GROVELAND TOWNSHIP, MICHIGAN: A series of chilling journal entries belonging to Oxford High School mass shooter Ethan Crumbley was released on Thursday, July 27, portraying him as a violence-obsessed teenager who wanted to shoot ‘pretty’ girls. Crumbley has pleaded guilty to all 24 charges for killing four students and injuring six others at his Oxford high school in November 2021.
A hearing is ongoing this week to decide whether Crumbley will serve a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. On Thursday, the court reviewed new disturbing evidence from the days preceding the massacre, including text messages, web searches, voice records, and a video of the school shooting that had never been shown in a public setting. During the hearing, Detective Lt. Tim Willis of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office read aloud dark messages Crumbley allegedly scribbled into his 22-page handwritten journal, which was found in a bathroom stall after the shooting. “I want all of America to see the darkness in me. I want to impact the world,” he wrote in one entry, according to Daily Beast.
Was Ethan Crumbley inspired by Jeffrey Dahmer?
In a different entry, Crumbley drew a picture of a gun held to the back of a woman’s head and wrote, "The first victim has to be a pretty girl with a future so she can suffer just like me." Willis stated Phoebe Arthur, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, was the first person to get shot in the massacre. Miraculously, she managed to survive the injuries. The unsettling journal entries revealed Crumbley wanted notoriety for the massacre, as evidenced by his statement that read, “I wanted[ed] to be remembered through all of history." Even more specifically, he expressed his desire to "walk behind a pretty girl and shoot her in the back of the head."
On another page, Crumbley wrote how he wanted “to hear the screams of the children as I shoot them." "Jeffrey Dahmer got the right thing, the only thing is he got caught," he wrote in a different note before the shooting, according to US Sun. In a previous hearing, Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Markeisha D Washington revealed how Crumbley made reference to Adolf Hitler and idolized Dahmer. “He spoke of his admiration for Adolf Hitler and Jeffrey Dahmer, specifically stating, ’When you die, you need to be remembered for a long time, doing something that would make people think of you until time ends,'" Washington said in 2022, per the Associated Press.
'There are no demons. I am the demon'
Willis further noted that Crumbley's journal even had over 50 hand-drawn illustrations of firearms. The other pages of the disturbing journal were previously released during a preliminary hearing for his parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, who are accused of involuntary manslaughter in connection with their son's violent spree. During the hearing on Thursday, prosecutors also played a video that Crumbley made before opening fire at his high school. "I have worn my mask for too long. I can't take it … lying to myself over and over again. There are no voices in my head. The voices are me … that’s what people call the demons. There are no demons. I am the demon." Crumbley said in his video.
"The demon will take over. There is nothing I can do about it. My life is already on a downfall,” he continued before elaborating that the shooting will teach a lesson to people around him. "To take action is what you have to do. People don’t see it, but we’re on the brink of downfall. I’m gonna open fire on everyone in the hallway, I will try to hit as many people as I can, I will reload, and I will find people hiding. I want to teach them a lesson about how they are wrong, and how they are being brainwashed. I understand that I’m going to prison for this. I don't want to die,” he explained.
