Oxford school shooter sentenced to life without parole
A sentencing hearing for the teen who killed four fellow Oxford High School students on Nov. 30, 2021 begins on Friday. Victims will have the opportunity to make statements, and Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Kwamé Rowe will decide the shooter’s sentence. Rowe’s options include a prison term of 25 years to 40 years at a minimum, up to life without the possibility of parole. Ethan Crumbley has pleaded guilty to all 24 charges against him, including first-degree murder.
An Oakland County judge will determine whether the teenager who killed four students and injured seven other people will spend the rest of his life in prison at a sentencing hearing that begins on Friday. Oakland County Circuit Judge Kwamé Rowe’s sentencing options include a prison term of 25 years to 40 years at a minimum.
The maximum penalty for Ethan Crumbley would be life without the possibility of parole. If that is Judge Rowe’s decision, it would make Crumbley the fifth juvenile in Michigan to receive that sentence since the nation’s high court restricted its use for minors in 2012, according to analysis by Michigan Radio.
Dozens of people who escaped violence, became injured, or lost loved ones in Oxford on November 30, 2021, are expected to address the court in what are likely to be emotionally charged accounts of frustration, anger, and grief. Since Ethan Crumbley pleaded guilty to all 24 charges related to the violent rampage he carried out at Oxford High School, he has not faced a formal trial.
In previous hearings, Judge Rowe has asked people in attendance to contain their emotions to prevent disruption to court proceedings – leaving the parents, siblings, relatives, and friends of the victims to sob silently as they listened to testimony from students who narrowly averted death, a teacher who was shot in the arm, and an assistant principal who confronted Crumbley as he prowled the halls of his high school with a gun in hand.
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Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Kwamé Rowe began hearing testimony on Thursday to determine whether Oxford school shooter Ethan Crumbley should face life without parole.
That testimony was a part of a three-day-long hearing over the summer to consider mitigating factors that might make a minor “less culpable” for his crimes than an adult.
Crumbley, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, wore an orange jail jumpsuit and metal shackles as Judge Rowe considered whether his age, family circumstances, role in the crime, and potential for rehabilitation were enough to keep him from a life-without-parole sentence.
After hearing testimony from survivors of the shooting as well as experts in crime scene investigations and mental health professionals, Rowe determined that life without parole would be among the sentencing options he considers.
The shooter’s parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, will not be allowed in the courtroom for the sentencing hearing. They will be permitted to watch the proceeding from the Oakland County Jail, where both of them are detained while they await their own trials related to their alleged roles in their son’s shooting. Each faces four counts of manslaughter for purchasing their teenage son a gun and ignoring his appeals for mental health support.
Judge sentences Oxford school shooter to life without parole
Oakland County Circuit Judge Kwamé Rowe on Friday sentenced the Oxford school shooter to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
He made his decision after hearing from more than two dozen victims impacted by the shooting rampage that killed four students, injured six others as well as a teacher.
“There's a deep, deep loss: loss of safety, loss of loved ones,”Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald told the judge after several hours of emotional statements from the family and friends of victims, as well as survivors of the shooting. "But most importantly, what I heard was they lost themselves. And they're working very hard to find who they were with the acknowledgement that they will never be the same.”
The terrorism charge against Ethan Crumbley was meant to acknowledge the harm he caused that extended beyond the lives he took and those he injured.
A life without parole sentence for the shooter, McDonald said, would bring all those affected “the justice they deserve.”
Crumbley’s defense attorney called for a finite sentence that would leave the decision of his release up to a parole board. Such a sentence, she said, would urge the defendant to “to prove himself every single day.”
“No one has a crystal ball,” Paulette Michel Loftin told the court. “And while it's impossible to say that Ethan will be able to be rehabilitated and be a productive member of society worthy of release, it will not be impossible to make that determination with decades of daily records of his behavior and human interaction.”
The teenage shooter did not make such a request on his own behalf, instead asking the judge to sentence him in accordance with the wishes of his victims.
While he apologized for his crimes, he stopped short of naming them specifically. “I am a really bad person,” he said in an even tone after rising to speak. “I've done terrible things that no one should ever do. I have lied. I am not trustworthy. I've hurt many people and that's what I've done. And I'm not denying that, but that's not who I plan on to be.”
No one made statements on behalf of the defendant, except for his legal team.
After learning of the decision, Craig Shilling, the father of Justin Shilling – one of the students the shooter killed – said that while he was happy with the decision, he felt it was one milestone in a long road to justice.
“There’s still a lot of accountability and there’s still so much to address,” he said. “We look forward to getting some closure and moving on.”
Student testimony highlights trauma, resilience
Three students who were wounded during the Oxford school shooting expressed their resilience and ways in which they’re persevering – but also told the court about the lasting trauma and grief they still deal with, two years after that day.
“I will continue to… spread love and joy”
Kylie Ossege is now a student at Michigan State University. She was a senior in high school on Nov. 30, 2021. She told the court that she started the day, like any other, at Oxford middle school, where she took part in the “Bully Busters” prevention program before driving to the high school.
Ossege recounted how she took a math test, sat at the same lunch table she ate at every day, made TikToks with some friends, and was standing in the hallway before her fifth hour class when she thought she heard a balloon pop.
“I turned and I fell right to the ground,” Ossege said. “I remember hearing screams. I saw people running. But I couldn't run.”
In harrowing detail, Ossege told the court how she recited her mother’s phone number and did math problems in her head to make sure she wasn’t dying. She remembered trying to comfort Hana St. Julian, stroking her hair as she lay dying next to Ossege.
Ossege detailed her months in intensive care, then rehab, and undergoing multiple spinal surgeries. She said she is able to attend college with accommodations like transportation, but said she is in constant pain and cannot enjoy the kinds of activities her classmates do.
