Psychiatrist: Crumbley told me he attempted suicide in weeks before shooting | Live updates

A forensic psychiatrist testified Friday that Ethan Crumbley told her he attempted suicide in the month before murdering four fellow students at Oxford High School because he  didn't want to move on with his life.

Dr. Lisa Anacker, a rebuttal witness for the prosecution in a hearing to determine whether Crumbley is eligible to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, said the teen reported taking eight to 10 allergy pills in his attempt to harm himself. The hearing concluded Friday, with the judge in the case expected to issue a written ruling in the coming weeks and then schedule formal sentencing after that.

Anacker testified that on Crumbley's 15^th birthday he got upset and told his parents: "'I want to see a therapist.'" His parents, the first in America to be charged with a crime in a school shooting, did not arrange an appointment.

(Watch the hearing live below.)

Anacker made the disclosures during cross-examination by Crumbley's lawyer, Paulette Loftin, who sought to discredit the expert's finding that Crumbley is not mentally ill and asked her to update the court about Crumbley's childhood.

A desperate moment for Crumbley's father

For example, Anacker testified that when Crumbley was in elementary school and living in the state of Washington, he heard his mother yelling on the phone in the middle of the night. Jennifer Crumbley told Ethan that his dad was at a waterfall threatening to commit suicide, Anacker said.

According to Anacker, Ethan Crumbley was put on the phone with his dad, crying, telling him to come home and not kill himself.

Another time, Anacker said, Crumbley recalled taking half of one of his mom's sleeping pills, and wound up in the driveway walking in shorts, saying he was seeing someone.

"To your knowledge, he never saw a doctor," Loftin asked the expert.

He did not, Anacker responded.

Psychiatrist: Crumbley did not display psychosis during massacre

She testified earlier that Crumbley was not hallucinating when he shot up Oxford High School in 2021, nor was he hearing any voices telling him to hurt people.

Crumbley, who was 15 at the time, shot and killed four fellow students on Nov. 30, 2021, and wounded seven other people at the school. He pleaded guilty to all the charges against him.

Because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 in Miller v. Alabama that automatic sentences of life without parole are unconstitutional for juveniles, the court is conducting a so-called Miller hearing, named after the case.

Anacker testified that the teenager never displayed any signs of being psychotic in the days, weeks and months after the shooting, nor had he ever been prescribed any antipsychotic medication. Just because Crumbley reported hearing voices and seeing demons, that doesn’t mean he was psychotic, said Anacker, noting that Crumbley was fascinated by the supernatural, was left home alone as a child and watched horror movies, so his imagination as a child was heightened.

After three days of testimony in late July and on Aug. 1, Anacker took the stand Friday as a prosecution rebuttal witness. Her testimony was part of a broader effort to convince Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Kwame Rowe that Crumbley knew right from wrong when he carried out the shooting and that he wasn’t mentally ill — as the defense has maintained.

The battle of therapists

Specifically, Anacker testified that Crumbley does not meet the state’s legal definition of mental illness, maintaining that being depressed or anxious does not make one psychotic.

Her testimony clashed with that of defense psychologist Colin King, who last week testified that Crumbley has depression marked by severe psychosis and stated in a report: “The defendant is, without question, someone who is mentally ill.”

Anacker, who has evaluated more than 500 criminal cases in the last five years, disagrees.

She evaluated Crumbley on March 15, 2022, and concluded that he did not meet the criteria for having a “substantial disorder,” specifically on the day of the shooting.

'What we don’t see is any signs of bizarre behavior'

Anacker also disputed the defense expert’s finding that a manifesto made by Crumbley on the eve of the shooting showed he was mentally ill. In that videotape, Crumbley says: “I am the demon.”

“Those videos tell us about the defendant’s mental state during that one incident,” Anacker testified. “It tells us nothing about what his mental state was like in 2021 when the shooting occurred.”

“The defendant was communicating clearly. He was calm and collected. What we don’t see is any signs of bizarre behavior,” Anacker testified, noting Crumbley also was not hallucinating that day.

