Ethan Crumbley texted friend about torturing people and birds, and his desire to kill
It's been a disturbing day in Oakland County Circuit Court, where a hearing to determine school shooter Ethan Crumbley's fate is underway as he faces a potential sentence of life without the possibility of parole for murdering four classmates and injuring seven other people at Oxford High School in November 2021.
The hearing, expected to run at least two days, included video footage of the school shooting, never before shown in a public setting, which brought many family members to tears. The afternoon included a disturbing video Crumbley made before the shooting, the first time his voice as a student has been heard in public.
The day also included gruesome testimony about Crumbley's obsession with torturing birds, harming children, kidnapping a classmate — and carrying out a school shooting.
(Watch replay of Ethan Crumbley's hearing below.)
'The demon will take over. There is nothing I can do about it.'
In perhaps the most chilling evidence presented Thursday, prosecutors played a video recording Crumbley made before the shooting, discussing his hate for the world, society's collapse, his plan to shoot up his school and his mental health.
"I have worn my mask for too long. I can't take it ... lying to myself over and over again," Crumbley says in his video. "There’s no voices in my head. The voices are me ... that’s what people call the demons. There are no demons. I am the demon."
He continued: "The demon will take over. There is nothing I can do about it. My life is already on a downfall."
Crumbley also explains that he would shoot up his school to teach his peers and the world a lesson.
"To take action is what you have to do," he says. "People don’t see it, but we’re on the brink of a downfall," Crumbley says in the video, before explaining the outfit he will wear for the shooting.
"I will have my black jacket on, and I will walk behind someone, and I will shoot a bullet into their skull. I’m gonna open fire on everyone in the hallway, I will try to hit as many people as I can, I will reload, and I will find people hiding. I want to teach them a lesson of how they are wrong, how they are being brainwashed," he says in the video.
"I understand that I’m going to prison for this," he says, adding "I don't want to die."
He also talks about God.
"There is no heaven, there is no God. The earth is just hell," Crumbley says, reiterating again that he is trying to teach the world a lesson.
"I'm not only shooting up the school because I'm mentally ill. I'm doing it to teach all the f------ dunces out there (a lesson) .... to understand everything .... I'm sorry that the families have to go through this."
Detective: 'His head was held high. He was in charge'
Earlier in the afternoon, a detective gave emotional and dramatic testimony about Crumbley's every move after emerging from the bathroom and opening fire, saying: "He had a sense about it, like the proud chest. His head was held high. He was in charge.”
"He steps out and immediately there’s Phoebe (Arthur), with her boyfriend, he immediately levels his gun at them," Oakland County Sheriff's Detective Edward Wagrowski testified, getting emotional at times. He struggled to get the next words out.
"He then turns the gun on Hana and Kylie and Riley, and fires some rounds in their direction," Wagrowski testified. One of those girls was 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana, who was killed.
According to Wagrowski, Crumbley stopped to shoot Hana again.
"At this point she completely falls over, and then he runs down the hallway," the detective said.
What followed was even more difficult for him to get out.
"I don’t know how to describe it. He puts the gun to Madison Baldywn's head, and you see as he turns to walk away, her body just slumps to the ground."
He then testified about Tate Myre, who was also killed. Tate was rounding a corner, not knowing what was going on, and fell to the ground.
Crumbley approached. "And before he gets to where Tate is, he levels the gun to shoot one more time. He walks past Tate without a care."
For reasons unknown, the detective said, Crumbley eventually made a hard right into a bathroom, where he shot and killed his final victim, 17-year-old Justin Shilling. Another boy was in the bathroom with Shilling, and was seen on video running at top speed down a hallway as he managed to escape Crumbley's reign of terror.
"The video lives in my head," Wagrowski said.
Ethan Crumbley's journal entries
After the school shooting video was shown, Crumbley’s lawyer, Paulette Loftin, sought to show that Crumbley's troubled past played a role in the shooting. She did this while cross-examining Lt. Timothy Willis, who had testified about the shooting, questioning him about Crumbley's upbringing, grades, parents and bouts of sadness.
Loftin asked Willis to weigh in about Crumbley’s grades, and he conceded that when Crumbley was in middle school, he received A and B grades. But when he entered high school, the year of the shooting, his grades fell to C down to failing levels. Willis also said Crumbley had no disciplinary issues prior to November 2021 — the month of the shooting.
Loftin cited several comments that Crumbley had written in his journal, indicating he no longer had “happiness or optimism,” hadn’t had a “real laugh” in years, felt he was a “burden” to his parents and felt that he was “in a time loop of sadness.”
In other entries, he wrote:
“Oh man my hallucinations are really kicking in.”
“My dark side has now taken over.”
“I’m on the verge of losing it again. I have so much stuff compacted in a tight space and it’s about to explode.”
Loftin also noted that Crumbley also cried out for help in his journals.
“I want help but my parents don’t listen to me,” read one journal entry.
Crumbley also wrote that he hated himself, and sometimes regretted doing a shooting.
Scene in the courtroom
Judge Kwame Rowe’s courtroom was packed with Oxford High families, members of the media and attorneys. Nine deputies lined the walls of the courtroom. More media clustered in the hallway.
Crumbley appeared solemn as he took a seat next to his lawyer. Loftin asked at the outset that his chains and handcuffs be removed, but the judge denied that request, allowing only one hand to be free. The judge urged those in the courtroom to remain composed, and noted that a room was available in the hallway if someone needs to step out.
"I understand this is a sensitive" case, said Rowe, who is expected to issue a written ruling after the hearing on whether Crumbley is eligible for life without the possibility of parole. "I can't have any outbursts because we need to protect the integrity of the proceeding."
