Michigan school shooter sentenced to life in prison without parole

Riley Franz, a survivor who was shot during the Oxford High School shooting, said she will never again be able to experience life like she used to before the attack.

"I mourn the person I used to be because, although I survived, the original pieces of me didn't," Franz said in court Friday ahead of shooter Ethan Crumbley's sentencing. "I will never have the opportunity to experience life like I used to, with so much joy and clarity."

Franz said she used to love attending school, but now she frequently has panic attacks at college.

"Now when I sit at a school, I feel anxious — checking for all my exits, highly in tune with all movements inside and outside the classroom, flinching at every sound from the walking upstairs to a pencil dropping, and counting down the minutes until I feel that I can breathe again," Franz said. "I cannot remember what it's like to feel safe and secure in any space that I occupy."

"I deserved to be a child that day, a student who made it to her class, not someone's target practice," she added.

The day of the shooting started like any other for Oxford High School student Kylie Ossege — until she said she thought a "balloon popped."

"I fell right to the ground. I remember hearing screams. I saw running, but I couldn't run. I was already down," she told the court in her victim impact statement. "I realized what had just happened — I was just shot. I thought I was going to die."

As she laid on the floor, Ossege said she attempted to get up but her legs weren't moving. She said she hit her legs in an attempt to regain any kind of feeling. "But not a single thing," she told the court.

Ossege described feeling warm under her cheek as she laid on the floor. It was the blood-soaked carpet that also made a "squish" sound against her ear.

As they lay there "in loneliness," Ossege described repeating her mother's phone number "to make sure my brain was functioning" and "creating math problems in my head and solving them to make sure I wasn't dying."

Ossege said she spent a week in the intensive care unit (ICU) and five weeks in rehabilitation, learning basic tasks: eating, brushing teeth, showering, getting dressed, walking and climbing stairs.

The bullet had shattered her clavicle, broke two ribs, grazed her spine, causing a spinal cord injury, she said, adding that she underwent surgeries and is still under treatment for it. Since this event, she described not being able to play sports that she loved, returning to her job and walking long distances. Her body, she said, has also lost the ability to keep itself warm or cool according to the temperature outside.

Molly Darnell, an educator who was shot during the Oxford High School shooting, told the gunman he does not have "the power to destroy who I am."

"The memory of you raising your gun to me and the scar on my arm may exist, but I will continue to live a life full of the human experience because I am the writer of my own story," she said.

Darnell said she believed the gunman deserved a sentence of life in prison without parole.

"You intended to leave my husband a widower and my children motherless. There is no forgiveness for you," Darnell said. "But I have found that I do not need to forgive you to live a life full of kindness and compassion, for both myself and others."

Reina St. Juliana described the things she had hoped to do with her sister, Hana, as they grew up: go thrifting together, help each other remember songs, go on walks and speak at each other's weddings.

In her victim impact statement ahead of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley's sentencing, the older sister spoke about pushing off getting a driving license since her 14-year-old sister would never be able to ride in the passenger seat and having a dull house where "the empty seat at the dining table is the loudest silence I've ever heard."

She also read her mother's victim impact statement.

"Now in my daily life, whenever I see a pair of sisters, I'm sad. When I see other siblings getting along, I'm sad. When I see other mothers and daughters, I'm sad. When I see other families having a good time, I'm sad. When I see others her age having fun, I'm sad. Every day, every moment, every experience, I think of Hana and I'm sad," the statement said.

"I know that the days my eyes are dry will never come," she added. "This is how we will continue to be — surviving, not living."

The father of Hana St. Juliana, who was killed in the Oxford High School shooting, said there is "absolutely nothing" the shooter could do to earn his forgiveness.

"There is absolutely nothing that the defendant can ever do to earn my forgiveness," Steve St. Juliana said at the shooter's sentencing on Friday. "His age plays no part. 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," St. Juliana said. 

He described his daughter as a "beautiful, caring soul" with unlimited potential. 

"I think of all the good times we shared together as a family and mourn all the memories that will never be," St. Juliana said. "I will never think back fondly of her high school and college graduations. I will never walk her down the aisle as she begins the journey of starting her own family. I am forever denied the chance to hold her or her future children in my arms."

The mother of school shooting victim Justin Shilling told the gunman that her son "would've been your friend, if you had only asked him."

"If you were that lonely, that miserable, that lost, and you really needed a friend, Justin would've been your friend, if you had only asked him," Jill Soave told the shooter in court Friday.

Soave said Justin's siblings, Clay and Nathan, were "robbed of much their youth, their innocence, their joy, their beloved middle brother Justin."

"Clay, who was only 15, was hiding in the school that day as well, fearing for his life and worrying about Justin's," she said.

At times, Soave spoke directly to the shooter, Ethan Crumbley.

"You may have caused the pain and terror as you intended to do, but you did not destroy us," Soave said. "There is more love and light in this world because of the legacies of Justin, Tate, Hana, and Madisyn."

Crumbley's head was down and he didn't appear to look at Soave when she spoke to him.

Ahead of giving his victim impact statement, Craig Shilling, father of 17-year-old Michigan school shooting victim Justin Shilling, told the judge it was the hardest thing he ever had to write, and that the court would hear a condensed version of what he has been working on for months.

"These days, there's not much happiness in the holidays. Birthdays and those milestone days don't carry the special feeling they always used to," he said.

"The things I used to find enjoyment in are no longer reliable in that respect," he added, saying activities like golfing, kayaking, bowling and fishing are few of the many things he used to do with his son.

As his voice shook, Craig Shilling said the pain is debilitating, no matter how much you prepare or "how strong you think you are or how big your support network is."

He asked the judge to sentence shooter Ethan Crumbley to the harshest penalty possible — life in prison without parole.

"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," Craig Shilling said.

The father of Tate Myre, who was killed in the Oxford High School shooting, said his family has been going through "complete hell" since his son died.

"Today has dealt us another hand of heartaches that we'll have to play," Buck Myre said at the shooter's sentencing. "For the past two years our family has been navigating our way through complete hell." 

Myre was the second person to give his victim impact statement in court Friday morning.

"As we navigate these treacherous waters, we try to honor Tate and, cause we know he's looking down on us," Myre said. "And I know he's not very proud of how his dad is handling this. But his dad's fighting, his mom's fighting, and his brothers are fighting." 

Myre said his family wanted the shooter to spend the rest of his life "rotting in his cell."

"What you stole from us is not replaceable, but what we won't let you steal from us is a life of normalcy. And we'll find a way to get there through forgiveness and through putting good into this world," he said.

Nicole Beausoleil, mother of 17-year-old Oxford High School student Madisyn Baldwin, recounted the moment she was told her daughter had died in the November 2021 school shooting.

"When I received word that the school was under attack, my daughter had already been gone for over an hour," she told the judge in her victim statement. She described not receiving any answers — just blank stares — as she asked authorities where her daughter was and saw other parents reunite with their kids.

When she was asked to walk into a room, she said she "felt this chill come across to my body so cold that I felt it in my bones."

She recounted feeling paralyzed when she heard her child had died. "I felt every scream that came from my body. I felt every breath I took was fading. My mind was in a state of dementia and then my body drops to the floor," she said in court.

"We were suffocating together in disbelief," she added. "The sobs came from a deep part in me. Tears soaked the cold floor I laid on."

The next day, when she was taken to identify Baldwin's body at the morgue, she said, "my scream should have shattered" the glass she looked through.

Beausoleil rejected the descriptions of Baldwin as "a statistic, a victim."