple times. Polhamus’ daughter and Colt Gray’s mother, Marcee Gray, struggled with drugs and alcohol, which resulted in her husband taking custody of the children after she tested positive for drugs, according to the testimony.
At one point in a dispute over custody of the children, Marcee Gray tied Polhamus to a chair, then drove to Winder, where she vandalized Colin Gray’s car and was arrested, according to police records and court testimony.
After going to rehab, the mother moved back to Winder to be closer to her children, Polhamus said. However, it all came to a head on Aug. 16, 2024, when Colt Gray called his grandmother and told her to come get his mother, Polhamus said.
Polhamus went with her husband to talk to Marcee Gray at the Gray residence, she testified. Unbeknownst to them, Colt Gray was at home, instead of school, and had heard everything.
As they were leaving, Polhamus said the teen came out furious and started yelling at them to never come back. He later sent Polhamus a series of text messages calling her a “lying, 2 faced, rat,” “fake” and cussing her out.
After a few days, Colt Gray told Polhamus about having schizophrenia and acute mania, she said. He told her he was taking Zoloft, an antidepressant medication prescribed to his mother for her mental health problems, according to her testimony.
But even the medication was not enough, she said.
“I know, I really do need something for it, I haven’t gotten to a point where I’ve felt an instantaneous urge to hurt anyone, but I do have periods where it’s heightened, these can last days to weeks for me,” Colt Gray texted his grandmother on Aug. 21.
Following the anxiety attack, Polhamus said she began trying to look for mental health facilities to help Colt Gray, and got his father Colin Gray involved. But it was too late, she said.
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Jurors also saw photos of the inside of the Grays’ Winder home in the aftermath of the shooting. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation took pictures of the one-story home, which were shown by prosecutors on Friday.
The pictures showed a home where ammunition was out in the open, guns were spread out in visible and easily accessible places around the house, and clothes were strewn on the floor. GBI Crime Scene Specialist Heather Lashley walked through each picture, detailing the bullets recovered, the guns found and the Grays’ living situation.
The home had two bedrooms; Colin Gray and his youngest son shared one, while another was for his daughter. Colt Gray had a small room for his computer and video games, but he slept in the laundry room.
It was in that computer room where Colt Gray had built a “shrine” containing pictures and news articles of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz.
“If you were standing in the doorway of Colt’s room, this shrine would have been on the wall across from the doorway,” Lashley said.
The teen idolized Cruz to the point he sent emails and money to the convicted shooter in prison, according to Colin Gray’s attorney in the case.
In the same room, investigators found an empty rifle case, along with a gun sight attachment box and paper shooting targets with bullet holes in them.
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
In Colin Gray’s shared room, there was a rifle and a shotgun buried under clothes on a closet shelf, and bullets were found sitting out in the open.
In another part of the house, a military ammo can was found containing a handful of boxes with bullets. Unused gun locks were also found in the home.
The jury was sent home early after the state’s next witness, expected to be Colt Gray’s mother, Marcee Gray, was late to court. Prosecutors said they had only nine witnesses left, which could mean the state’s presentation could be completed next week.
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