Suspected Georgia high-school shooter Colt Gray made his first appearance in US state court, where he faces murder charges stemming from Wednesday's rampage that killed four people and wounded nine others.
The 14-year-old, who was being held without bond in the Gainesville Regional Youth Detention Center, did not enter a plea in front of Barrow County Superior Court Judge Currie Mingledorff.
The judge told Colt Gray that he was charged with four counts of felony murder and that he could face life in prison if convicted by a jury.
He earlier told Colt Gray that he could face the death penalty, but later corrected himself, telling the youth he was not eligible for the death penalty given that he is younger than 18 years old.
Colt Gray was shackled as he sat next to his lawyer and answered several of the judge's questions with a nod.
His father, Colin Gray, came before Judge Mingledorff about 40 minutes after his son left the court.
He has been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children.
The 54-year-old was shackled and wearing a jail striped shirt and pants.
He quietly answered a few questions by the judge and then spent most of the hearing rocking back and forth.
The judge said Colin Gray faces up to 180 years in prison.
Georgia state and Barrow County investigators say Colt Gray used an "AR platform-style weapon," or semi-automatic rifle, to carry out the attack at Apalachee High School, where two teachers and two 14-year-old students were killed.
He was arrested moments after the shooting by two sheriff's deputies assigned to the school.
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Investigators have yet to comment on what may have motivated the first mass shooting on a US school campus since classes resumed at summer's end.
The shooting in Winder, a city of 18,000 some 80km northeast of Atlanta, revived both the national debate about gun control and the outpouring of grief that follows in a country where such attacks occur with some regularity.
Officials identified those killed as 14-year-old students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53.
Another teacher and eight other students were also wounded in the attack, the Georgia bureau said.
Of those, the adult and six of the students were shot, the bureau said.
Some of them have been released from the hospital, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told reporters.
"The nine injured, I am very happy to say, will make a full recovery," Mr Smith said.
Parents held responsible
The charging of Colin Gray could represent a new strategy in America's halting attempt to control the epidemic of school shootings.
In April, the mother and father of a Michigan teen were sentenced to between 10 and 15 years in prison after a jury convicted them of manslaughter after their son shot and killed four classmates.
It was believed to be the first time parents were held legally responsible for their children's action in a school shooting.
Experts and gun safety advocates said the Michigan case was an important step in holding gun-owning parents more accountable for school violence carried out by their children.
In Georgia, Mr Gray and his son were interviewed in May 2023 by officials in a neighbouring county in connection with online threats about carrying out a school shooting made on the gaming social media platform Discord, according to investigators.
Both father and son told the Jackson County Sheriff's Department they had not made the threats.
The father also said he had hunting guns locked in a safe in the house and his son did not have access to them.
Jackson County investigators closed the case after being unable to substantiate that either Gray was connected to the Discord account and did not find grounds to seek the needed court order to confiscate the family's guns, according to police reports released by the sheriff's office yesterday.
"This case was worked and at the time the boy was 13 and it wasn't enough to substantiate," Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said in an interview.
"If we get a judge's order or we charge somebody, we take firearms for safekeeping," she said.
In the Michigan case, Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of Ethan Crumbley, who in 2021 shot and killed four classmates at Oxford High School, were found guilty of not securing guns in their home and of ignoring warning signs that their son was mentally disturbed.
Studies by the US Department of Homeland Security have shown that around 75% of all school shooters obtained their weapons at home.
The shooting was the first planned attack at a school this autumn, said David Riedman, who runs the K-12 School Shooting Database.
Apalachee students returned to school last month, many other students in the United States are returning this week.
The United States has seen hundreds of shootings inside schools and colleges in the past two decades.
The incident has intensified the debate over gun laws and the right granted in the US Constitution's Second Amendment "to keep and bear arms".
