A series of chilling journal entries, text messages, web searches, and voice belonging to Oxford High School mass shooter Ethan Crumbley emerged in court on Thursday, painting a picture of a deeply disturbed, violence-obsessed teenager who had fantasized about the massacre in detail.
The 17-year-old previously pleaded guilty to all 24 charges, including first-degree murder, attempted murder, and terrorism causing death for killing four students and injuring six others—as well as a teacher—in November 2021. His hearing on Thursday will determine if Crumbley, a minor, can be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
Detective Lt. Tim Willis of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office read aloud dark messages Crumbley allegedly scribbled into a journal in which “every written page” foreshadowed the school shooting.
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“I want all of America to see the darkness in me. I want to impact the world,” one entry said.
“Killing myself is too much of a pussy move,” another said. “People will just forget about me… the only way is to shoot up the school.”
In another, Crumbley drew a picture of a gun held to the back of a female’s head with the words, “The first victim has to be a pretty girl with a future so she can suffer just like me.” Willis confirmed the first victim shot, then-14-year-old Phoebe Arthur, was a female student. She miraculously survived.
The disturbing entries suggested Crumbley desired notoriety for the shooting, writing that he “want[ed] to be remembered through all of history.” He even “wonder[ed] what life in prison will be like,” explicitly stating he wanted “to shoot up the fucking school so badly” and “walk behind a pretty girl and shoot her in the back of the head.”
Crumbley’s journal also featured over 50 hand-drawn images of guns, according to Willis.
Equally disturbing was a 20-minute-long audio recording, played in court Thursday, that prosecutors said Crumbley made on his phone the night before the shooting in which he described how and why he would carry out the massacre.
In the nihilistic and often nonsensical rant, he spoke about how he was convinced society had “collapsed,” how the education system was “brainwashing people to be working class,” and how the only solution was to take drastic action.
Warning: the voice note recording below may disturb some listeners
“Unfortunately the people I kill... I’m sorry that their families have to go through this but it’s for the right of humanity,” he said. “...On the course we’re going, we’re fucked, in 50 years we’re fucked. Nothing’s gonna happen. Democrats and then Republicans are just gonna fight and fight and fight, and people are gonna keep taking sides and sides and sides.”
He vowed to kill “as many people as I can” and then flee until he was caught.
“My life is already on a downfall,” he said. “If I don’t do it... I’ll be a misery… I’ll probably end up in a useless career and end up killing myself.”
Text messages Crumbley sent in the months leading up to the shooting, which were also shown in court, revealed his twisted fantasies included violence against children, rape, mutilation, and murder.
“Whenever I see a little kid about a year old or a little more I want to pick them up and run off with them then torture them before throwing them off a cliff,” one of Crumbley’s texts said. In another, the teen wrote, “Just thinking about the torturing and the screaming and the way their legs flail in the air as they cry…it fills the void.”
Additional messages laid out plans to abduct, mutilate, and murder his female classmate at Oxford. “Kidnap her then tie her up then rape her then torture her then kill her then dissect her then take her eyeballs then bury the body,” Crumbley wrote.
Both journal entries and texts also detailed how he had urges to torture and kill birds by putting “a drill in its stomach and skull,” chopping it in half, and snapping its break off. “There have been no baby birds to torture in for a long time and I’m getting that feeling were I need to kill again,” he texted.
Willis said in the days and weeks before the shooting, Crumbley googled whether Michigan has the death penalty and what the possible sentence for a 15-year-old would be for a mass shooting.
While in Oakland County Jail, Crumbley bypassed security to search a website dedicated to torture, gore, and school shootings on a tablet, and told officers he “tried really hard” not to look at the violent site after he was caught, Willis testified.
Victims’ families cried in court Thursday as surveillance footage from the massacre was played for the first time, showing Crumbley walking out of a school bathroom and methodically shooting students at close range. He then inexplicably walked back into a bathroom until he surrendered to police.
Crumbley’s defense team argued that a life sentence would be “disproportionate” as he is “not one of those rare individuals who is irreparably corrupt and can’t be rehabilitated,” attorney Paulette Michel Loftin said at the hearing. His lawyer specifically homed in on journal entries about his rough home life and mental health struggles.
“One call and that can save a lot of lives. My evil has fully taken over in me and I used to like it, but now I don’t want to be evil. I want help but my parents don’t listen to me so I can’t get any help. I feel like I’m in a tiny loop of sadness,” Crumbley wrote.
Loftin attempted to show Crumbley’s wishes to seek help for his negative thoughts before the shooting, with one message saying “all one of my teachers has to do is send me to the office and I will tell them about the bird head and I can get help.”
She also pinned the blame on his parents, who will both stand trial for involuntary manslaughter for failing to heed warning signs from their child and making firearms accessible. In presenting evidence of neglectful parenting, Loftin cited law enforcement interviews in which neighbors said they saw Crumbley crying and heard his parents yelling.
“This morning, I woke up to my mom having one of her worst rants about how we have no money and can’t pay the bills. This just furthers my desire to shoot up the school or do something else. I have no happiness or optimism left in me as I am a burden to my parents,” one journal entry said.
The prosecution, however, is seeking the harshest punishment possible under Michigan law for Crumbley. Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald looked to the teen’s premeditation of the shooting and history of violence as reasons he deserves a life sentence.
