Teenager accused of quadruple murder at Georgia high school was subject of previous threat reports

WINDER, Ga. — More than a year ago, tips about online posts threatening a school shooting led police in Georgia to question a 13-year-old boy. But investigators did not have enough evidence to make an arrest. On Wednesday, the boy opened fire at his high school outside Atlanta, killing four people and wounding nine, officials said.

The teenager was charged as an adult in the deaths of two 14-year-old Apalachee High School students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said at a news conference.

At least nine other people – eight students and a teacher at the school in Winder, about an hour's drive northeast of Atlanta – were taken to hospitals with injuries. All are expected to survive, said Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith.

The teenager, now 14 years old, was due to be taken to a regional juvenile detention center on Thursday.

Armed with an assault rifle, the teenager pointed the weapon at students in a school hallway when classmates refused to open the door for him to return to his algebra classroom, classmate Lyela Sayarath said.

The teenager had earlier left second algebra class, and Sayarath assumed that the quiet student, who had recently been transferred, was skipping school again.

But he came back later and wanted to go back into the classroom. Some students tried to open the locked door, but backed away instead.

“I suspect they saw something but for some reason didn’t open the door,” Sayarath said.

As she looked through a window in the door, she saw the student turn around and heard a volley of gunshots.

“There were about 10 or 15 at a time, back to back,” she said.

The math students crouched on the floor and crawled around sporadically, looking for a safe corner in which to hide.

Two school security officers encountered the shooter minutes after gunshots were reported, Hosey said. The teen immediately turned himself in and was taken into custody.

The teenager was questioned after the FBI received anonymous tips in May 2023 about online threats to carry out an unspecified school shooting, the agency said in a statement.

The FBI was able to isolate the threats and forward the case to the Jackson County Sheriff's Department, which borders Barrow County.

The sheriff's office interviewed the then 13-year-old and his father, who said there were hunting weapons in the house but the teen did not have unsupervised access to them. The teen also denied making any online threats.

The sheriff's office advised local schools that the teenager needed to be monitored, but there was no probable cause for an arrest or further action, the FBI said.

Hosey said the state's Family and Children Services Department also had previous contact with the teen and will investigate whether that had any connection to the shooting. Local news outlets reported that police searched the teen's family home in Bethlehem, Georgia, east of the high school on Wednesday.

“All the students had to watch their teachers and classmates die, everyone left school limping and looking traumatized,” said Sayarath. “These are the consequences of our failure to take control.”

Authorities were still investigating how the teenager obtained the gun used in the shooting and brought it into the school of about 1,900 students in Barrow County, a rapidly suburbanizing area on the edge of the ever-expanding Atlanta metropolitan area.

It was the latest of dozens of school shootings in the United States in recent years, including particularly deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut; Parkland, Florida; and Uvalde, Texas. The classroom killings have sparked heated debates about gun control and frayed the nerves of parents whose children are growing up with classroom shooting drills. But they have done little to advance national gun laws.

Before Wednesday, there had been 29 mass murders in the United States this year, according to a database maintained by the Associated Press and USA Today in collaboration with Northeastern University. At least 127 people died in those killings, which are defined as incidents in which four or more people die within 24 hours, not including the killer – the same definition used by the FBI.

On Wednesday night, hundreds gathered at Jug Tavern Park in downtown Winder for a vigil. Volunteers handed out candles as well as water, pizza and tissues. Some knelt while a Methodist minister led the crowd in prayer after a Barrow County commissioner read a Jewish prayer of mourning.

Christopher Vasquez, 15, said he attended the vigil because he felt grounded and in a safe place.

He was at band practice when the curfew was imposed. He said it felt like a normal practice as students lined up to hide in the band locker.

“When we heard a knock on the door and the SWAT team came to get us out, I knew it was serious,” he said. “I just started shaking and crying.”

Only when he reached the football stadium did he calm down. “I just prayed that everyone I love was safe,” he said.