Ethan R. Crumbley, now 16, seems taller and thinner than he did when he was arraigned while wearing a suicide smock and protective face mask nearly a year ago.

A day prior, on Nov. 30, 2021, police rushed into Michigan’s Oxford High School following a mass shooting that left four classmates dead, seven injured and a community unraveled.

The teen, with dark-brown hair draping the sides of his head down to his shoulders and glasses, stood between his attorneys in an orange Oakland County Jail inmate uniform as he appeared in Pontiac’s Oakland County Circuit Court Monday, Oct. 24. Shackles looped his waist.

He approached the podium.

“Yes, sir,” Crumbley said in a monotone voice after Circuit Judge Kwame L. Rowe asked if the teen understood what he was pleading guilty to and that he would face up to life in prison. Rowe listed the 24 felony crimes Crumbley admitted to committing, including four counts of first-degree murder, a count of terrorism causing death, seven counts of assault with intent to murder and 12 counts of felony use of a firearm.

Crumbley’s attorneys indicated they no longer intend to pursue an insanity defense. The courtroom gallery was filled to capacity with the family of victims and as many or more members of the media.

The planned shooting claimed the lives of students Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; and Justin Shilling, 17. Six more students and a teacher also suffered gunshot wounds.

“Yes sir,” Crumbley said, his head bowed, when asked by an assistant prosecutor if he brought a handgun and 50 rounds of ammunition into the school, entered the bathroom about 12:40 p.m., removed the hidden and loaded handgun from his backpack, emerged from the bathroom and began shooting at classmates and staff.

“I would have expected him to show some remorse in his face, and there was none,” said Novi-based attorney Wolf Mueller, who representing two victims in lawsuits associated with the shooting. “There is no soul there.”

Crumbley’s attorney, Paulette Michel Loftin, said her client is remorseful.

“He is a 16-year-old boy,” she said. “It’s a very scary situation, today, to be in front of a number of cameras, hearing the clicking, and to be appearing in front of a judge.”

Two years from being old enough to vote, Crumbley’s life is now scripted by the criminal justice system. He was charged as an adult.

A first-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory life prison sentence for adults but because he is a minor, Crumbley can’t automatically be sentenced to life without the opportunity for parole. He must serve a minimum of 25 years and a maximum of 40 years in prison. If he is to be sentenced to prison for more than 40 years, a special sentencing hearing is required by law. That hearing is set for Feb. 9 at 9a.m. A sentencing hearing will follow at a later date.

Crumbley, who early on received fan mail, along with hate mail and donations, has remained in the Oakland County Jail, segregated from the adult inmate population, since shortly after his arrest.

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Preliminary examination for James and Jennifer Crumbley

Police arrested the teen’s parents, Jennifer, 44, and James Crumbley, 46, who were found hiding in an art studio in Detroit, four days after their son’s arrest, following a manhunt that included a $10,000 reward posted by U.S. Marshals. Jennifer and James Crumbley, too, have remained in the same jail as their son, currently on $500,000 bonds, since their arrests. Jennifer and James Crumbley are each charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, accused of being grossly negligent in their failure to seek proper help for their son before he committed violence.

It’s unclear if their son will testify against them. Ethan Crumbley at his plea hearing admitted that he picked out and paid for the gun purchased on his behalf by his father. Crumbley confirmed the gun was not kept in a “locked container or safe.”

Months before Crumbley allegedly opened fire on his school, he told a friend he was in the grips of a mental breakdown and needed help. When he told his parents, they rebuffed him, told him to “suck it up” and laughed at him, Ethan told his friend, according to social media and text messages reviewed by investigators.

In his journal, near drawings of guns and people being shot, Ethan wrote he had “zero help for my mental problems and it’s causing me to shoot up a (expletive)ing school.” He hoped the massacre would be the biggest in Michigan’s history.

Related: Parents told Oxford High shooter to ‘suck it up’ when he asked for help

Days before the shooting, officials say Ethan Crumbley accompanied his father to purchase the eventual murder weapon. Jennifer Crumbley referred to the gun as “an early Christmas present” on social media. Video shown during a preliminary examination hearing for the parents in February depicted the mother and son practicing with the firearm at a shooting range.

When the first news of the shooting became public, Jennifer and James Crumbley immediately suspected their son’s involvement.

Jennifer Crumbley texted a message to her son: “Ethan, don’t do it,” but it was too late. Meanwhile, James Crubmely rushed to the family home to search for the gun that Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said was stored, unlocked, in the parents’ bedroom drawer.

It was gone. He called 911.

Earlier that day, James and Jennifer were called to the school for a meeting with administrators.

Teachers found violent images and words Ethan Crumbley scrawled on a geometry test, including, “help me,” “blood everywhere,” and “the thoughts won’t stop,” next to scribblings of a gun, bullet and what the prosecutor described as an apparent wounded person.

The school demanded that the parents seek psychiatric help for their son within 48 hours. Ethan Crumbley was allowed to remain in school and returned to class.

Investigators said they believe Ethan Crumbley already had the handgun in his backpack. He’d later emerge from a bathroom, walk down the hall and commit murder.

“I’m not going to give you a political answer and I’m not going to cover for anybody; I’m just going to say what I think,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald publicly said days after the killings. “Of course he shouldn’t have gone back to that classroom. He should not have been allowed to go back to that class. I believe that is a universal position.”

Following the shooting, students and other members of the community, even Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, started at makeshift memorial at the high school. They left sports jerseys, stuffed animals, flowers, signed footballs and prayer candles with the message, “together we are Oxford strong,” written on the glass.

The University of Michigan Wolverines football team wore a patch with four small hearts, commemorating the victims. The cover of the school’s yearbook was black.

The high school shut down for nearly two months while administrators reviewed security and the district grieved.

Since the shooting, multi-million-dollar civil lawsuits have been filed in state and federal court on behalf of the victims and their families against the Crumbleys and the Oxford Community Schools district.

A state lawsuit filed by Detroit-area lawyer Geoffrey N. Fieger and the Fieger, Fieger, Kenney & Harrington law firm claimed the heightening problems with Crumbley should have been reported to Child Protective Services. CPS “would have investigated Ethan Crumbley and warned the students at Oxford High School of his imminent threats,” the complaint said. School administrators also failed to notify the school’s Oakland County sheriff’s liaison, the lawsuit claims.

On the day before the shooting, Ethan Crumbley posted a message on Twitter, according to the lawsuit. It was a Hindu quote made famous by physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who’s credited as the “father” of the atomic bomb.

It said, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

See also:

Accused Oxford High shooter pursuing GED from jail

Accused Oxford shooter to remain in adult prison

Oxford schools hire outside investigation firms

Prosecutor asks that accused shooter’s name not be used in court

Accused Oxford High School shooter to remain in adult jail pending trial

“How do I get my fan mail?” Accused Oxford High shooter’s jail messages revealed in court

Judge to determine if accused Oxford High shooter should be moved to juvenile facility