“It would be incredibly atypical for someone who is acutely psychotic to show no signs of psychosis during and after the shooting,” Anacker said.

Crumbley 'understood the nature of what he was doing'

“I can absolutely understand how it would be difficult to imagine how a sane person would commit mass murder," Anacker testified. "But the research does show us that mental illness does not account for most of the violence in our country.”

As for Crumbley's actions on the day of the shooting, she concluded: "He was criminally responsible, and he understood the nature of what he was doing."

Under questioning by Loftin, Anacker agreed that Crumbley told her he had planned the shooting in his head, but never thought he would get that far. But when he got the gun that his parents bought him as an early Christmas present, the idea of doing it kept coming up, she testified.

'Don’t do it, don’t do it, you are not going to do it'

Loftin then asked Anacker about a statement that Crumbley made: that he felt like his thoughts to commit the shooting was “a prophecy of my future and I had to fulfill it.”

Anacker recalled the statement, but said Crumbley never told her that he committed the shooting because it was a prophecy.

"He told me that he had been thinking about this for months and months. When I asked him specifically why did this happen," he didn’t refer to a prophecy, Anacker testifed.

At one point, Anacker noted, Crumbley’s thoughts of committing the shooting started to wane. But when he came home on the eve of the shooting, he had an argument with his parents and his father called him lazy. At that point, Crumbley told Anacker that thoughts of the shooting came back and good feelings he had experienced walking home from school that day were gone.

Anacker also testified about Crumbley's thoughts on the day of the shooting. She said he told her that as he  was exiting the bathroom before he opened fire, he was thinking: “Don’t do it, don’t do it, you are not going to do it.”

Crumbley also told her that when he was firing his gun, he was looking at his hand, not the people he was shooting.

After he shot a classmate — Justin Shilling — in a bathroom, Crumbley told Anacker that he told a second classmate that he could go and thought: "What have I done?" Anacker confirmed that Crumbley told her that after he killed Shilling, he unloaded the gun, put it on top of a trash can, saw police and surrendered.

The classmate who fled from the bathroom after Shilling was shot was Keegan Gregory, now 16. He previously testified that he had been squatting on a toilet in the bathroom when Crumbley came in and, eventually, ordered Shilling to come out of the stall they were hiding in and shot him.

Gregory testified that the shooter then came back into the stall and motioned for him to come out and signaled for him to go by Shilling’s body. When he got the chance. Gregory testified he ran from the bathroom.

The defense spent much of the morning attacking Anacker's conclusion that Crumbley is not mentally ill, and more specifically, not psychotic.

Hallucinations aren't psychosis, expert testifies

Loftin pressed Anacker to explain Crumbley's hallucinations, how he saw demons throwing bowls in the house, heard toilets flushing, saw clothes flying off the walls, heard voices — all of which he wrote in text messages to a friend and his parents.

Anacker had previously testified that Crumbley's childhood hallucinations weren't about psychosis, but a result of him being left home alone, watching horror movies and his fascination with the supernatural.

But Loftin wasn't having it.

"You mean to tell me, when he's hearing voices, seeing demons ... hearing toilets flushing," that he "must have been watching scary movies ... that's why he's reporting that?" Loftin asked.

But Anacker stuck to her position that Crumbley does not suffer from psychosis, and knew what he was doing during, before, and after the shooting.

"He specifically told me he was not psychotic or hallucinating," Anacker testified. "I don’t think he was lying.”

Loftin then asked Anacker about the inner voices that Crumbley said were in his head.

"Is it normal that a 15-year-old boy has a voice in his head telling him to kill?" Loftin asked.

"No, it’s not normal," Anacker said. "But it’s not psychotic."

How Crumbley behaved after his arrest

While Anacker was on the stand,  the prosecution also showed two videos of Crumbley — a brief clip of him in the back of a patrol vehicle and a video of him sitting in a chair in the corner of an interview room.

