Michigan teen gets life in prison for 2021 school shooting
Send a link to a friend
[December 09, 2023]
By Joseph Ax
(Reuters) -A teenager who fatally shot four classmates two years ago at
his high school outside Detroit was sentenced to life in prison without
parole on Friday, following hours of harrowing testimony from his
victims' grieving family members and friends.
Ethan Crumbley was 15 years old when he opened fire at Oxford High
School on Nov. 30, 2021, with a semi-automatic handgun his father had
bought him as a Christmas gift days earlier. Six other students and a
teacher were also wounded.
Crumbley's parents have also been charged with involuntary manslaughter
in connection with the shooting, in one of the first U.S. cases that
seeks to hold parents accountable for their child's school shooting.
Oakland County Circuit Judge Kwame Rowe rejected defense lawyers'
request for the possibility of parole, calling the massacre a "true act
of terrorism."
"This act involved extensive planning, extensive research, and he
executed on every last one of the things he planned," Rowe said.
Crumbley addressed the judge briefly, taking responsibility for his
actions and promising to work on becoming a better person, regardless of
his sentence.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Dec/09/images/ads/current/siu_sda_120123.png)
"All I want is for the people I hurt to have a final sense of
culpability that justice has been served," he said.
Over the course of more than four hours, relatives of the victims and
survivors of the attack detailed their daily struggles to move past the
shooting. Some students said they grow uncontrollably anxious in crowded
or enclosed spaces; others described having trouble maintaining
friendships or attending class.
Steve St. Juliana, whose 14-year-old daughter, Hana, was killed,
remembered her as a talented, athletic girl who spoke Japanese, earned
straight A's and crafted homemade jewelry.
"I will never think back fondly on her high school and college
graduations," he said tearfully. "I will never walk her down the aisle
as she begins the journey of starting her own family. I am forever
denied the chance to hold her or her future children in my arms."
[to top of second column]
|
![](../images/120923PIX/news_l93.jpg)
Students pay their respects at a memorial at Oxford High School a
day after the year's deadliest U.S. school shooting which killed and
injured several people, in Oxford, Michigan, U.S. December 1, 2021.
REUTERS/Seth Herald/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/May/02/images/ads/current/guzzardo_lda022609.png)
Kylie Ossege, a student who was shot through the shoulder and
suffered a spinal injury, described lying on a blood-soaked carpet
trying to reassure Hana, who was groaning beside her, as they waited
desperately for help.
"Fifteen minutes of lying there absolutely helpless - 15 minutes of
lying in a pool of my own blood," she said. "Fifteen minutes of
hearing Hana St. Juliana's last sounds while stroking her hair."
As the witnesses spoke, Crumbley sat unmoving in an orange prison
jumpsuit, his head and eyes cast downward - even when some speakers
demanded he look at them.
In addition to Hana, the other students killed at Oxford High were
Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; and Justin Shilling, 17.
Crumbley pleaded guilty last year to two dozen counts, including one
count of terrorism causing death and four counts of first-degree
murder.
During a hearing in August to determine whether he should be
eligible for parole, prosecutors introduced evidence showing that
Crumbley made several chilling statements before the attack,
including an audio recording in which he predicted he would "have so
much fun" shooting his classmates.
Prosecutors have accused his parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley,
of gross negligence for knowing their son was too young and troubled
to own a gun but giving him a weapon anyway.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]This material
may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Dec/09/images/ads/current/charrons_bch_2022.png) |