Grief, pain laid bare at Oxford shooting sentencing as family remember victims' legacies

Their lives were ahead of them — until they weren't.

In an Oakland County courtroom, grieving families marked the past two years with all the potential erased in minutes on Nov. 30, 2021, and replaced by heartbreak that they've accepted never goes away.

The high school graduations never attended. The weddings that will never be celebrated. The future children that the dead will never have or raise. The days of school missed by teens too fearful to return to the classroom.

The daylong sentencing hearing Friday led to a life sentence without the possibility of parole for shooter Ethan Crumbley.

As family members of the four murdered Oxford High School students asked Judge Kwame Rowe to hand down a lengthy sentence for the shooter, they laid bare the grief, trauma and pain they've grappled with every day without Madisyn Baldwin, Tate Myre, Justin Shilling and Hana St. Juliana in their lives. Survivors shared the depths of their injuries and the grueling moments in recovery. Parents and students mourned for the people they were before Nov. 30.

"I deserved to be a child that day," said Riley Franz, a 19-year-old college student who was only 17 when she was injured in the Oxford High shooting. "Not someone's target practice."

Survivors and victims said they've been blindsided.

They've lashed out, they said.

They've forgiven themselves.

They've faced a deluge of anxiety.

They get sad when they see two sisters together.

Their child saw the star atop the classroom Christmas tree as a possible self-defense weapon.

Their bodies go rigid at loud noises, their eyes tear involuntarily.

They've endured painful surgeries.

They repeated their mom's phone number in their head as they bled on the floor of a school hallway.

They feel guilty sometimes that they survived.

They will forever live with their grief.

"I don't need new memories, I just want to keep the ones I have," said Reina St. Juliana, Hana's older sister, who told Rowe that instead of fishtailing her sister's hair at homecoming like she had imagined, "I curled her hair in a casket."

'Every hour is the darkest time of the day'

Family members at the sentencing hearing shared the stunned moments of grief they endured — both immediately after the shooting and in the years that followed. Buck Myre, father of Tate Myre, said his family has been navigating through complete hell since his son's murder, wearing the pain like a heavy coat.

“Every hour is the darkest time of the day,” he said.

But "today is a day where the tides change,” Myre said during Friday's hearing, because grieving families have been “on this island far too long."

"We are the prisoner, not you.”

Craig Shilling, Justin Shilling’s father, said grief had consumed him and that he felt lost in a “seemingly endless sea of raging emotions.” He no longer finds much happiness in the holidays, birthdays or during milestones. Post-traumatic stress disorder, he said, has made it a struggle most days to get out of bed.

“It almost feels like time slows down and everything around you speeds up,” he said, adding that although It’s been two years since the shooting, it feels like yesterday.

The trauma runs deep in Oxford, Rowe concluded, and many community members are now struggling with its life-altering symptoms.

During the hearing, Reina read a statement for her mother, who wrote that she becomes sad even in good moments: when she sees two sisters together, like Reina and Hana once were, and when she sees people Hana's age having fun.

"I breathe in and out trying to hold my heart together," she said.

The ways in which the trauma lingers

Students, former students and family members also recounted the tapestry of trauma, fear and grief that's permeated their lives since that November day. Mother Marcia Hudson said that she and her two children, both Oxford High students at the school on that day, sat frozen in disbelief for hours, blood still on one child's clothing.

Experts say a traumatic event like a school shooting often creates hypervigilance in survivors, a heightened sense of awareness of one's surroundings.

Many students and former students Friday recounted hypervigilant behavior. One student said they try to blend in crowds now, afraid of what could happen. Keegan Gregory, who witnessed the fatal shooting of Justin Shilling, said he used to be good in school, but now finds it hard to be in the building, and can no longer "assume that the world is a safe place."

Franz, who was shot in the neck that day, said she often cancels plans out of fear, and flinches at noises.

"I refuse to be known as a victim at the hands of an individual with no regard for others," she said. "I am so much more than a victim. I am a daughter to the most amazing parents. ... I am a friend, a classmate, a cousin. ... I'm a person who deserved a chance to make it to her fifth class that day."

