A judge sentenced a Michigan teenager to life in prison Friday for killing four students and terrorizing others at Oxford High School, after listening to hours of gripping anguish from parents and wounded survivors. Judge Kwame Rowe rejected pleas from defense lawyers for a shorter sentence and ensured that Ethan Crumbley, 17, will not have an opportunity for parole. "My actions were what I chose to do. I could not stop myself. ... I am a really bad person. I've done terrible things," Crumbley, who was 15 when he attacked his school in 2021, said before the sentence was announced. He said he was sorry and pledged to change while behind bars, the AP reports.
Family members of the deceased and survivors explained in deeply emotional terms how the attack has affected them. "We are miserable. We miss Tate," said Buck Myre, the father of Tate Myre. "Our family has a permanent hole in it that can never be fixed—ever." Nicole Beausoleil recalled seeing the body of her daughter, Madisyn Baldwin, at the medical examiner's office, her hand with blue-painted fingernails sticking out from a covering. "I looked though the glass. My scream should have shattered it," Beausoleil said. Jill Soave, the mother of Justin Shilling, told the killer that he executed a boy who could have helped him navigate awkward teenage years. "If you were that lonely, that miserable and lost, and you really needed a friend, Justin would have been your friend—if only you had asked," Soave said.
Crumbley pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including first-degree murder and terrorism. Life sentences for teenagers are rare in Michigan, as the US Supreme Court and the state's highest court said the violent acts of minors must be viewed differently than the crimes of adults. But the Oakland County prosecutor said a no-parole term fits Crumbley's case, per the AP. His parents, Jennifer and James Crumbley, are in the county jail, awaiting trial on involuntary manslaughter charges, accused of making a gun accessible at home and neglecting their son's mental health.
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In one statement, Kylie Ossege explained how she had urged Hana St. Juliana a "thousand times" to keep breathing while they waited for help on a blood-soaked carpet. Her classmate died. Ossege, now a college student, was shot and struggles with daily pain from spinal injuries. "Being able to swing a leg over my horse is my therapy. It is pure joy," she said of Blaze. "I have not been able to do it for two years." (More school shooting stories.)
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