Hearing to decide Ethan Crumbley's fate: Live updates from Day 2

It's Day 2 of the Oakland County court hearing to determine whether confessed school shooter Ethan Crumbley should be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, or, one day have a chance at freedom. The Free Press is monitoring testimony via livestream and from the courtroom. Come back here for updates.

Students who witnessed the shooting and an assistant principal who spoke to Crumbley during his murder spree and then tried to save one of his victims testified today on behalf of the prosecution, which is pushing for life without parole. The hearing is structured as sort of a mini-trial — with both sides presenting witnesses.

(Watch Ethan Crumbley's hearing below.)

'It took me months to get the taste of blood out of my mouth'

The most graphic and emotional testimony so far came from Assistant Principal Kristy Gibson-Marshall, who broke down in tears as she talked about how she tried to save Tate Myre’s life in the hallway, where she found him lying on the ground with a gunshot wound to the back of his head.

“It was crushing. I had to help him. I had to save him, for his mom,” said Gibson-Marshall, noting she felt the exit wound in the back of his head, and saw that the bullet had exited his eye.

She began to weep.

“I just kept talking to him. I told him that I love him, that I needed him to hang with me,” said Gibson-Marshal, whose testimony brought many to tears in the courtroom, including reporters. “He was blue. When I was giving him breaths, he was getting white, so I kept giving him the breaths. It felt like forever.”

Gibson-Marshall stayed with Myre until police and paramedics arrived, and told them to keep giving him breaths.

The blood still haunts her.

“It was all over me,” she said “It took me months to get the taste of blood out of my mouth.”

Gibson-Marshall broke protocol that day to help her students. She was in the cafeteria when the shooting started, alerted by a student who yelled “Get the hell out.” Then active shooter alert was announced.

But rather than locking down — as she was supposed to — she went toward the gunshots.

And encountered Crumbley.

She saw him from a distance, lowering his arm from shoulder height. She also saw a gun. She walked in his direction, saying she needed to help, and saw a student on the ground.

As the gunman approached closer, she realized it was Crumbley, whom she has known since he was in elementary school.

“‘It couldn’t be Ethan. He wouldn’t do that,’“ she recalled thinking.

“And so I talked to him. I said, ‘Are you OK, what’s going on?’"

Crumbley didn’t respond. He kept walking, so she went back to the student on the ground — Tate Myre.

Gibson-Marshall was in the hallway when Crumbley eventually surrendered after exiting a bathroom, where he killed his final victim.

“He came out with his hands up and he was on his knees,” she said, noting police were trying to figure out who he was. “He didn’t answer. I said, ‘His name is Ethan.’“

During her testimony, Crumbley stared at the floor, never looking up. When her testimony was over, he was wiping his nose with a tissue.

The assistant principal walked over to Myre's parents in the courtroom and hugged them. All were in tears.

'HELP,' 'GUN,' 'I’M HIDING IN THE BATHROOM.'

It was an emotional morning for two Oxford students who testified Friday, including 16-year-old Keegan Gregory, He hid in a bathroom with Justin Shilling, who was killed in the shooting. But Gregory managed to escape.

When the shooting started, Gregory said he was walking down the hallway and stopped to use the bathroom, not knowing what was going on.

"I was using the bathroom and heard shots, really loud. I didn’t believe it was a gun at first, I didn’t know what to think until I peeked out and saw people running," Gregory testified.

Shocked, he went back into the bathroom, where he encountered Shilling, whom he had never met. Gregory entered a stall.

"I squatted on the toilet," he said, noting that Shilling told him to do that so no one would see his feet. Shilling did the same.

Both stayed quiet as they used their phones. Gregory texted his family in a group chat.

“HELP,” “GUN,” “I’M HIDING IN THE BATHROOM,” “OMG.”

Gregory’s dad texted back, telling his son to stay down, stay quiet and stay calm.

“I’m terrified,” Gregory wrote.

At one point, Shilling devised a plan to escape. Gregory testified Shilling mouthed and signaled to him that when they heard gunshots get farther away, they were going to run.

But before they knew it, the shooter was in the bathroom. Gregory alerted his family. His dad told him to stay down and not engage, “We love you.”

Then the shooter kicked in the door of the bathroom stall and “stared at us,” Gregory testified, noting Crumbley then left the stall.