Anacker noted that Crumbley was not moving around a lot in the cruiser. And in the video of him in the interview room, she said, Crumbley showed no signs of psychosis.

The video shows Crumbley sitting in a chair. He wiggles his feet on the floor, making a squeaking sound.

A police official come in and tells Crumbley: “Just a few minutes, OK?”

Crumbley nods.

An officer comes in and tells Crumbley to stand up and turn around. Crumbley complies. An officer asks Crumbley if he’s right- or left-handed and Crumbley answers.

Anacker testified that Crumbley “follows commands.”

In the video, which was captured a short time after the shooting, Crumbley can be seen sitting down and taking his shoes off when told to do so.

“Kick your right foot out to me,” an officer says.

Crumbley does. Then extends his left foot when told to do so.

An officer asks: “What’s your name.”

“Ethan,” Crumbley replies, followed by his last name when asked.

Anacker testified that Crumbley was “responding relevantly. He’s paying attention.”

According to questioning by the prosecution, before the shooting, Crumbley stuffed toilet paper in his ears and made multiple trips to the bathroom, where he loaded the gun. Anacker testified that the fact that Crumbley had a multistep process before the shooting “suggests the capacity for planning and also delay.” She said someone overwhelmed with psychosis often wouldn’t be able to wait, so his capacity to delay was significant.

Anacker testified: “It was very planned.”

The prosecution's closing argument

In her closing argument, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said she has dedicated her life to children and she believes in treating kids like kids, showing compassion and helping people avoid the criminal justice system.

“I believe it is a rare person who can be labeled irreparably corrupt, especially when that individual is a juvenile,” she said.

McDonald said asking the court to sentence a 17-year-old to life without parole for a crime he committed when he was 15, “was the last place I thought I would be and it is the last place I want to be.”

But that’s what she did, telling the judge the prosecution has looked at and considered the facts, data, research “and, most importantly, the truth.” Having done that, McDonald told the judge, “I’m standing here today and I’m asking you to sentence him to a life without parole sentence.”

She said the evidence shows that Crumbley extensively planned the crime, including searching for a map of the school, researching about the death penalty, learning firearm discipline and writing his plan over and over again.

McDonald said the prosecution agrees Crumbley’s parents neglected him, that he was isolated and that his parents told a school counselor they didn’t have time to take their son for help.

“We can feel compassion but we can also fashion an appropriate sentence,” McDonald said.

She said the court hasn’t heard much about whether the defendant can be rehabilitated and said the process is imperfect. While she agrees that juveniles have an increased capacity to change, McDonald said Crumbley has shown a desire to commit disturbing acts, including talking about wanting to drown children and torturing a baby bird.

McDonald again described the rampage through the school — step by step, explaining the shooting and what classmates were injured and killed. This included Madisyn Baldwin, whom McDonald said Crumbley shot “at point- blank range” as she crouched on the ground, curled into a ball with her hands over her head.

His classmates, she said, were innocents.

“They were helpless,” McDonald said, “like the birds.”

McDonald also talked about Crumbley’s interaction with Assistant Principal Kristy Gibson-Marshall during the shooting. She said his exchange with her was jarring — and noted that he became emotional during her testimony.

“The defendant had already shot and killed students at that time and he made a decision not to shoot her,” McDonald said, noting that Gibson-Marshall had known Crumbley and spoke about him with tenderness. Gibson-Marshall encountered Crumbley after he had fatally shot Tate Myre.

McDonald said it is morally and legally complicated to sentence someone at age 17 to serve life in prison. She said Crumbley plotted and planned and had a choice and opportunities to turn back.

She said this case shows none of the mitigating factors that would disqualify him from life in prison.

“He is guilty, he pled guilty and he should serve the rest of his life in prison,” McDonald said.

The defense's final argument

In trying to spare her client life in prison, Loftin began her closing argument by citing the teenage shooter’s own words, as expressed in text messages to a friend and in his journal.

“I feel like I’m in a time loop of sadness … I hate myself … I barely  made it through ninth grade mentally, then I made it to tenth grade and I fully lost control … I’m at my breaking point.”

