Oakland County Prosecutor: Oxford shooting investigation requires 'immersing yourself in a dark place'

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (FOX 2) - 2022 will likely bring Ethan Crumbley and his parents, James and Jennifer, to trial for the Oxford High School shooting. Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald and her office are tasked with building that case. That means evaluating journals, drawings, and text messages.

During an interview with FOX 2's Jessica Dupnack, McDonald said she's haunted as she moves through the evidence and reviews information.

"Every single thing (haunts me). Every single thing. There wasn’t one thing that was less disturbing than the other," McDonald said. "It requires immersing yourself in a dark place (true) and that I think that is the real challenge."

As McDonald and her office build the case against the Crumbley family, they haven't slept much since the tragic shooting on Nov. 30, but she doesn't want anyone to feel sorry for her. It's the parents of the victims:

• 16-year-old Tate Myre
• 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana
• 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin
• 17-year-old Justin Shilling

"Sleep is hard. But just think how hard it is for these parents to sleep," McDonald said.

Ultimately, that's who McDonald and her office are fighting for. Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Marc Keast said that's what matters the most.

"I just think about Tate, Hana, Madison and Justin. And I think about the kids who were shot at, the kids that were shot the kids that were terrorized. Nothing else matters," Keast said.

McDonald and four other prosecutors are spending much of their time in the 'war room' where they live and breathe the case. They're sharing the most sensitive and horrifying details among themselves, for now, until they come out in front of a jury.

"So many times I would come home and be upset, visibly upset just rattled. And I had my husband saying talk to me about it. And I’d say – it would be so unfair," McDonald said.

What about the Crumbley parents?

The prosecutor is doing something that has never in done before: charging the parents of an alleged high school shooter for the crime.

She said this question came into her mind right after it happened: what about the parents? Her background as a teacher and a civil attorney in family law before becoming a family court judge brought her to this point.

She's worked through tens of millions of digital pages of evidence to discover that her hunch about the parents were right.

"The more we learned, the more disturbed we were," she said.

Keast said all the signs were there.

"It’s even got the ATF Youth Handgun notice underneath it which is just sickening when you look back on it," Keast said, referencing the post and picture that Jennifer put online.

He told FOX 2 they can prove that Crumbley was disturbed and violence was inevitable but his parents did nothing except buy him a gun. Keast sites a social media post that Jennifer put up about Ethan's birthday gift to support this claim.

"The post by Jennifer Crumbley regarding just really bragging about this Pre-Christmas gift she purchased for her son and it was 4 days before he walked into a school and murders 4 students. And injured several others," Keast said.

That, plus Jennifer's 'Don't do it' message to Ethan just minutes after the shooting fast-tracked the decision to pursue manslaughter charges just three days after the shooting.

"I insisted on the timing. It was because I couldn’t bear that one of those parents, after making arrangements to bury one of their kids and planning a funeral, now gets hit with the second blow which is mom and dad could have prevented it," McDonald said.

A jury will now decide the fate of James and Jennifer Crumbley and McDonald said the case will not be about whether they were "just bad parents".

"The elements are not difficult to prove they just - we don’t charge that very often because we don’t have this set of facts," McDonald said.  

On the defense side, Ethan's attorney is pursuing an insanity plea even though his journals were filled with violent entries, tortured animals, and an obsession with school shootings.

"The law says he’s entitled to a forensic evaluation and we are entitled to an independent forensic evaluation if we don’t agree with that," McDonald said.

What about the school?

The prosecutor's office will remained focus on the Crumbley family and Dupnack learned that any questioning of how school officials handled Ethan the days leading up to the shooting - and the day of the shooting - will not amount to criminal charges.

"There is going to be civil suits and lot of depositions will be taken and that’s for the civil lawyers to deal with. But, it’s not appropriate for criminal charges based on what I know now. I just don’t see it," McDonald said.

Three school officials who were in the meeting on Nov. 30 - and in previous meetings - have been cooperative, McDonald said, and they all agree that Nov. 30 should have ended differently.

"Absolutely things should have gone differently and all three of them will say that. I think anybody involved would say that," she said.

The implications of the shooting and its aftermath are still not crystallized but McDonald and her team know that, if they get a conviction of the parents on manslaughter charges, it will set a precedent.

"My only goal is to make sure that they know I am going to do everything possible to hold these three people accountable because their kids deserve that and I speak for my entire team. We never forget about the victims, never," she said.