Needs to have a horrid life in prison, then kill himself...

Teenager Ethan Crumbley faces sentence of life without parole for killing 4 students in Michigan school shooting

By Ray Sanchez

The mother of shooting victim Madisyn Baldwin, a high school senior who did not live to make it to her graduation in 2021, calmly described Friday seeing her daughter’s lifeless body in a steel room, on a cold gurney, her fingernails turned blue and her hair smeared with blood.

“That is not my daughter,” Nicole Beausoleil recalled thinking as she delivered the first victim impact statement at the sentencing hearing of Ethan Crumbley, who gunned down four classmates and wounded six others and a teacher at a Michigan high school. “Madisyn was far from lifeless.”

At the hearing where prosecutors will seek a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, Beausoleil said she had to be dragged away “screaming like a toddler.” The scream, she said, should have shattered the glass separating her from her daughter’s body.

“She is the light when you need it most,” Beausoleil said of her late daughter. “When the world gets dark, she’s the stars.”

Madisyn is not “a statistic, a victim,” her mother said. She will be “remembered by her name, a name that is loved unconditionally.”

Crumbley, now 17, 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.

The sentencing comes less than two months after a judge ruled the teen was eligible for the harshest possible punishment in Michigan, noting Crumbley’s long “obsession with violence” made rehabilitation unlikely. A lesser sentence of life with the potential for parole could also be handed down.

Dozens of survivors of the attack at Oxford High School and family members of those killed will deliver victim impact statements before Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Kwamé Rowe hands down Crumbley’s sentence. The case is unfolding as school shootings continue to plague American campuses, with 80 recorded so far this year, a CNN analysis shows.

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. In addition to Madisyn, 17, he gunned down Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; and Justin Shilling, 17.

As their son’s fate was decided on Friday, Crumbley’s parents await their own criminal trial. Jennifer and James Crumbley have been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter. They have pleaded not guilty.

Crumbley’s parents were denied access to physically attend Friday’s hearing, according to court records.

Prosecutors have said the couple gave their son easy access to a gun and disregarded signs he was a threat. The parents allegedly ignored Crumbley’s request for mental health treatment after the teen said he needed help, according to an opinion written by a panel of judges in March.

The parents have argued the charges have no legal justification and they should not be held responsible for their son’s killings.

James Crumbley purchased the gun used in the shooting just four days before the deadly attack, prosecutors have said.

In September, when Rowe ruled that Crumbley was eligible for a sentence of life without parole, the judge noted the young man’s unstable home environment and the failure of his parents to take his mental health seriously.

But Rowe called the defendant the “sole participant” in the mass shooting – methodically walking through the school, “picking and choosing who was going to die,” and determined to “kill the innocent.”

The judge cited Crumbley’s disturbing writings and documented violence against animals, and noted the defendant this year bypassed technical security on a jail tablet to watch graphic, violent content online.

Oakland County prosecutors and Crumbley’s defense team presented evidence over the summer at a so-called Miller hearing required when prosecutors seek a life sentence without the possibility of parole for a minor defendant.

The state argued the premeditation of Crumbley’s attack justified a finite life sentence. Prosecutors played audio messages in court in which the teen said, “I am going to be the next school shooter,” and that he would “have so much fun.”

The defense asked the court to consider mitigating factors like Crumbley’s difficult home life and his ignored pleas for mental health treatment. The defense asked that Crumbley be given a chance at rehabilitation, with a parole board ultimately determining his progress.

Crumbley had originally pleaded not guilty to the charges but later changed his plea. His defense team had previously filed a notice of an insanity defense for the teen but decided a guilty plea was in his best interest, according to Crumbley’s attorney.

The day of the massacre, students and teachers said they relied on tactics they’d learned in active shooter drills to protect themselves. When the gunfire erupted, frightened students barricaded doors, turned off the lights, and called for help. Some children armed themselves with scissors in case they needed to fight back.

A number of the shooting victims and families have filed state and federal civil lawsuits alleging the school and some of its employees should have done more to stop the shooting from happening in the first place.

An independent report commissioned by the Oxford Board of Education, and released in October, found in part, “that had proper threat assessment guidelines been in place and District threat assessment policy followed, this tragedy was avoidable.”