PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A teenager who killed four students at Michigan’s Oxford High School will be sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole, a judge said Friday.
Judge Kwamé Rowe announced the decision over video conference, weeks after hearing from experts who clashed over Ethan Crumbley’s mental health and witnesses who described the tragic day in 2021 in sharp detail.
Crumbley heard the decision with his lawyers while sitting in a room in the county jail.
The 17-year-old will be formally sentenced in Oakland County court on Dec. 8, a day when survivors and families can tell the judge about how the shooting affected their lives.
First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence for adults in Michigan. But the shooter was 15 at the time, and the judge had the option of choosing a shorter term that would mean an eventual opportunity for freedom.
“Even if the defendant changes, and he finds some peace and some meaning in his life beyond torturing and killing, does not mean that he ever gets the right to live free among us,” prosecutor Karen McDonald said while arguing for a life sentence on Aug. 18.
The shooter pleaded guilty to murder, terrorism and other crimes. The teen and his parents met with school staff on the day of the shooting after a teacher noticed violent drawings. But no one checked his backpack for a gun and he was allowed to stay.
The shooter’s lawyers had argued that he was in a devastating spiral by fall 2021 after being deeply neglected by his parents, who bought a gun and took him to a shooting range to try it. A psychologist, Colin King, described him as a “feral child.”
Defense attorney Paulette Michel Loftin said Crumbley deserved an opportunity for parole some day after his “sick brain” is fixed through counseling and rehabilitation.
Dr. Lisa Anacker, a psychiatrist who evaluated the shooter at a state psychiatric hospital, said he was not mentally ill at the time of the shooting, at least under strict standards in Michigan law.
There is no dispute that the shooter kept a journal and wrote about his desire to watch students suffer and the likelihood that he would spend his life in prison. He made a video with his phone on the eve of shooting, declaring what he would do the next day.
“I’m sorry the families have to go through this,” he said.
He killed Madisyn Baldwin, Tate Myre, Hana St. Juliana and Justin Shilling Oxford High, about 40 miles (60 kilometers) north of Detroit. Six students and a teacher were also wounded.
James and Jennifer Crumbley are separately charged with involuntary manslaughter. They are accused of making a gun accessible at home and ignoring their son’s mental health.
What a tragedy. As much as I feel for the kid who committed the murders and feel the neglect he suffered from his parents contributed to this situation, he still made the choice to murder four of his peers and had the presence of mind to realize that was wrong and what the consequences would be. I don’t know that I think he should spend literally his entire life in prison, but I definitely don’t think he should get to spend any of the productive period of his life free. He killed four people in cold blood. They’re dead–they don’t get to have lives. I wouldn’t like to see him go free, even with the best behavior, before the age of 60. If he reforms, let him live his twilight years free, but he shouldn’t get to have a life like everyone else. No matter how hard his childhood was, he doesn’t get to take that out on others by ending their lives and get forgiven for it.
Now, the parents–well, I’d be willing to tolerate involuntary sterilization for the both of them and very lengthy prison sentences as well.