A classmate of Georgia school shooter Colt Gray said she had been sitting next to the 14-year-old before his terrifying massacre, saying that at one point that he left the classroom and tried to re-enter with a gun.
Lyela Sayarath, a junior at Apalachee High School, told CNN that after Gray left their Algebra I class Wednesday morning, he later knocked on the locked door to be let back in.
Another student who approached the door “saw that he had a gun, so she backed away,” Sayarath added. Gray then “turned to the classroom that would have been to my right, and he just starts to shoot, and you hear about ten to fifteen rounds back-to-back.”
Sayarath said she and others in her class hid behind desks with the lights off after they heard gunshots.
“When we heard it, most people just dropped to the floor and kind of crawled in an area, like, piled on top of each other,” she said. “The teacher turned off the lights, but we all just kind of piled together, and I pushed desks in front of us. I was just telling people, ‘Push desks in front of you, block in front of you, get low’—things like that.”
Sayarath described Gray as “quiet,” and said she wasn’t surprised that he was the shooter.
“He never really talked. He was pretty quiet,” she said. “He wasn‘t there most times either. He just didn‘t come to school or he just would skip class, but even when he would‘ve talked, it was one word answers and short statements.”
Four people—two 14-year-old students and two teachers—were shot dead and another nine were injured in the incident at Apalachee High School, officials confirmed. Gray survived, and was immediately taken into custody. He is expected to be charged with murder and tried as an adult.
