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Students wounded in Georgia school shooting testify at trial of accused gunman’s father

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Colin Gray, 54, the father of Apalachee High School shooting suspect Colt Gray, 14, enters the Barrow County courthouse for his first appearance, on September 6, 2024, in Winder, Georgia. Colin Gray is being charged with involuntary manslaughter, second-degree murder and cruelty to children after his son opened fire and killed 4 at the high school on Wednesday. (Photo by Brynn Anderson-Pool/Getty Images)

(GEORGIA) — In often tearful and painful testimony, students wounded in a 2024 mass shooting at a Georgia high school took the witness stand on Tuesday in the murder trial of the alleged gunman’s father.

As the defendant, 55-year-old Colin Gray, sat just feet away listening, the students recounted the horror they endured on Sept. 4, 2024, at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, allegedly at the hands of Gray’s then 14-year-old son, Colt.

Judge Nicholas Primm, who is presiding over the case, ordered the media not to show the students’ faces during the televised trial. The defense did not cross-examine any of the students who testified.

All of the students who testified Tuesday said they were in algebra teacher Cassandra Ryan’s class when they heard a loud bang outside their classroom door.

“I remember standing up and turning my back towards the door, and that’s when I saw him, Colt. He was pointing the weapon, just aiming anywhere, I guess,” testified Melany Delira-Castaneda, who was a freshman at the time of the shooting.

The now 16-year-old girl testified that she didn’t realize she had been shot until after the gunshots subsided.

“I remember standing up and I turned around. I didn’t know I was shot, but I was. My body was telling me to hold my arm, so I was holding my arm,” Delira-Castaneda testified. “I think I was just in shock and scared.”

She said she was shot in the shoulder.

“I feel like just seeing a lot of what I saw that day, it just sticks with me, and not being able to trust certain people,” Delira-Castaneda told the court.

Prosecutors called the students to testify in an effort to show what Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith described in his opening statement as the “horrific consequences” of the alleged actions or inaction Colin Gray took with his son leading up to the shooting.

Gray is the latest parent that prosecutors in various U.S. states have attempted to hold criminally culpable for their children’s alleged deadly actions.

The father is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Gray’s son, Colt, now 16, has been charged as an adult and is awaiting a separate trial on multiple counts of felony murder and aggravated assault. He has pleaded not guilty.

Killed in the shooting were math teacher and football coach Richard Aspinwall, 39; math teacher Cristina Irimie, 53; and students Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and Christian Angulo, 14, officials said.

Angulo was also in Ryan’s class when he was shot and killed.

“This case is about this defendant and his actions – his actions in allowing a child that he has custody over access to a firearm and ammunition after being warned that his child was going to harm others,” Smith said in his opening statement on Monday.

Prosecutors allege that despite repeatedly being warned about his son’s mental deterioration and that he was a danger to himself and others, Colin Gray gave the boy an AR-15-style rifle as a Christmas present and allowed him to keep the weapon propped against a wall in his bedroom. The rifle, prosecutors allege, was used in the mass shooting at Apalachee High School.

Nautica Walton, another student in Ryan’s algebra class on the day of the shooting, testified on Tuesday that when she heard a loud bang outside the classroom door, “I realized something was wrong.”

“I remember my teacher falling to the floor, and then Taylor, [a student] in front of me, I remember seeing her fall down before I turned around and saw there was somebody at the door with a weapon,” Nautica, now 16, testified.

She told the court that she got on the ground next to Melany Delira-Castaneda.

“I remember Melany, she had blood all on her arm. I remember her blood was getting on the side of me because I was lying on the side of her,” Walton testified.

Walton further testified that she was shot in the leg during the episode and recalled going in and out of consciousness.

“I remember my teacher telling me to stay awake because I was feeling really tired,” Walton said on the witness stand. “I remember Natalie [another student] lying on the floor, saying she was hit and crying with a big puddle of blood,” said Walton, adding that a classmate took off her jacket and wrapped it around her leg.

“And then I passed out after that,” she testified.

Walton also told the court that since the shooting, she has been unable to play sports and has been “very paranoid.”

“I don’t like being in front of doors at school. I don’t use the bathroom at school,” testified Walton, adding that she had nightmares for months after the shooting.

Student Taylor Jones, now 16, testified that when she realized she had been shot in the leg, she asked a classmate to hold her hand “because I was scared.”

She told the court that she remembers being on the classroom floor before she passed out and then waking up at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, where she was flown to by a medical helicopter.

Jones, a one-time volleyball player on her school team, told the court that she has since undergone multiple surgeries and has been unable to play sports.

Natalie Griffith, now 16, recalled to the court looking down at her hand during the shooting and seeing a hole and blood near her wrist.

“I didn’t know this at the time, but I had another one up on my shoulder,” she testified of a second bullet wound. “I was also worried that I was going to die and how that would affect my parents because my dad has a heart problem.”

Griffith told the court that as she was being carried out of the classroom, she saw Colt Gray on the floor being detained with his hands behind his back.

“I said a lot of curse words. I was very angry at the time because I thought they were going to have to amputate my hand,” Griffith testified. “I remember yelling at him that we were kids, because we were kids.”

Jaxxon Beaver, 16, another student in the algebra class, testified that he was also shot in the leg.

“I noticed that when I was hurt, I looked down and saw a hole in my shorts and noticed I was bleeding,” Beaver said on the stand.

Beaver further testified that he was unable to go to school for at least three months after the shooting, and eventually gave up on going back.

“Every time I went back to school, I would feel like something bad was going to happen again. I couldn’t wait and had to go home, like right after,” Beaver testified.

Ronaldo Vega, now 16, recalled to the court seeing Colt Gray at the door wearing yellow gloves and firing a rifle that had a scope.

“He shot, I don’t know how many times. I went down to duck,” Vega testified.

Vega testified that when the shooting stopped, he barricaded the classroom door with desks and chairs. He said he saw Christian Angulo curled up on the floor motionless near the door.

“A girl was screaming that he was dead,” Vega told the court.