PONTIAC (WWJ) -- 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 began 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 to take the stand was Lt. Timothy Willis of 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 messages 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."
Later during Thursday's hearing, audio from a cell phone video Crumbley made the night before the massacre was played in the courtroom. In the video, the teen shares his reasons for doing what he will do, and talks about his obsessions with guns.
The roughly 20 minute video begins: “My name is Ethan Crumbley, age 15, and I am going to be the next school shooter. I’ve thought about this a lot. I can’t stop thinking about it. But it’s constantly in my head.” (Listen HERE).
In a second, much shorter video played in court, Crumbley says: "I'm going to have so much fun."
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."
Crumbley, now 16 years old, in October pleaded guilty to all 24 felony charges against him, including four counts of first-degree murder and one count of terrorism in the deadly shooting on Nov. 30, 2021, in which four students were killed and six other students and a teacher were wounded.
Defense attorney Paulette Loftin argued that while the facts of the case are vile, it does not mean that Crumbley should spend the rest of his life in prison without the chance of parole.
Testimony will resume Friday morning in Pontiac. The public can watch the hearing via Zoom at this link.
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