Zoloft Implicated in Mass Shooting in Georgia
Republished with permission from AbleChild.
On September 4, 2024, 14-year-old Colt Gray carried out the Apalachee High School mass shooting in Winder, Georgia, killing two students and two teachers. Having pleaded guilty to all 55 charges, the teenager was sentenced to life in prison without the hope of parole.
It is of interest that the sentencing hearing was all about the defense blaming the murderous actions on the lack of mental health treatment and pushing the idea that “meds” were the answer all along and Colt was untreated.
However, according to testimony, it was Marcee Gray, Colts mother, who provided Colt with the strong antidepressant, Zoloft, prior to the shooting. The defense and the Department of Children and Families (DCF) did not provide information about any other prescription psychiatric drugs the now 16-year-old may have been prescribed prior to the shooting.
Across the country, parents have been charged by States for ignoring a child’s mental health needs, but the defense theory in Colton Gray’s case, the argument of lack of mental health treatment, completely fell flat on Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm while delivering the life sentence.
Georgia’s child welfare system is the beating heart of the Gray case, where early warning signs, school records, and agency files appear to have collided with a deadly failure to act. There is plenty of room for reforms and the legislature should welcome them from outside the agency.
Marcee Gray’s admission of providing the antidepressant, Zoloft, to the adolescent, a powerful mind-altering psychiatric medication, is interesting from the standpoint that the mother was not charged in the case. Marcee testified she had been on Zoloft for a decade.
Colt’s mother reportedly inquired of her psychiatrist about Zoloft dosage levels for her adolescent son. Who is this psychiatrist? By all accounts, psychiatrists are prohibited legally and ethically from suggesting specific medication dosages for an adolescent without first establishing a doctor-patient relationship and formal evaluation. Why wasn’t this brought up in court?
But this case has become part of the larger public record surrounding unmedicated vs. medicated prior to mass shootings and the legal impact of these cases on the mass psychiatric drugging of children for decades. The Georgia DCF masterfully used Marcee Gray’s involvement with the State of Georgia to secure testimony against the father, Colin Gray, for giving his son access to a weapon. It also was Marcee who made claims that her husband failed to obtain mental health treatment for Colt.
The State of Georgia had an open case with Marcee Gray who was indicted on elder-abuse-related charges after authorities said Marcee taped her own mother to a chair, took her phone, and left her mother there for nearly a day. Marcee is free today and has not been charged with any criminal acts relating to the Apalachee school shooting or whether her role in providing her son with a serious mind-altering drug, Zoloft, played a role in the shooting tragedy.
The Defense case focused on the claim that Colt faked psychiatric illness before the mass shooting with yet another unprovable label (Malingering) and wasn’t well until he arrived in state custody and provided treatment in the form of a cocktail of psychiatric drugs.
Meanwhile the State of Georgia had their grips on Marcee, having tested positive for multiple legal and illegal substances and crushed Zoloft to solve Colt’s mental health problems. Why? According to DCF, once in custody the mind-altering cocktail of drugs reportedly made dramatic improvement of Colt’s mental health. The Judge rejected the idea. Marcee’s extensive relationship with Georgia’s DCF cannot be overlooked in this case and the production of these mass shooters almost always involves the DCF.
Marcee appeared in the child’s life, against a court order, prior to the mass murder and equipped Colt with her psychiatric elixir, crushed Zoloft. Where was the State of Georgia? Early records on Colt Gray reportedly include a 504 plan at school, where a team of psychologists and teachers considered a behavioral health plan, which makes the claim that Zoloft was the first drug given to Colt even more strikingly unbelievable because drugs usually are the go-to answer for behavioral problems in schools.
Georgia can hide behind HIPAA, but the public will never know the full truth until Marcee and Colt’s mental health records are made public. It is of interest that while prosecutors are legally allowed to withhold mental health records, it had no problem introducing damaging information relating to the adolescent’s use on the popular on-line communication platform, Discord, even reading one platform exchange as if it were a play even with voice inflections. Who are these people interacting with these “medicated” kids? One cannot help but wonder if the children are targeted?
Prosecutors used these deeply disturbing conversations on DISCORD to help reject the psychiatric label of “Malingering” as the defense was pushing that Colt was faking his psychiatric disorders, a claim that would be quickly reversed once the State began drugging Colt with a cocktail of psychiatric drugs.
Poor Colt Gray? Yes! A victim of the failures by the Georgia Department of Children & Family Services, the on-line communication platform, Discord, the behavioral health & drug companies, and most of all his own parents. Despite those failures, Judge Primm saw through the nonsense, indicating at sentencing that children who suffer far worse don’t commit mass murders.
AbleChild has reviewed dozens of school shootings, and this is one of the darkest. Many should share in the blame for the adolescent’s obvious problems but, if truth be told, Colt’s life sentence started the day his mother provided a serious mind-altering drug, Zoloft, to the child’s still developing brain. From that day forward, Colt was never in his right mind. Colt’s mother, mother’s psychiatrist, father and the state’s DCF are all culpable.
AbleChild is a 501(3) C nonprofit organization that has recently co-written landmark legislation in Tennessee, setting a national precedent for transparency and accountability in the intersection of mental health, pharmaceutical practices, and public safety.
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