The mother of the Georgia teen accused of killing four people in a mass shooting at Apalachee High School was indicted by a grand jury last week for allegedly taping her then-73-year-old mother to a chair and leaving her alone for nearly 24 hours last year, according to a news report.
Marcee Gray, 43, is accused of exploitation and intimidation of a disabled adult or elderly person, false imprisonment, criminal damage to property in the second degree, and theft, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution reported.
Gray’s 14-year-old son, Colt, has been charged as an adult with four counts of felony murder for the Sept. 4 killings of two students and two math teachers at his Winder, Georgia, school.
His father, Colin Gray, 54, with whom the teen’s mother is estranged, has been charged with second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and second-degree cruelty to children after authorities said he “knowingly allowed” his son to possess a gun.
According to a police incident report cited by the Journal-Constitution, Marcee Gray bound her mother, Deborah Polhamus, to an armchair, took her iPhone and broke a mirror and her mother’s back door around 5 p.m. on Nov. 3, 2023.
A family friend found Polhamus on Nov. 4, investigators said in the report, after Polhamus’ other daughter in Florida contacted the friend when her mother didn’t answer her phone.
Marcee Gray told the newspaper that she was experiencing a “methamphetamine-induced psychosis” when she asked her mother to accompany her to Colin Gray’s home 200 miles away so she could see her children.
She said when her mother refused, she taped her to the chair so Polhamus couldn’t call the police. Polhamus’ wrist was injured and she had bruises on her arms and legs from the restraints, according to the police report cited by the news outlet.
“What I put my mother through is inexcusable and horrifying,” Marcee Gray told the Journal-Constitution. “I will have to face the fallout of my actions for the rest of my life.”
Days after the Apalachee High School shooting, Marcee Gray wrote an open letter to the victims’ families apologizing for her son’s alleged actions, CNN reported.
“We are all in a living nightmare right now, and I will personally never forgive myself for what has happened,” she wrote.
In an interview with Atlanta ABC affiliate WSBT, Marcee Gray said she had contacted her son’s school the day of the shooting, urging them to check on the teen after she received a cryptic text message from him saying, “I’m sorry.”
Authorities and school officials declined to comment when The Washington Post followed up on her claims.
Two days after her mother was found trapped in November, Marcee Gray was arrested in Barrow County, where Colin Gray lived with their children, on suspicion of drug possession and damaging her ex-husband’s car, and served a brief stint in jail. She was ordered to serve five years’ probation after originally being sentenced to five years in prison, the Journal-Constitution reported.
Marcee Gray and Crisp County District Attorney Brad Rigby, whose office handles cases in the county where Gray and her mother live, did not immediately reply to HuffPost’s request for comment.
The most serious charge in the recent grand jury indictment against Marcee Gray, felony elder exploitation, carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, the Journal-Constitution reported.
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