A junior at Apalachee High School who was sat next to shooting suspect Colt Gray revealed the alleged gunman’s chilling behavior moments before he opened fire – and how she and her classmates narrowly avoided death.
Lyela Sayarath said she was sat next to the 14-year-old in algebra class on Wednesday morning, and had no indication of the horror that would unfold as she described him as a ‘quiet’ teen.
‘He never really talked, he wasn’t (in school) most times, he would just skip class,’ she told CNN. ‘Even when he would have talked, it was one word answers.’
Sayarath said she ‘wasn’t surprised’ when Gray was identified as the shooter, and said that ‘when you think of shooters and the way they act, it’s usually the quiet kid and he was the one that fit that description.’
She said on the morning of the shooting, Grey excused himself from the room minutes before shots rang out, but when he left she assumed he was merely skipping class again.
Sayarath said Gray left the classroom at 9:45am, around half an hour before active shooter alerts sounded, and thought he was skipping class as he