(CNN) — Marcee Gray was 200 miles away from Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, when her gut told her something was wrong.

It was Wednesday morning – before the school shooting that left two students and two teachers dead. She had just received a text message from her 14-year-old son, Colt Gray, saying, “I’m sorry, Mom.”

She called the school and asked the administration to check on him.

In an interview with ABC News, she recounted her conversation with a school counselor. “The counselor said, ‘I wanted to let you know that one of Colt’s teachers sent me an email this morning saying that Colt has made references to school shootings,'” Marcee Gray said.

“I told them it was an extreme emergency and to go immediately and find Colt and check on him,” Marcee Gray later said in a text message to her sister. “I don’t understand why it took them so long.”

The suspect’s grandfather, Charles Polhamus, told CNN that he and Marcee then drove from his home in Fitzgerald, Georgia, to Winder.

Marcee Gray told ABC News she has not spoken to her son since the shooting.

“I would tell him that I love him — that I and Jesus will love him forever and ever,” she said. “And I would tell him, ‘It’s not your fault.’ It’s not his fault.”

Colt Gray is now charged with four counts of murder in connection with the shooting at his high school that left two students and two adults dead.

His father, Colin Gray, 54, was charged with four counts of manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of child abuse, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. ThursdayBoth have declined to enter a plea.

In the surrounding community, still reeling from the effects of the tragedy, children will return to school on Tuesday, with the exception of Apalachee High School. But the question remains: Could more have been done to prevent the shooting?

“We know the coming days will be difficult and that some of our staff and students are not yet ready to return to school. We also believe it is our responsibility as a school system to provide a safe place for those who are,” Dr. Dallas LeDuff, superintendent of the Barrow County School System, said in a video message Sunday evening.

All other schools in the district reopened Tuesday, with additional safety measures and mental health supports available, the district said.

Marcee Gray’s call to Apalachee High School wasn’t the only alert that Wednesday morning. An unknown person called the school and said there would be shootings at five schools that day, and Apalachee would be first, police said.

According to his classmate Lyela Sayarath, who was sitting next to him, Gray left his second period algebra class shortly before the shooting began.

Shortly afterward, another student – who has a similar name to Gray – was dragged out of class along with his backpack, Sayarath said.

When he returned to the classroom, he told Sayarath that the school administration was “looking for the child sitting next to him, not me.”

Apalachee High School has repeatedly declined to comment on whether another student was mistakenly removed from the classroom in Gray’s place.

“The school failed them. They could have prevented these deaths, but they didn’t,” Lyela’s mother, Rabecca Sayarath, told the Associated Press. “I really, really feel that way.”

Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told CNN there were no prior warnings of a possible threat.

A sheriff’s office spokesman referred the case to the Barrow County District Attorney’s Office on Monday. CNN has asked the prosecutor’s office for further comment.

The FBI also said it received a tip that Gray made threats against schools in May 2023. However, officials in Jackson County, where Gray lived with his father, Colin Gray, at the time, said they could not confirm the tip.

When an investigator was asked at the time whether Colin Gray owned an AR-15, he replied, “Only hunting rifles.”

Colin Gray told investigators he purchased the AR-style rifle used in the school shooting as a Christmas present for his son in December 2023, two law enforcement officials previously told CNN.