A hearing that will help a judge determine if confessed Oxford High School Shooter Ethan Crumbley will spend the rest of his life in prison is underway Thursday in Oakland County Circuit Court.
Crumbley admitted to killing four students and wounding seven others at his school in Oxford Township in November 2021, pleading guilty to murder and other charges.
The first witness is Lt. Timothy Willis, from the Oakland County Sheriff's Office, who said Crumbley had been texting a friend and writing in his journal about shooting up the school since March of that year.
Willis said the text message offer a look into Crumbley's state of mind ahead of the massacre.
"I will kill any innocent; I don't care about who I kill. I will kill who I feel like killing — age, gender, I don't care," Willis testified that Crumbley texted. "...The scary thing is I like being this f—ed up. Some people don't, but I like it. I like being like this."
In his journal, the teenager wrote: "I want to shoot up the f—ing school so badly. Soon I'm going to buy a 9mm pistol,'" Wills testified.
Willis testified that Crumbley later wrote in his journal: "Ready, and a 9mm ready. Then I'll walk behind any girl — pretty, in parentheses — and shoot them in the back of the head. I will then shoot anyone I see, aiming for the head, until I have to reload. I will then find a full class."
Willis said Crumbley wrote that he didn't want to kill himself because then he wouldn't be remembered.
"I want to be remembered through all of history," Willis testified that Crumbley wrote. "I just saw a group of girls sitting down in the hallway. If I'd had my pistol on me, then I would have not hesitated to blow both of their brains' out. I will just hope their parents will feel the sadness and distraught. When I shoot up the school I hope that every parent of kids that I gratefully murdered will be so sad that they kill themselves.
"I want all of America to see the darkness in me," Willis continued, reading from the journal. "I want to impact the world with this. I am going to record the shooting so when they show the video in court, everyone can see their children and friends dying. I want for the parents to see their kids burn to ash and bawl their eyes out. I am going to sped the rest of my life in prison, rotting like a tomato."
Prosecutor Karen McDonald said Crumbley shouldn't get a pass because of bad parenting. "This is an offense unlike any other in this country or state as ever seen," McDonald said. "Not just the number of children who died, but how the defendant killed them, the amount of research and planning and preparation that went into it, and the way he carried it out: the picking and choosing of who would die."
Defense attorney Paulette Loftin argued that while the facts of the case are vile, it does not mean Crumbley that should spend the rest of his life in prison without the chance of parole.
The public can watch the hearing via Zoom at this link.
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