'They will never be the same'

Prosecutor Karen McDonald echoed the traumatic effects that continue to impact the school's community. They suffered many losses, she said — a loss of safety, a loss of trust, a loss of sleep, a loss of loved ones — and some said Friday that they lost themselves in the shooting's foggy aftermath.

"They're working very hard to find who they were with the acknowledgment that they will never be the same," she said. "And these are people who don't have a scratch on them from that day."

Kenton Kirby, director of trauma and healing for the New York-based Center for Justice Innovation, which advocates around the justice system, said being in the courtroom and hearing traumatic events recounted can bring people back to those horrifying moments.

In instances like this, survivors and family members need support, they need resources, he said. Family members expressed gratitude for the support they've received from the county court, thanking victim advocates and prosecutors for fighting for their families.

"Being a community is really important because trauma breeds isolation," Kirby said. "Whether it's physical isolation, or isolation as in, 'I am the only one that's experiencing this.' ... Being a community together can be healing. Not heal but healing."

The families aren't done reliving the trauma. James and Jennifer Crumbley, the gunman's parents, are charged with involuntary manslaughter and face separate trials starting next month. Many of the families also are plaintiffs in litigation against the school district.

Remembering their legacies and lives

Nicole Beausoleil does not want her daughter's name to be followed by "Oxford shooting victim." Madisyn Baldwin should be remembered for her kindness, Beausoleil said. Her daughter was an old soul who brought joy to the world.

She wanted to be a behavioral analyst or perhaps study neuroscience, her aunt said.

"She will always be the heartbeat of our family," her mother said.

Madeline Johnson still has a doodle drawn for her by her best friend — Madisyn frequently doodled on gum wrappers for her friends, Johnson said. Now the doodle, of two dinosaurs that Madisyn said was the two girls as dinosaurs, is emblazoned on sweatshirts with Madisyn's name on the back — "Best friends, even in prehistoric times," Madeline remembered in court, in tears.

The doodle is one of the only things she has left to remember Madisyn, her kind friend, a friend she thought she was only saying goodbye to for an hour when they parted in a school hallway.

'I will never walk her down the aisle'

It's almost Christmas and Hana St. Juliana isn't around — the family's third holiday season in her absence — to come up with ideas for presents for everyone.

Hana was supposed to grow up. Supposed to fall in love. Supposed to eat good food and go to college and live out the hopes and dreams she had for her life, her mom wrote in a statement Reina read out loud.

"I will never think fondly of her high school and college graduations," said Steve St. Juliana, Hana's father. "I will never walk her down the aisle. ... I am forever denied the chance to hold her or her future children in my arms."

She had written down ideas for her life: Maybe she'd become an immunologist or a pharmacist or a nurse or a physician or an FBI agent. All those ideas — all that potential — was cut short. Her family has created "Hana's Memorial Fund," with the organization's first project a memorial garden blooming with greenery to honor their beloved daughter, sister and friend,.

Using Tate's football number, 42, Myre's family is honoring him through a nonprofit, too: an organization called 42Strong that builds peer-to-peer mentorship relationships.

Buck Myre still thinks about the moments he and his wife searched for their "Tater" in the crowd at Meijer on Nov. 30, 2021, as families gathered there in hopes of reuniting following the shooting. But he wasn't there.

"Tate left a roadmap for all of us," he said.

Tate was a friend and a teammate, his brother, Trent Myre, said. He said he thinks about all the possibilities life held for Tate, details he'll never know: Trent will never know where Tate may have gone to college, Trent's future kids won't know their uncle, Tate won't be a groomsman at Trent's wedding someday.

"Nothing will bring my brother back, because he's gone," he said.

Justin Shilling's organ donation saved six lives, Jill Soave, his mom, said. His family has also started a fund in his honor, inspired by Justin's love of nature. He had already been accepted at Oakland University. He wanted to study business. Maybe get his real estate license, Soave said. He was so excited. So motivated.

And to the shooter, Soave said, if he had been so lonely he may even have found a companion in her son — a lettered athlete, a top honors student, a friend to many who are now grieving and a kid who didn't deserve to die.

"Justin would have been that friend, if you had only asked," she said.

To reach the reporter: laltavena@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Grief, pain, memories laid bare at Oxford shooter sentencing