Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley hears victim accounts

Convicted school shooter Ethan Crumbley was made to listen to hours of heart-breaking accounts from the parents of the four children he killed and other victims in a Michigan court Friday.

Survivors of his December 2021 shooting at Oxford High School near Detroit described struggling with the aftermath of the tragedy — as a judge considered whether the teen gunman should spend the rest of his life in prison.

Emotions ran high at the sentencing hearing in Pontiac, Michigan, with many speakers lashing out at Crumbley — 15 at the time of the shooting and now 17 — demanding the harshest punishment allowed under the law for him.

“We wear the pain like a heavy coat,” said Buck Myre, the father of Tate Myre, who was among the students murdered by Crumbley in November 2021. “Every hour is the darkest time of the day.”

Turning to face Crumbley, the grief-stricken dad told his son’s killer: “Well, we are miserable. Our family has a permanent hole in it that can never be fixed, ever. And there doesn’t appear to be a way out. So, to this day, you are winning.”

Myre described the past two years as a journey through “complete hell” for him and his family.

Myre added that his family want Crumbley to spend the remainder of his days “rotting in a jail cell.”

“Your statements do not fall on deaf ears,” Judge Kwame Rowe assured the surviving victims and loved ones who showed up to publicly express their anguish and demand justice.

Prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Crumbley to life in prison without the possibility of parole, but because of his age, he could be handed a shorter sentence — anywhere from 25 years to 40 years at a minimum — which would eventually make him eligible for release.

Nicole Beausoleil recalled the devastating moment she saw the body of her daughter, Madisyn Baldwin, at the medical examiner’s office, her hand with blue-painted fingernails sticking out from under a sheet.

“I looked through the glass. My scream should have shattered it,” Beausoleil said.

Jill Soave, the mother of Justin Shilling, told the shooter that he execuated a boy who could have been a good friend to him in his hour of need.

“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.

“You may have caused the pain and terror as you intended to do, but you did not destroy us,” the mother told Crumbley, who sat with his head down.

Justin’s father, Craig Shilling, shared with the court that he still finds himself waiting for his son to come home for work.

“There are no words to accurately describe the pain we feel on a daily basis. I have PTSD and struggle most days to even get out of bed,” Shilling said, before asking the judge to hand the teenage mass shooter the toughest penalty possible.

“His blatant lack of human decency and disturbing thoughts on life in general do not in any way warrant a second chance. My son doesn’t get a second chance, and neither should he,” Shilling said.

Shooting survivor Keegan Gregory, who was with Shilling in his final moments, said that being trapped in a bathroom with the gunman and his dying schoolmate “was, and always will be, the most terrifying moment of my life.”

“We were stuck helpless and cornered with no defense. I was right there when [Shilling] was shot and killed, yet I couldn’t do anything about it,” Gregory said.

The teen said he managed to get out of the bathroom alive and saw bodies littering the floor and “blood everywhere.”

Steve St. Juliana told the court that there is nothing Crumbley could ever do to earn his forgiveness for killing his 14-year-old daughter, Hana.

“His age plays no part,” St. Juliana argued. “His potential is irrelevant. There is utterly nothing that he could ever do to contribute to society that could make up for the lives that he has ruthlessly taken.”

Hana’s older sister Reina St. Juliana, spoke emotionally of all the things she had hoped to do with her as they grew up, like go thrift-shopping together, take walks and speak at each other’s weddings.

“Instead of speaking at her wedding, I spoke at her funeral,” she said. “Instead of fishtailing her hair for a game, I curled her hair in a casket.”

Hana’s schoolmate Kylie Ossege, 19, described in harrowing detail how she had urged the mortally wounded girl a “thousand times” to keep breathing while they waited for help on a blood-soaked carpet.

Ossege, now a college student, was shot and continues to struggle with daily pain from spinal injuries.

“Being able to swing a leg over my horse is my therapy. It is pure joy,” she said. “I have not been able to do it for two years.”

Crumbley, who was 15 at the time of the shooting on Nov. 30, 2021, pleaded guilty in October to all 24 charges against him, including first-degree murder and terrorism.

He everted his eyes when loved ones spoke Friday. He will have an opportunity to address the judge and possibly explain why he believes he should be spared a life sentence for executing four students and injuring seven other people.

Defense attorney Paulette Michel Loftin has argued Crumbley deserves an opportunity for parole after his “sick brain” is fixed through counseling and rehabilitation.

But after listening to expert testimony, Rowe said in September that he had found only a “slim” chance that Crumbley could be rehabilitated in prison.

Crumbley and his parents, Jennifer and James Crumbley, met with school staff on the day of the shooting after a teacher found some of his violent drawings, including a gun pointed at the words, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.”

But no one checked Crumbley’s backpack for a gun and he was allowed to stay in school after his parents resisted taking him home.

Jennifer and James Crumbley are currently awaiting trial on involuntary manslaughter charges, accused of making a gun accessible to their son at home and neglecting his mental health.

With Post wires