The father of the suspect in a 2024 Georgia high school shooting was found guilty on Tuesday of second-degree murder after giving his son a gun for Christmas.

Colin Gray was convicted of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, after the jury deliberated for less than two hours, The Associated Press reported. The charges are related to the September 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, northeast of Atlanta.

He was found guilty of second-degree murder in the deaths of two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo. 

According to Georgia law, second-degree murder is causing the death of a child by committing the crime of cruelty to children. Gray was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53.

He was also convicted of multiple counts of reckless conduct and cruelty to children. Another teacher and eight other students were also wounded in the shooting.

Second-degree murder includes a prison sentence of at least 10 years but no more than 30, while involuntary manslaughter carries a penalty of one to 10 years in prison.

“We talk a lot about rights in our country,” Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith said after the verdict. “But God gave us a duty to protect our children, and I hope that we remember that, as parents, as community members, to protect our children because that is our God-given duty.”

Marcee Gray, the mother of the suspected shooter, wasn’t charged. She testified that she had urged her estranged husband to take any guns and lock them inside his truck so that their son, Colt, could not access them. She and Gray were separated in the months leading up to the shooting, and their son mostly lived with his father during that time. Marcee Gray declined to comment when reached by the AP after the verdict.

Prosecutors argued that Gray gave his son the gun as a Christmas gift and allowed him to access it and ammunition despite the boy’s declining mental health. They said that Gray had “sufficient warning that Colt Gray would harm and endanger” other people.

Colt Gray, who was 14 at the time of the shooting, has pleaded not guilty to a total of 55 counts, including murder. A status hearing in his case has been set for mid-March.