What the video showed
At 11 a.m., the proceeding turned especially dark and emotional as prosecutors showed video from the shooting. Multiple women started crying, one sobbed, as Crumbley sat in his seat with his head bowed, staring at the floor. He didn't look up.
The video played for about five minutes with no sound, only images, of Crumbley exiting a bathroom and opening fire on a group of students in the hallway, shooting one girl in the face and killing two other females. Students begin running frantically. Crumbley walks down the hallway. A student collapses in the hallway, shot from behind from a long distance and then shot again while he was on the ground. Crumbley also shoots at doors. Police arrive 12:58 p.m.
More: Crucial hearing starts for Ethan Crumbley — and Oxford students who witnessed his horror
Crumbley wanted to torture children and classmate
Several text messages between Crumbley and a friend that were introduced at the hearing highlight what the prosecution has argued was his "disturbed" and "homicidal" mind.
In one such text, Crumbley said he wanted to kidnap, torture and rape a classmate.
On May 12, 2021, he wrote: “Kidnap her then tie her up then rape her then torture her then kill her then dissect her then take her eyeballs then bury the body.”
In earlier texts from March 2021, he discussed drowning children, writing things like: “Just looking them in their eyes as they look back at you while they know that their entire life is about to end so young,” adding: “The best feeling.”
Also that month, he texted:
“Whenever I see a little kid about a year old or a little more I want to pick them up and run off with them torture them before throwing them off a cliff.”
In texts from February 2021, he talked about wanting to stalk and kill people, according to information presented in court. The texts say things like: “Scary thing is I like being this f---ed up.”
'I want to kill another bird so badly'
Numerous texts and journal entries were also presented in which Crumbley talked about wanting to torture and kill animals.
On May 3, 2021, he texted his friend about an 8-minute video he had taken of himself torturing a bird and talking to it like a child.
“I put a drill in its stomach and skull,” shot a gun at it, chopped it in half and smashed its head, the text read.
"He was enjoying it," Willis testified.
In additional text messages about killing the bird, Crumbley wrote that he wanted to kill again. On June 20, 2021, he texted: “There have been no baby birds to torture in for a long time and I’m getting that feeling were I need to kill again.”
Crumbley also made the following statements about birds:
“I’m going to snap (the beak) off.”
“I want to kill another bird so badly.”
Crumbley also journaled about his mental state, writing: "I have zero help for my mental problems and it’s causing me to shoot up the f---ing school.”
Testimony includes Crumbley journal plans for shooting
Willis testified about Crumbley’s actions on the day of and before the shooting, how he emerged from the bathroom and flipped his hoodie inside out, put on a black hat, and went down the hallway opening fire, before ultimately surrendering.
During his testimony, Willis talked about Crumbley’s journal, and the detailed entries about how he planned to shoot up his school, including one he wrote eight months before the shooting.
“Killing myself is too much of a pussy move. People will just forget about me … the only way is to shoot up the school,” Crumbley wrote in a March 17, 2021, journal entry.
Other journal entries read in court include:
“The first victim has to be a pretty girl.”
“want to be remembered through all of history.”
“I want all of America to see the darkness in me.”
“I want for the parents … to bawl their eyes out."
Prosecutor: This is why Crumbley's 'rare' case deserves life
The hearing opened with Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald's opening statement, telling Rowe, "The hearing today is the most important proceeding in this case," and urged him to sentence the teenage killer to life in prison without parole.
"No one can tell us what he will be like in 40 years. No one has a crystal ball, this hearing is not just about the defendant’s potential to be rehabilitated, it starts and ends with proportionality," McDonald said. "This is an offense unlike any this country has ever seen ... the picking and choosing of who would die."
McDonald then talked about the video of the massacre she plans to show during the hearing, where the teenager is seen roaming through the hallway and gunning down his victims. The video, she argues, shows why the Crumbley case is one of the "rare" cases that qualifies for life without parole.
"The way he walks up to them and fires at point-blank range ... this is an offender like no other," McDonald said, noting the video of Crumbley torturing a 1-day-old bird, a video he made before the massacre. "The video ... shows he is capable of the level of violence that most humans are not, and he takes joy in it."
McDonald stressed that this was not a spur-of-the-moment crime, but premeditated.
"The way he researched and planned the shooting ... he stated over and over, 'I know I’ll spend the rest of my life in prison.' He decided in advance that he was not going to kill himself," McDonald said. "He wanted to stay alive because he wanted to witness the suffering he created."
The U.S. Supreme Court and Michigan Supreme Court have held that mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles are unconstitutional and require the so-called Miller hearing, which is named after the 2012 Miller v. Alabama case before the U.S. Supreme Court. McDonald said a finding that a teen should lose the chance at parole is rare. "This is the one, your honor."
Defense argues Crumbley is not beyond rehabilitation
Crumbley's lawyer, Paulette Loftin, disagreed, saying: "It will be clear to you that 15-year-old Crumbley is not one of those rare juveniles who is corrupt and not (able to be) rehabilitated."
The defense lawyer also argued: "The fact that it's a vile crime itself is not enough."
The 16-year-old shooter will come face to face with a dozen students who witnessed his massacre as they will testify at the hearing, which is scheduled to last at least two days. Rowe will hear evidence and likely issue his decision in writing after the hearing is over.
Ethan Crumbley's parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, are facing involuntary manslaughter charges and deny wrongdoing. They are the first parents charged in a U.S. school shooting, and maintain their son is the only one responsible for the deaths; that they had no way of knowing he would carry out a school shooting. Their case is pending before the Michigan Supreme Court.
Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com. Gina Kaufman: gkaufman@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ethan Crumbley hearing; Oxford students to testify: Live updates
