A school shooter’s mother helped him reach his ‘fans’ from prison. Here’s why she wasn’t charged.

By Andy Rose, Isabel Rosales, CNN

Winder, Georgia (CNN) — For two days, she had mostly held her tongue as one witness after another laid out the horror of the Apalachee High School shooting in Winder, Georgia, in excruciating detail. But as the topic turned to the relationship school shooter Colt Gray had with his mother Marcee – the allegations of abuse and neglect and her chummy jail conversations with him after the shooting – Breanna Schermerhorn could no longer stay silent.

“She should be in jail now,” she said quietly but firmly to family members seated next to her in the second row of the court gallery.

The statement from the mother of Mason Schermerhorn, one of the four people shot to death by Colt Gray in school on September 4, 2024, is one that had been raised before, when Colt’s father, Colin Gray, was charged with second-degree murder in his own landmark case after buying his son the AR-15-style rifle used in the shooting.

Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith said at the time they had considered charges against Marcee Gray, but couldn’t tie her criminally to the killings.

“At the end of the day, she did not have custody of Colt, she did not have proximity to Colt, and she was not the one that provided him the firearms,” he said in March.

After Colt Gray received sentences Tuesday totaling life without parole plus 20 years, Smith reiterated he will not be bringing criminal charges against his mother, Marcee Gray. Colt’s father, Colin Gray, was sentenced to 15 years in prison two days later, as his lawyer announced plans to appeal.

“She took some steps – not many – but some steps to actually have the firearms removed, or ask the father to do that,” Smith said Tuesday. “So we don’t believe we have the ability under the proximate cause (law) of Georgia to charge her with what happened at Apalachee.”

Disturbing jailhouse conversations don’t connect mother to murders

Allegations of drug abuse and child neglect against Marcee Gray were already well established by the time her son Colt entered guilty pleas on 55 counts. Those allegations had resulted in her losing custody of her children long before the shooting.

But prosecutors spent nearly an hour in court last week playing recordings that had never been heard before publicly – jailhouse calls between Colt and Marcee spanning months, where they chatted casually about mass killers and his online reputation, statements that drew groans and widened eyes from victims’ family members who were watching.

“I’m printing out, like, all of these pictures, because seriously, they are extremely cute,” Marcee Gray told Colt, referring to drawings posted online to what prosecutors called the True Crime Community, illustrations that pictured him alongside other mass shooters.

As Colt encouraged her to bring him copies of certain pictures and comments he found interesting, Marcee Gray appeared to recognize some of them could cause concern to screeners at the youth detention center where Colt was housed.

“Just looking for any other ones that would not set off the alarm bells,” she said.

Colt Gray’s jail counselor, Stephen Baker, later confirmed their juvenile inmates are not allowed to have photos of school shooters.

“If a person in your facility was trying to get around that and pick particular photos that wouldn’t be as noticeable, would that be trying to skirt the rules?” Smith asked in court.

“It would be,” Baker responded.

In another conversation, Marcee Gray brought up an online drawing showing Colt alongside the Columbine shooters and Parkland gunman Nikolas Cruz in the style of a Weezer album cover.

“It’s really awesome!” she said.

“Oh, wow, I need that printed out and brung up here,” Colt said.

In text messages to CNN, Marcee Gray, who did not attend Colt’s hearing, said she didn’t understand at first the nature of the Reddit and Discord sites her son wanted her to check and said she only wanted to keep him from shutting her out.

“My tone and enunciation during many of these calls could be described as enthusiastic, encouraging, and animated. It should go without saying that in an even semi-normal parent-child relationship, I would immediately address the extreme inappropriateness of the subject, as well as having him speak to a mental health professional about his extreme interest in mass shootings,” she wrote Tuesday. “This situation was as far from normal as humanly possible. I was simply doing whatever I could to keep the line of communication open and keep my son alive. I am beyond remorseful for the pain I caused everyone through my actions and will spend the rest of my life in heartbreaking regret for so, so many things.”

When the Department of Juvenile Justice caught on to what Marcee and Colt were discussing and sharing, they cut off their communication, Baker said, and the state eventually terminated her parental rights and placed Colt in foster care while he was in custody.

Marcee Gray told CNN everything she brought to the detention center went through screening.

Even if prosecutors could connect a charge to Marcee Gray’s behavior in her calls and visits, they would not be able to tie her to the shooting, said John Acevedo, professor of practice and associate dean at the Emory University School of Law in Atlanta.

“Beforehand, you can be charged with encouraging someone to commit the crime or with aiding them, but she made these comments well after he was in prison,” said Acevedo. “They’re definitely distasteful, but not criminal.”

DA rules out child abuse charges

Marcee Gray already has a criminal record in Barrow County. She pleaded guilty less than a year before the school shooting to trespassing at Colin Gray’s home during a period of estrangement and damaging his work truck. She was ordered to stay out of Barrow County as a condition of her probation prior to the shooting.

Colt Gray’s defense asked the judge for mercy in sentencing, saying he had a terrible childhood, which prosecutors and even some victims acknowledged in court.

“I know he’s had a bad upbringing, but … in this courtroom, we’ve seen a lot worse,” Smith said.

Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services found 12 categories of abuse and neglect of the Gray children connected to Marcee, including inadequate food, shelter and medical care, director Candice Broce said in court. They could find no evidence Colt had ever received been seen by a doctor except for an eye exam.

“I was really surprised by, like, the complete absence of care,” said Broce.

What they found instead were signs Colt had been hurt.

“I found enough evidence that she was physically abusing him,” Broce said, including a slapping incident that resulted in a swollen lip.

Marcee Gray acknowledged the slap but told CNN it was nothing criminal.

“A slap of a disrespectful teenager who was bigger than I was at the time is a far cry from long-term abuse and neglect,” she wrote via text message. “I was never abusive to any of my children. Ever.”

Although the investigation by the Division of Families and Children – which is technically still open – could provide evidence of criminal abuse, Smith made clear he does not intend to file charges because it would require the boy who killed four people to be portrayed as the victim.

“He might even have to call Colt in a trial to testify against his mother,” said Acevedo. “I don’t think that’s what the (victims’) families are looking for.”

The district attorney who put the killer behind bars for the rest of his life and won an unprecedented murder conviction against his father, agreed. Even though Marcee Gray’s freedom is unsatisfying to many people hurt by her son’s actions, that’s one case he has no interest in taking to court.

“I don’t know that I have the stomach for a trial where Colt Gray is the victim,” Smith said.

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CNN’s Eric Levenson contributed to this report.