In a manifesto on the eve of his massacre, school shooter Ethan Crumbley proclaimed, “There is no God. … I am the demon … I’m gonna open fire on everyone in the hallway.”
Months later in jail, he cried out: “Why didn’t you stop it, God? Why didn’t you stop it when it happened? … I’m sorry, God!”
These two versions of Crumbley were portrayed in court Tuesday during a hearing to determine whether life in prison without the possibility of parole is an appropriate sentence for the teenager accused of killing four classmates and injuring seven others in the 2021 mass shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan.
Ethan Crumbley having ‘a break with reality’
The hearing, which adjourned Tuesday until Aug. 18, included never-before released video of Crumbley in jail, where he is seen strapped to a chair in a highly distressed state, jerking about. He is wearing a hood designed to protect jail workers from spit. In another video, he is heard blaming God and crying out in distress repeatedly, “He could have stopped it” and “He could have saved her,” while authorities try to calm him down.
According to a psychological expert who testified on behalf of the defense, the video highlights the mental illness that Crumbley long battled without any help.
“What we just witnessed — someone saying, ‘God, why didn’t you stop it?’ That’s exactly how psychosis works,” psychologist Colin King testified. “Somehow you don’t understand the outcome of the consequences. He’s having a panic attack and a break with reality.”
King was the last witness to testify on behalf of the defense, which is trying to convince the judge to give Crumbley a shot at parole one day, arguing his brain is still forming, and that he has the ability to change one day. The prosecution disagrees, arguing Crumbley never deserves to be free again.
King’s testimony followed that of numerous prosecution witnesses who last week offered chilling accounts about the horror Crumbley subjected them to during his rampage. The witnesses included a teacher who was shot in the arm; a student who managed to escape after Crumbley ordered him out of a bathroom stall to go stand by Justin Shilling, whom he had just fatally shot and lay dead in a pool of blood on the tile floor, and an assistant principal who encountered Crumbley in the hallway before trying to revive one of his victims, Tate Myre, who died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head.
Prosecution: Shooter wanted to see his victims suffer
King, who has a Ph.D. from Wayne State University, is an expert in mental health and brain injuries who has testified in about 25 juvenile lifer cases. He spent more than seven hours on the stand Tuesday as the prosecution sought to discredit his testimony. A prosecutor pressed King to explain why he excluded from his testimony and a prepared report numerous details about Crumbley’s crimes, excerpts from his journal about how he planned to carry out the biggest mass shooting in the history of Michigan, and his obsession with torturing and killing baby birds and other kids.
King testified that a culmination of childhood trauma, neglectful and abusive parents, a lack of acknowledgment by the school system and mental health issues led to the events of Nov. 30, 2021, all of which he documented in a report that the prosecution took issue with.
Specifically, Assistant Prosecutor David Williams argued through cross-examination that King cherry-picked details about Crumbley to make him look more sympathetic than he really is, and that King intentionally left out acts he engaged in before and during the shooting, including:
- Executing students at close range.
- Planning ahead of time that he would not take his own life because he wanted to live to see his victims suffer.
- Writing in his journal how he would carry out the shooting.
- Torturing and killing baby birds and taking joy from it.
King testified that he believes Crumbley was showing remorse.
“Ethan is slowly coming to grips with what he did, and he is expressing extreme sorrow,” King said, adding that by asking why God allowed the shooting to take place, even though he himself carried it out: “That’s a break from reality.”
Parents blamed for ‘litany of horrible abuse’
King did agree with the prosecution on at least one front: Crumbleys’ parents ignored him. As he testified in court: “What stood out to me was that he told his parents that he was hearing voices, and that he needed to see a therapist,” King testified. “And it never happened.”
King described the influence of Crumbley’s parents as a “litany of horrible abuse.”
James and Jennifer Crumbley, who bought their son the gun that he used in the shooting, are charged with involuntary manslaughter. They are the first parents in the United States to be charged in a school shooting. Their appeal to have the charges struck down is pending before the Michigan Supreme Court.
‘Lots of people suffer depression, and they don’t kill people’
Williams, the assistant prosecutor, took issue with King portraying Crumbley as a broken person “waiting for something terrible to happen.”
“He wasn’t waiting — he was planning,” Williams shot back. “He planned about it. He wrote about it. He recorded about it — and then he carried it out.”
Williams also scoffed at the mental illness argument.
“Lots of people suffer depression, and they don’t kill people,” Williams said. “Those people do not become mass shooters.”
Parents talked about cheating, suicide with child
A video of Crumbley collapsing in a diner in 2020 — one year before the shooting — also was shown in court Tuesday, suggesting that the boy may have suffered a brain injury. He collapsed on a tile floor, and could not get up on his own, according to a psychologist’s testimony.
The parents told the diner owner not to call 911, King testified.
Crumbley told King that he was once out with his parents picking strawberries and he fell. All that he remembers was regaining consciousness. He asked his parents what happened. Crumbley told King that his parents said he suffered a blow to the head. He was not taken to a hospital.
King testified that there seemed to be discord between the parents.
“There (were) frequent harsh discussions about infidelity, suicide and which parent Ethan needed to choose in the event that they separated,” King testified.
Crumbley left alone as a child, sought neighbors’ help
King shared details about Crumbley’s childhood, and how he was left alone often starting when he was 6 years old.
According to King, Crumbley, at the age of 6, would wander to neighbors’ homes when there was a thunderstorm, tell them he was afraid and would ask for help. At 10, Crumbley would text his mom when he was home alone, but she would not respond, he said.
More:Ethan Crumbley’s former neighbor opens up: He ‘didn’t have a prayer as a child’
“I saw that as early as age 10, even age 6, there were some issues,” King testified, adding video games were also a theme in young Crumbley’s life.
“In my interviews, he explained that he spent countless hours watching various adult games,” he testified. “He also spent an inordinate amount of time going to websites (with) graphic scenes. He began to fantasize being part of those scenes.”
“Ethan said that at age 6, he went up to a preschool worker and said, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if cars can just crash into this school and kill a lot of people,’ ” King said.
Detroit Free Press photojournalist Mandi Wright contributed to this report.
