Teenager Ethan Crumbley was sentenced to life in prison without parole Friday for gunning down four classmates and wounding six others and a teacher at Michigan’s Oxford High School in 2021.
Dismissing last-minute defense pleas that Crumbley’s life is salvageable, Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Kwamé Rowe noted that the ‘defendant in his own words’ told the court ‘this is nobody’s fault but his own.’
Oxford High School shooting
Rowe said victim Justin Shilling, 17, was shot at point-blank range after being told by the defendant to get on his knees.
Hana St. Juliana, 14, was shot a second time after she was down, he said, ‘to finish the job by shooting her again.’
‘That is an execution. That is torture. He shot most people multiple times. And, as he wrote, he did this for notoriety. And he wanted to go down … as the biggest school shooter in Michigan history.’
The first minor to face life in prison
Crumbley has become the first minor to receive an original sentence of life without the possibility of parole following a 2012 US Supreme Court ruling which found sentencing a child to life without parole is excessive for all but the rare offender, according to court documents in the case.
He was 15 when he committed the gruesome attack.
The defendant previously admitted in court that on November 30, 2021 – when he was 15 – he took a gun from an unlocked container in his home, hid it in his backpack and took it out in a bathroom before opening fire on his schoolmates.
Crumbley pleaded guilty last year to one count of terrorism causing death – a rare conviction in a state court – four counts of first-degree murder and 19 other charges related to the deadly rampage.
Ethan Crumbley parents hiding
James and Jennifer Crumbley left their home in Oakland County, bought four burner cell phones, drained their son’s bank account, spent the night in a hotel and then hid out in an abandoned building in Detroit where police found them crouched on a mattress with $6,600 in cash.
While in hiding, the Crumbleys also asked a friend to bring them vodka and orange juice, the prosecution said, noting the couple only left the building for a smoke and to hide their car.
The Crumbleys are facing involuntary manslaughter charges in the shooting that left four students dead and seven others injured, including a teacher.
The bad Christmas present
Prosecutors said the couple bought their son the gun that he used to shoot up his school. It was an early Christmas present for the teen, they said, purchased four days before the Nov. 30 shooting.
Prosecutors have argued that the parents could have prevented the massacre had they paid closer attention to their son, gotten him mental health treatment and informed school officials that they had bought him a gun when they called the parents to the school to report the boy’s troubling behavior.
On the day of the shooting, Ethan Crumbley had drawn a picture of a gun on a math paper and the words: ‘The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.’