He said he and Shilling weren’t sure if Crumbley was still in the bathroom, so Shilling at first tried to use his phone to look for feet, then bent over and mouthed to Gregory that he was there.

“We just stayed quiet,” he said.

At some point, Gregory testified, the shooter came back into the stall and told Shilling to come out. Gregory said he was still crouching on the toilet and then heard an “extremely loud” shot.

The shooter then came back into the stall and motioned for Gregory to come out, he said.

At some point, Gregory recalled looking at the shooter and saying "Please."

"I was scared,” he said.

"He had the gun at his side. He signaled me to go over by Justin’s body," he recalled.

He saw Justin’s body in a pool of blood around his head — a sight that prompted his next move. He bolted.

"I ran behind his back behind the door," Gregory testified. "I think when I saw his body, I realized that if I stayed, I was gonna die.

"I just kept running as fast as I could," he said. "I couldn't breathe. I was hyperventilating."

Gregory has a tattoo on his arm with four hearts representing the four victims. One of the hearts has a halo over it. Gregory testified the halo is for Justin Shilling.

"If he didn't die in there," Gregory said, "then I'd be dead right now."

The defense chose not to cross-examine Gregory.

Student Heidi Allen testifies: 'I just closed my eyes'

The first student witness to the mass shooting testified Friday morning, telling in chilling detail what she experienced when the gunshots rang out. This is her testimony:

Heidi Allen was in the crowd of students as Crumbley left a bathroom and started firing. She immediately dropped down and started praying.

“I just prayed and I covered my head because I didn’t know if those were my last moments,” Allen, now 17, testified. “I just closed my eyes.”

When Allen realized the shooter was gone, she opened her eyes and saw two other girls across from her and another girl on the floor down the hall.

Prosecutors showed surveillance footage, which showed that Allen had been walking not far behind Phoebe Arthur, who was the first person shot. Arthur survived.

Allen testified that she helped Arthur into an open, empty classroom next to them and immediately used a door security device that helps prevent anyone from coming inside. She said she knew how to install it because during a school drill a month earlier, a teacher randomly called on her to try installing the device.

When she couldn’t do it within 10 seconds during the drill, the teacher came over and showed her what to do.

“So when that moment came, I knew exactly how to do it,” Allen said.

She kept reassuring Arthur that she would be OK, while trying herself to stay calm. Allen took her classmate to the middle of the room, saw she had been shot on the left side near her collarbone and neck and started putting pressure on the wounds.

“I started to pray with her because I didn’t know what else to do,” Allen testified. She said she felt she was meant to be there because “there’s no other reason that I’m OK”

Several students around Allen had been shot.

Eventually, she heard voices in the hallway, saw a police officer and called for help. An officer helped her get Arthur into a swivel chair and into the hallway. She said she turned her classmate away from the chaotic scene, where she said emergency officials were trying to resuscitate a classmate, who she now knows was Hana St. Juliana, who was killed in the shooting.

Text messages to Crumbley parents

Before testimony began, defense attorney Paulette Loftin presented text messages between Crumbley and his mom as part of a strategy to show that his parents ignored him and left him alone to battle his mental health troubles. This has been a main theme in the case, with both sides arguing that Crumbleys’ parents ignored a troubled child, and cared more about their own lives than their son.

The parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, are the first parents in America charged in a school shooting. They are jailed, awaiting a Michigan Supreme Court ruling on their appeal seeking to have their involuntary manslaughter charges dismissed before trial.

More: Crumbleys appeal to Michigan Supreme Court: Blame our son for Oxford shooting, not us

Here are some of the texts that the defense presented in court:

Crumbley texts his mom one night: “I don’t like being home alone … Just be here at 11oclock … mommy can you please be home now. Can you please be home.”

Mom never responds.

“I just don’t feel good, that’s all.”

Mom responds at 11 p.m. : “It’s okay buddy. We’re right down the road and the neighbors are home. I’m out with the ski patrol celebrating. It’s a big deal.”

In another text exchange with his mom

Crumbley: “Mommy … The rest of my tooth is coming out please come as quickly as you can.”

No response.

Crumbley also texted his mom about hallucinating. On March 9, 2021, eight months before the shooting:

Crumbley: Can you come home now. There is someone in the house I think. Someone walked into the bathroom and flushed the toilet and left the light on …. There is no one in the house though.”

