Call from suspect’s mom to Apalachee High School before shooting was not the only warning that morning

(CNN) — Marcee Gray was 200 miles away from Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, when her gut told her something was not right.

It was Wednesday morning – before the shooting at the school that killed two students and two teachers. She had just received a text message from her 14-year-old son, Colt Gray, saying, “I’m sorry, mom.”

She called the school and asked administrators to check on him.

She recounted her conversation with a school counselor in an interview with ABC News. “The counselor said, ‘Well, I wanted to let you know that earlier this morning one of Colt’s teachers had sent me an email that said Colt had been making references to school shootings,’” Marcee Gray said.

“I told them it was an extreme emergency and for them to go immediately and find Colt to check on him,” Marcee Gray later said in a text message to her sister. “I don’t understand what took them so long.”

The suspect’s grandfather, Charles Polhamus, told CNN that he and Marcee then began the drive from his home in Fitzgerald, Georgia, to Winder.

Marcee Gray told ABC News she hadn’t spoken to her son since the shooting.

“I would tell him that I love him – that me and Jesus will love him forever and ever,” she said. “And I would tell him that ‘it’s not your fault.’ It’s not his fault.”

Colt Gray is now charged with four counts of felony murder in the shooting at his high school that left two students and two adults dead.

His father, Colin Gray, 54, has been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Thursday. Both have declined to enter a plea.

Marcee Gray told CNN in a text Wednesday she is set to speak with Barrow County investigators on Thursday.

The surrounding community, still reeling from the tragedy, is sending their children back to schools Tuesday – with the exception of Apalachee High – as the question persists: Could more have been done to prevent the shooting?

“We know the days ahead are going to be difficult and that we have some staff and some students who are not ready to return to school. We also believe as a school system that it is our responsibility to provide a safe space for those who are,” Barrow County School System superintendent Dr. Dallas LeDuff said in a video message Sunday night.

All other schools in the district reopened Tuesday, with additional security and mental health supports on hand, according to the district.

Warning signs before tragedy

Marcee Gray’s call to Apalachee High was not the only warning made that Wednesday morning. An unknown person called the school and said there would be shootings at five schools that day, and Apalachee would be first, according to police.

Gray stepped out of his second period Algebra class shortly before the shooting started, according to his classmate Lyela Sayarath, who sat next to him.

Shortly after, another student – who has a similar name to Gray – was pulled, along with his backpack, out of class, Sayarath said.

When he returned to class, he told Sayarath that administrators “were looking for the kid who sits next to you, not me.”

Apalachee High School has repeatedly declined to comment on whether another student was mistakenly pulled from the classroom in Gray’s place.

“The school failed them, that they could have prevented these deaths and they didn’t,” Lyela’s mother, Rabecca Sayarath, told the Associated Press. “I truly, truly feel that way.”

Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith has told CNN there were no prior warnings of a possible threat.

A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office on Monday referred questions to the Barrow County District Attorney’s office. CNN has reached out to the district attorney’s office for additional comment.

The FBI also said it received a tip about Gray making threats against schools in May 2023, but deputies in Jackson County, where Gray lived at the time with his father, Colin Gray, said they were unable to substantiate the tip.

When an investigator at the time was asked whether Colin Gray had an AR-15, they replied “only hunting rifles.”

Colin Gray told investigators he purchased the AR-style rifle used in the school shooting as a holiday present for his son in December 2023, two law enforcement officers previously told CNN.

CNN’s Isabel Rosales, Meridith Edwards, Scott Glover, Keith Allen and Kelly McCleary contributed to this report.

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