Winder, Georgia
CNN
—

A search of the home of the 14-year-old boy accused of killing four people at a Georgia high school this week turned up documents that authorities believe he wrote that reference previous school shootings, a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told CNN.

The source said the writings were found in suspect Colt Gray’s bedroom and contained references to the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.

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The discovery, which could shed light on a motive for the shooting, comes amid a new picture of Gray’s tumultuous family life in the years leading up to the deadly attack, revealed in a CNN analysis of court and law enforcement records, social media posts and an interview with his grandfather.

Gray’s parents have endured a bitter divorce and custody dispute in recent years. They’ve called each other out on the police, the family has been evicted from at least one home, and Gray’s mother has been arrested for defacing her husband’s car and drug possession, according to police records.

At the same time, Gray’s mother and maternal grandfather accuse Gray’s father of verbally abusing his family for years.

“He was just a good kid, but he lived in a hostile environment,” Charles Polhamus said of Gray, his grandson, in an interview with CNN. “His father would beat him up, I mean, I’m not talking physically, but yelling and screaming, and he did the same thing to my daughter.”

The grandfather said he never saw the person who was shot have anger issues, but that the turbulent family life had taken its toll on the teen.

Detectives seeking to determine the suspected shooter’s motive are now looking at his family’s past dealings with state child protective services, the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday.

Attempts to reach the suspect’s parents for comment on Wednesday and Thursday were unsuccessful.

Gray’s parents’ relationship began promisingly. In July 2011, shortly after he was born, his parents purchased a small farm in Barrow County, Georgia, outside the college town of Athens. They planned to “establish a nonprofit, therapeutic riding school for local, underprivileged children,” his mother, Marcee Gray, who worked in industrial engineering, later wrote in a LinkedIn post.

But those plans were thwarted in part because her husband, Colin Gray, had undergone at least three “major” back surgeries, she wrote. The couple, who had three children, later sold the farm in 2019, according to property records.

After moving, the family faced lawsuits from multiple landlords and was evicted from one home in July 2022 by a sheriff’s deputy for nonpayment of rent, according to court documents. As part of the eviction, sheriff’s records show, deputies seized three firearms, including an AR-15, and at least one hunting bow, and kept them for safety. The weapons were later “turned over to the owner,” the documents say.

Later that year, Marcee Gray wrote on social media that she had left her husband.

“Finally divorced from my abusive husband of almost 14 years,” she wrote in a LinkedIn comment on a December 2022 post. “It was the hardest shit I’ve ever done but we are in good hands.”

“I have packed up my things and my babies’ things and moved back to my hometown in south Georgia,” Gray added in another post in May 2023. “We are all doing well and my children are thriving.”

That same month, however, law enforcement officials were investigating 13-year-old Colt Gray in connection with a school shooting threat. Investigators with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office questioned Colt and his father about a threat made on the online chat platform Discord to commit a school shooting, according to documents obtained through a public records request.

Colt Gray denied making the threat, according to an investigative report. A Discord spokesperson told CNN on Wednesday that the platform removed an account in May 2023 that was believed to be “associated with” Gray because it violated Discord’s anti-extremism policies.

Colin Gray told investigators he had shotguns in his home and that “Colt is allowed to use them when he is supervised, but does not have unrestricted access to them,” the report said. The case was later released because the tip could not be substantiated.

In his interview, Colin Gray told investigators that he had separated from his wife, who took their two youngest children with him. The suspect’s father said Colt — the oldest of three siblings — had “had some trouble” at a Jackson County high school, but that he had since moved to another school and “it’s gotten a lot better,” one investigator wrote.

Gray was only enrolled in the Jackson County School District between February and August 2022, said Edward Hooper, the district spokesman. Jackson County is next to Barrow County, where Colt Gray is accused of killing two fellow students and two teachers at Apalachee High School,

In October 2023, Barrow County sheriff’s deputies responded to a welfare check on the Gray family after Marcee Gray reported that she had not heard from her husband or their children in two weeks. Colin Gray, who was at the home with them, said all of their children were with him, a deputy wrote in a report.

Colin Gray gave the officer a document from the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services showing that “a safety plan had been put in place so he could have the children with him” and that Marcee Gray “was not allowed to see them unsupervised,” the officer wrote.

A spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Human Services said Thursday that she could not comment on the case due to confidentiality laws. But Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said at a news conference Wednesday that the agency was aware that the department had had “some prior contacts” with the Gray family, and “we are following up on that as well to see if that is related to today’s incident.”

In November 2023, Colin Gray called police and accused his wife of scratching a truck he was driving for his job at a construction company. According to a sheriff’s report, he wrote the words “abuse” and “liar” on it.

Two days later, police arrested Marcee Gray at a Walmart in Winder on an active warrant from another county. Police found methamphetamine, fentanyl, painkillers and a glass pipe in her car, and she and another man who was in the vehicle were arrested, another sheriff’s report said.

After being arrested, Marcee Gray admitted to scratching her husband’s truck and said she “lost him” after he refused to let her see her children, the report said.

Marcee Gray pleaded guilty the following month to criminal damage to property, “criminal trespassing – domestic violence” and using a license plate to conceal identity, and was sentenced to a total of five months’ probation after serving more than a month in custody. As part of her guilty plea, she was prohibited from contacting her husband except through a third party for divorce negotiations and custody discussions.

A friend of Marcee Gray, who asked not to be identified to protect her privacy, told CNN that the legal troubles she faced were “not the Marcee we know” and called her a “sweet, caring, smart woman” who had changed.

“Something went wrong in that relationship,” the friend said.

According to Polhamus, Marcee Gray’s father, she lost custody of her children after failing a drug test. She subsequently moved back to her parents in South Georgia and is in rehab.

Polhamus said he never imagined his grandson would be capable of such a deadly attack.

“I understand Colt chose to do what he did, and I understand he has to pay for it,” he said. “But I’m telling you, the environment he lived in … if you put someone in that situation for 10 or 11 years, guess what’s going to happen? Nothing good.”

CNN’s Isabelle Chapman contributed reporting.