“Dude, my door just slammed. Maybe it’s just my paranoia, but when are you going to get home”

No response.

Crumbley: “I cleaned until the clothes started flying off the shelf. This stuff only happens when I’m home alone.”

No response.

Meanwhile, the defense presented other text messages showing the mom texting her son about guns.

“Your gun came,” Jennifer Crumbley texted her son on April 21, 2021 — exactly seven months before he carried out the mass school shooting.

This was not the gun that Crumbley would use in the school shooting. He got that gun, the murder weapon, months later as an early Christmas present.

Then the defense lawyer presented the notorious text that made international news – the one she sent her son after he got caught at school researching bullets the day before he carried out the shooting.

“LOL. I’m not mad. You have to learn how not to get caught.”

Texts to a friend: 'I need help'

The defense also presented text messages between Crumbley and a friend in an effort to show both his mental health issues and that his parents weren't helping him.

In these texts, he described hallucinating, seeing people who weren’t there, hearing voices and asking his parents for help.

“I actually asked my dad to take me to the doctor yesterday but he just gave me some pills and told me to suck it up,” Crumbley texted the friend one night.

Crumbley also texted his friend about instances where he heard doors opening in the house and someone walking around when no one else was home.

“Like I hear people talking to me and see someone in the distance," he wrote in one text.

Crumbley texted that his friend probably thought he was doing this for attention.

“I’m not man, I need help.” Crumbley texted, noting he thought about calling 911 so he could go to the hospital, “but then my parents would be really pissed.”

Crumbley also texted his friend he was again going to ask his parents to take him to the doctor: “This time I’m going to tell them about the voices.”

Judge: Don't badger witnesses

Earlier, the defense sought unsuccessfully to strike the testimony of a teacher who described her on Thursday. Crumbley’s defense also asked that the students not be allowed to testify.

Crumbley attorney Amy Hopp argued that the “focus is on Mr. Crumbley and five factors. His age, family and home environment, the circumstances of the homicide, and potential family and peer pressures.”

She argued that teacher Molly Darnell testified about her feelings and actions not relevant to the hearing.

Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald disagreed, arguing, “The defendant himself wanted to inflict pain and suffering on his witnesses.” So this testimony, she said, is “completely appropriate.”

“To say that we should not allow people to take the stand and tell the truth is offensive,” McDonald said.

McDonald then implored the defense to treat her next two student witnesses with “dignity and respect.”

“They do not come in here with a message of vengeance,” McDonald said “I’m not putting students on the stand to be retraumatized for no reason whatsoever.“

Judge Kwame Rowe denied the requests. The teacher’s testimony is staying in, and, the students will testify. He said these witnesses may very well add facts that are relevant to helping him make a decision. He also urged both sides not to badger any of the witnesses, and noted he hopes to get the hearing done today.

Rowe will decide Crumbley's fate after the hearing, which is mandated by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that juvenile murders may not be sentenced to life without parole without a "Miller" hearing, named after the 2012 case, Miller v. Alabama.

Day One was filled with deeply disturbing evidence, including:

• The first public showing of video from Oxford High School as Crumbley killed four fellow students and wounded seven other people.

• A video Crumbley made before the shooting in which he explained that he needed to show the school and his classmates a lesson. "There’s no voices in my head," he said in the video. "The voices are me ... that’s what people call the demons. There are no demons. I am the demon."

• Another video in which he tortured and killed a baby bird and text messages in which he said he wanted to kill another bird and wanted to rape and kill a classmate.

More: Oxford teacher shot by Crumbley testifies: 'Do you know how hard it is to heal from this?'

More: School shooting video and Ethan Crumbley's own words — 'I am the demon' — shock courtroom

The courtroom on the emotional and disturbing Day One was filled with classmates, including some who were wounded and are expected to testify, and their relatives.

Crumbley pleaded guilty to all charges against him. His parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, are jailed on involuntary manslaughter charges, the first parents in America charged in a school shooting. They bought him the gun used in the shooting on Nov. 21, 2021, as an early Christmas present.

Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com; Gina Kaufman: gkaufman@freepress.com

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Hearing to decide Ethan Crumbley sentencing fate: Live updates