In tearful and often painful testimony, students injured in a 2024 mass shooting at a Georgia high school on Tuesday witnessed the murder trial of the alleged gunman’s father.
As the defendant, Colin Gray, 55, sat a few feet away listening, the students recounted the horror they endured on Sept. 4, 2024, at Appalachian High School in Winder, Georgia, at the hands of Gray’s then-14-year-old son, Colt.
Judge Nicholas Brehm, presiding over the case, ordered the media not to show the students’ faces during the televised trial. The defense did not question any of the students who testified.
All of the students who testified Tuesday said they were their algebra teacher, Cassandra Ryan described when they heard a loud thud outside the classroom door.
Colin Gray, father of Appalachian High School shooting suspect Colt Gray, looks down as his attorney delivers his opening statement in Barrow County District Court, on February 16, 2026, in Winder, Georgia.
Jason Getz/AP
“I remember standing up and turning my back toward the door, and that’s when I saw him, Colt. He was pointing his gun, just aiming anywhere, I guess,” Melanie DeLira Castañeda, who was a freshman at the time of the shooting, testified.
The 16-year-old testified that she did not realize she had been shot until after the gunfire had subsided.
“I remember standing up and turning around. I didn’t know I was getting shot, but I was. My body was telling me to hold my arm, so I was holding my arm,” Delira Castañeda testified. “I think I was just in shock and scared.”
She said she was shot in the shoulder.
“I feel like a lot of what I saw that day, it’s stuck in my mind, the inability to trust certain people,” Delira Castañeda 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 inactions Colin Gray took with his son before the shooting.
Gray is the latest of the parents whom prosecutors in various US states have tried to hold criminally responsible for the alleged murderous actions of their children.
The father faces four counts of manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder, and eight counts of child cruelty. He pleaded not guilty to these 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.
He was killed in the shooting Maths teacher and football coach Richard Aspinwall, 39; Maths teacher Christina Erimi, 53; The students were 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 in custody access to a firearm and ammunition after warning him that his child would harm others,” Smith said in his opening statement Monday.
Prosecutors allege that despite repeatedly warning him about his son’s mental decline and that he was a danger to himself and others, Colin Gray gave the boy an AR-15-style rifle as a Christmas gift and allowed him to keep the weapon leaning against a wall in his bedroom. Prosecutors allege the gun was used in the mass shooting at Appalachian High School.
Nautika Walton, another student in Ryan’s algebra class on the day of the shooting, testified Tuesday that when she heard a loud noise outside the classroom door, she “knew something was wrong.”
“I remember my teacher falling to the ground, then Taylor falling, [a student] In front of me, I remember seeing her fall before I turned around and saw there was someone at the door with a gun,” Nautica, now 16, testified.
She told the court she fell to the ground next to Melanie Delera Castañeda.
“I remember Melanie, she had blood on her arm. And I remember her blood was running down my side because I was lying on her side,” Walton testified.
Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith points to a weapon that, on February 16, 2026, defendant Colin Gray allegedly gave to his son, Colt Gray, as a Christmas gift, and that the teen allegedly used in a mass shooting at Appalachian High School in Winder, Georgia.
Jason Getz/AP
Walton also testified that she was shot in the leg during the incident and recalled falling in and out of consciousness.
“I remember my teacher telling me to stay awake because I was feeling so tired,” Walton said on the witness stand. “I remember Natalie [another student] “She was lying on the ground, saying she was hit and crying with a big pool of blood,” Walton said, adding that a colleague took off her jacket and wrapped it around her leg.
“Then I lost consciousness after that,” she testified.
Walton also told the court that since the shooting she had not been able to exercise and was “extremely paranoid.”
“I don’t like being in front of the school doors. I don’t use the bathroom at school,” Walton testified, adding that she had nightmares for several 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 she remembers being in the classroom before losing consciousness and then waking up at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, where she was airlifted by medical helicopter.
This set of booking photos provided by the Barrow County, Georgia, Sheriff’s Office shows Colin Gray, left, and his son Colt Gray, who were charged in connection with the September 4, 2024 shooting at Appalachian High School in Winder, Georgia.
AP
Jones, who was a volleyball player on her school team, told the court she has since undergone multiple surgeries and has been unable to play sports.
Natalie Griffiths, now 16, recalled in court that she looked at her hand during the shooting and saw a hole and blood near her wrist.
“I didn’t know it at the time, but I had another one on my shoulder,” she testified of a second bullet wound. “I was also worried that I would die and how it would affect my father because my father has a heart problem.”
Griffith told the court that as she was being led out of the classroom, she saw Colt Gray on the floor being detained with his hands behind his back.
“I said a lot of bad 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.”
Jackson Beaver, 16, another student in his algebra class, testified that he was also shot in the leg.
“I noticed that when I was hit, I looked down and saw a hole in my pants and noticed I was bleeding,” Beaver said from the stand.
Beaver also testified that he was unable to go to school for at least three months after the shooting, and he eventually gave up on returning.
“Every time I returned to school, I felt like something bad was going to happen again,” Beaver testified. “I couldn’t wait and had to go home, as happened right after.”
Ronaldo Vega, now 16, recalled in court that he saw Colt Gray at the door wearing yellow gloves and firing a rifle with a scope.
“He shot, I don’t know how many times. I went down for ducks,” Vega testified.
Vega testified that when the shooting stopped, he barricaded the classroom door with desks and chairs. He said he saw Christian Angulo lying motionless on the ground near the door.
“A girl was screaming that he was dead,” Vega told the court.