“Ethan was at his breaking point, and no one stepped in,” argued Loftin, who laid much blame on Crumbley’s parents, saying they knew their son was troubled, but never got him help.

And in the weeks leading up to the shooting, Loftin said, Crumbley was spiraling, alone and depressed.

“He was failing almost all his subjects. He sat alone at lunch. His only and trusted friend had left,” Loftin said. “He was hallucinating. He was hearing voices. He was suicidal. He was anxious.”

And he cried out for help, Loftin said, but no one listened.

As Loftin noted, Crumbley wrote on a math sheet on the day of the shooting: “The thoughts won’t stop, help me ... The world is dead. My life is useless.”

But his parents, who were summoned to school over the note, didn't him home that day, but rather went back to their jobs.

“Ethan was overlooked,” Loftin argued. “Ethan, in his own way crying out for help, still went unnoticed.”

“He sat there. His parents didn’t greet him, or touch him. There was no question at that point that no one cared about him,” Loftin argued, repeating the prosecutor’s own words at the parents’ preliminary exam.

Loftin portrayed James and Jennifer Crumbley as selfish and uncaring parents who often left their son home alone at a very early age, argued constantly, yelled accusations of affairs at one another, drank excessively and left a troubled child to “cope with his fears by himself.”

“It was glaringly obvious that he was not OK,” Loftin said, stressing “His parents didn’t embrace him ... you know what they did? They bought him a weapon.”

Loftin also blasted the parents over their actions on the day of the shooting.

“As hundreds of parents drove way above the speed limit to make sure their kids were still alive, here’s what his parents did: His dad went home to check for a gun. His mom texted him, ‘Don’t do it,’“ Loftin said. “They knew he was in a crisis.”

Loftin’s closing arguments intentionally echoed the same arguments made by prosecutors in the involuntary case against the parents, who are charged with involuntary manslaughter for buying their son a gun instead of getting him help, and then failing to inform the school about it when they were summoned over his troubling behavior before the shooting.

Loftin lashed out at the prosecution during her closing, and accused them of contradicting themselves on the issue of mental illness. Specifically, she said the prosecution — in seeking to hold the parents responsible for the deaths of four students — maintain the Crumbleys ignored a mentally ill son and bought him a gun instead of getting him help.  But in trying to sentence Crumbley to life without parole, the prosecution has maintained he is not mentally ill.

“You can’t stand in two different courtrooms and argue two different things,” said Loftin, who maintains her client has long suffered from mental illness, and that if someone had intervened, the shooting may have been prevented.

Loftin also argues that Crumbley can change his life, and deserves that opportunity.

“We ask that you give Ethan the chance to show that he will do good things with this time (in prison),” Loftin said.

“There’s no expert opinion that says he can’t be rehabilitated,” she said. “Ethan has to prove himself, he must show the parole board that he has changed.”

“If he doesn’t,” she added, “he will not get out.”

What's ahead

Rowe today also will hear the defense closing arguments in the case. He is not expected to issue a decision immediately; that will come in writing at some point in the coming weeks. He will schedule a formal sentencing hearing after that.

The teen's parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, are the first parents in America charged in a school shooting, facing involuntary manslaughter charges. They bought their son a gun, ignoring signs that he needed help, prosecutors say. Their appeal to have the charges thrown out is pending before the Michigan Supreme Court.

The students slain were Shilling, 17;  Myre, 16; Baldwin, 17; and Hana St. Juliana, 14.

Resources

National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 800-273-TALK (8255)

Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network. Provides a full slate of mental health services. The helpline is answered 24 hours a day: 800-241-4949. Also: dwihn.org.

Catch up on the case

More: 'I'm sorry, God! ... Why didn't you stop it?' Ethan Crumbley breaks down in jail

More: Oxford High survivors recount horror stories as murderer Ethan Crumbley's fate is decided

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

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

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Hearing on Ethan Crumbley's mental health, fate resumes: Live updates