PONTIAC, Mich. — A spokesperson for the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed Friday that the accused Oxford High shooting suspect is expected to plead guilty next week to charges that carry up to life in prison.
Ethan Crumbley, 16, is facing 24 felony charges including terrorism and first-degree premeditated murder in the Nov. 30 shooting. Madisyn Baldwin, Tate Myre, Hana St. Juliana and Justin Shilling were killed, while six students and a teacher were injured.
“We can confirm that the shooter is expected to plead guilty to all 24 charges, including terrorism, and the prosecutor has notified the victims,” David Williams, chief assistant prosecutor told The News in a prepared statement. Williams would not elaborate and declined to answer questions.
Crumbley is scheduled Monday morning for what was expected to be a routine in-person pretrial hearing before Judge Kwame Rowe, who has been assigned the case. It's unclear how a plea could affect that hearing and defense attorneys' previous intention to seek an insanity defense for their client. Defense attorneys did not return calls seeking comment Friday.
Crumbley's attorneys originally planned to mount an insanity defense of the teenager, who was 15 at the time of the shooting. Attorney Paulette Michel Loftin told The Detroit News in January that she and fellow defense attorney Amy Hopp believed Crumbley is mentally competent, but were going to argue he wasn't criminally responsible at the time of the alleged shooting — specifically whether he had the ability to conform his actions to the law or knew the difference between right and wrong.
Experts said the defense team had an “uphill battle" trying to mount an insanity defense. William Amadeo of McManus and Amadeo in Ann Arbor, a defense attorney with a history of defending people with mental health issues, said it’s exceedingly rare for Michigan defendants to be found incompetent to stand trial, let alone not guilty by reason of insanity.
Crumbley had just appeared on Thursday before Judge Rowe for a virtual placement hearing regarding his incarceration at the Oakland County Jail. During the hearing, the prosecutor’s office and Crumbley’s defense attorneys all told Rowe there was nothing new to report on the teenager’s status and Rowe ordered him to remain in the jail.
In court filings, attorneys have described Crumbley as a teenager troubled by hallucinations, including a demon living in his house. His parents rebuffed his pleas for mental health counseling and instead bought him a handgun and took him to a gun range to learn how to fire the weapon, investigators said.
When teachers became concerned about some of his behavior in school — including violent drawings on homework exercises and searching for ammunition on his cellphone — his parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, were called to the school on Nov. 30 and refused to remove him from school. He was permitted to return to class with his unsearched school backpack, which authorities believed contained his handgun, ammunition and a journal with his plans to shoot people at the school.
Within two hours the shooting took place, he was arrested by officers. His parents have since been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter each for failing to properly supervise him, provide help or to inform school officials of the existence of the weapon that morning.
The parents’ attorneys have said they plan to call the teenager as a witness in their trial, at a still-to-be determined date in January.
All three Crumbleys are being held at the Oakland County jail, though Ethan is kept away from adults.
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