“My life has changed its path entirely,” Ossege said. “However, your honor, I refuse to let the cowardly acts of a person affect the rest of my life. I will continue and live on for those that we've lost…. I will continue to have compassion. Spread love and joy.”
Ossege also promised to continue “to stand up against gun violence and hope that nothing like November 30 ever happens to anyone ever again.’
“I am a survivor of gun violence”
The scariest part of Nov. 30, 2021 wasn’t the day itself, said Riley Franz. It was the days that came after.
“On the days that I feel like I am not occupying my body but watching it from above, I feel like I cannot breathe because I'm paralyzed in a world,” she said. “Pieces of me shattered that day and two years later, I'm still struggling to put them back into place.”
Franz said she used to love school, but now experiences panic attacks at college and has difficulty focusing and taking notes. She said she checks where the exits are, and is attuned to every movement and sound.
“But every day I choose not to allow what a selfish individual decided to do to break me. I, Riley Franz, am a survivor of gun violence. I, Riley Franz, am a survivor of a terrible epidemic caused by a broken system. But I refuse to be known as a victim at the hands of an individual with no regard for others,” she told the court, adding: “We should work harder to create a system that prevents gun violence and prevents children's lives from being stripped away and leaving only pieces behind.”
“My life will never be the same”
Keegan Gregory said he walked into school on Nov. 30, 2021 a “normal 9th grader,” and walked out “a different person.”
Gregory was in the boys’ bathroom with the shooter and Justin Shilling that afternoon, and said what transpired there and in the hallways of Oxford High School that day transformed his life.
“I felt then, and still feel now, the guilt of surviving. I know that if it wasn't Justin's life that was taken, it could have been mine. And I'm forever grateful to him for that. I almost feel guilty about being alive knowing that Justin's family is living in grief.”
Gregory said that guilt has been compounded by feelings of sadness, fear, and anxiety. He said he was unable to return to school until this year.
“However,” he said, “I still experience many triggers on a daily basis and have to work ten times harder than I did before. I can't go into crowded rooms or public spaces without feeling afraid.”
Gregory said his family has moved to another state, and meeting people who can relate to his experiences has been difficult.
“I trust that you will assign a sentence that makes sure he won't ever hurt anyone again, no matter the outcome of the sentencing,” Gregory told the judge. “I hope he can receive the counseling he needs to understand the impact of his actions that it had on the community and the people's lives. I hope one day he realizes how unnecessary it was.”
"We wear our pain like a heavy coat:" Oxford families ask for harshest sentence for school shooter
Relatives of the students killed at Oxford High School two years ago spoke in court Friday during emotional testimony at the shooter’s sentencing hearing.
Parents and siblings shared searing accounts of their grief, along with remembrances of their loved ones. Some implored Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Kwamé Rowe to deliver the harshest sentence available to him: life without the possibility of parole.
“My son doesn't get a second chance, and neither should he,” Craig Shilling told the court. His son, Justin, was one of the four students killed Nov. 30, 2021. “This individual has proven by carrying out these heinous and completely unnecessary acts of violence that he should never never be considered fit to rejoin the side of society that despises this exact behavior.”
Reina St. Juliana described her sister Hana as her best friend, and the middle child who wove joy and connection through her family. Hana, then 14 years old, was also shot and killed that day.
Reina told the court the empty seat between her and her younger brother, Noa, at the dinner table is “the loudest silence I have ever heard,” adding that even celebratory moments and family traditions like decorating the Christmas tree are ones she no longer has the heart to do anymore. “Hana is who I went to for the little things, the big things, and everything in between,” she said.
“Instead of speaking at her wedding, I spoke at her funeral. Instead of fishtailing her hair for a game, I curled her hair in a casket,” she said.
The family members who testified at Friday’s hearing attempted to convey how pervasively their losses have changed the course of their lives, robbing them of joy and making simple acts like getting out of bed in the morning feel like impossible feats. Some expressed how the overwhelming pain has made relating to others or carrying on as a family difficult.
“Me and my wife are trying to figure out how to save our marriage and how to save our family, and we didn't even do anything to each other,” said Buck Myre, the father of Tate – a school athlete who attended the same elementary school as the shooter.
“For the past two years, our family has been navigating our way through complete hell,” Myre said. “Tears filled with pain. They fall like rain. We wear the pain like a heavy coat.”
After each statement, Judge Rowe offered his condolences. “I've written a litany of victim impact statements, and your son had an extremely positive impact on his community,” he told Buck Myre.
“Happy, humble, hardworking” is how Jill Soave described her son, Justin Shilling. She added that he was an empathetic person who always held open doors for her and never let her pump her own gas. “He was so motivated and focused, his future was so bright and full of possibilities.”
Testimony at a hearing over the summer described how Shilling, a senior, took cover and tried to save himself and a freshman student he had only recently met in the boys’ restroom. The shooter approached them, and fired at Shilling at point-blank range.
“The manner in which my son Justin was so cold-heartedly, methodically executed shows clearly the pure evil and malice of the shooter for this act alone,” Soave told the court. “Your honor, he deserves life without parole.”
Soave then addressed the shooter, who sat with his head bowed and hands in his lap,
“I know you're miserable,” she said. “And it's only going to get worse as the reality sets in. But we are only going to get better. More healed. More loved. And we're loving towards others more peaceful and more full of grace.”
Then, she paused and took in a curt breath.
“And one last thing I do want you to know,” she said. “If you were that lonely, that miserable, that lost, and you really needed a friend – Justin would have been your friend if you had only asked.”
Witnesses for the defense are also expected to testify at Friday’s hearing. At its conclusion, Judge Rowe is expected to announce a sentence for Ethan Crumbley.