More than two years after a shooting at a Michigan high school left four students dead, a court heard gut-wrenching impact statements from the victims’ families as the parents of the shooter were sentenced to prison.
James and Jennifer Crumbley were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in separate trials earlier this year but were sentenced together to 10 to 15 years each.
They are the first parents to be held criminally responsible for a mass school shooting committed by their child as the nation continues to grapple with the scourge of gunfire on campus.
The families of Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Justin Shilling, 17; Hana St. Juliana, 14; and Tate Myre, 16 – the four victims of the November 2021 tragedy at Oxford High School – addressed the Crumbleys in court Tuesday.
‘While you were hiding, I was planning her funeral’
Madisyn’s mother, Nicole Beausoleil, opened her statement by describing her daughter as “the person that matters the most,” saying the 17-year-old was “smart, funny, loving, passionate, determined and genuine.”
Madisyn was on the cusp of college, where laughter, joy and adventures awaited her, her mother said. She took her role as a big sister very seriously, Beausoleil continued, and she always had a smile on her face. As she considered possible college majors, Madisyn was thinking about “what would be most helpful to society,” her mother said.
She had an “influence most will never achieve” – through her poetry, her art and her infectious laugh, Beausoleil added.
“The passion she had for everything and everyone was remarkable. I would catch myself watching her and thinking to myself, ‘How lucky am I? I’m the one who gets to be her mom,’” Beausoleil said. “’What did I do to deserve a perfect person? She will be the best thing to ever happen to me at such a young age myself.’”
The pain of knowing she couldn’t save her daughter “will hurt for an eternity,” she said – “As her mom, I didn’t protect her.”
“The one thing I would’ve wanted to be different was to take that bullet that day, so she could’ve continued to live the life she deserved,” Beausoleil said.
Through tears, Beausoleil also questioned Jennifer Crumbley’s statement in court that she would not “do anything different,” which Beausoleil said had been “on repeat like a broken record” in her head.
“While you were purchasing a gun for your son and leaving it unlocked, I was helping her finish her college essays,” she told the Crumbleys, later adding, “When you knew the gun was missing, you called the police, knowing it was your son that took it. I was having family call every hospital describing what she looked like.”
Beausoleil continued: “While you were hiding, I was planning her funeral.”
A ‘completely preventable’ tragedy
Justin Shilling’s mother, Jill Soave, read a birthday card from her son as an “example of what love looks like between a mother and her son.”
“’Dear Mom, words cannot describe how thankful I am for you,’” she read. “’You have been nothing but an amazing mother for as long as I can remember. Thank you for being a role model. Thank you for showing me what it’s like to never give up. You inspire me to do better each and every day. Love, Justin.’”
“Justin was brave, spending his final moments protecting a fellow student,” Soave said. “He was hardworking, a lettered athlete, a top-honored student. He was kind and inclusive to all. He was full of love and joy. His future was so very bright and full of possibilities.”
She continued to call for the Crumbleys to face accountability for their role in the tragedy.
“This tragedy was completely preventable. If only they had done something, your honor, anything, to shift the course events on November 30, then our four angels would be here today,” Soave told the judge.
“It is devastating and heartbreaking that it doesn’t appear that either of you cherished or even wanted your son. But I wholeheartedly wanted and cherished mine,” Soave said. “You have failed your son, and you have failed us all.”
Craig Shilling, Justin’s father, also addressed the court, saying: “I can assure you, the wounds are still as fresh as they were on that tragic day.”
“It’s fair to say that I live every day with pain, anger, heartache, regret, anxiety, stress – you name it,” Shilling said.
‘Your mistakes created our everlasting nightmare’
The last time Reina St. Juliana saw her younger sister, Hana, she said they split ways to walk to class, and she looked back and smiled at her.
“I didn’t say goodbye. I never got to remind her that I love her, that she’s my everything, the person I want to walk through life with side-by-side,” St. Juliana said.
Hana crafted homemade jewelry, played sports an aspired to find a career dedicated to helping people, her sister said. “She’s always there for you,” she said. “She’s always sharing, whether its her smile, her food, her clothes, her crafts, her joy.”
“There is no way that the one life I have, I now have to live without Hana – my little sister, my best friend, my other half,” St. Juliana said. “To me, that makes the maximum sentence being 15 years too short. Hana didn’t have 15 years to live.”
“No matter what you try to make yourself, Jennifer, you did fail as a parent. Both of you,” she told the Crumbleys. “Your mistakes created our everlasting nightmare.”
“Our 10-year-old brother had to learn to write a eulogy for his sister before he even learned to write essays,” she said.
Their father, Steve St. Juliana, said his daughter’s death “destroyed a large portion of my very soul.”
“I think of all the good times that we’ve shared together as a family, and mourn all of the memories that will never be,” he said. “I will never think back fondly on her high school and college graduations. I will never walk her down the aisle as she begins the journey of starting her own family. I am forever denied the chance to hold her or her future children in my arms.”
“Instead of acknowledging any mistakes, they continue to show no remorse,” he said of the Crumbleys. “They take no accountability. They and their lawyers continue to try to change the narrative and portray the defendants as victims of the prosecution team. They blame everyone but themselves and make threats of retribution.”
“Hana, Madisyn, Tate and Justin are the ones who have lost everything – not the defendants,” the father added before requesting the Crumbleys receive the maximum possible sentence.
‘This tragedy has taken an incredible toll on our family’
“For our family, it’s not time to celebrate. This tragedy has taken an incredible toll on our family,” Tate’s father, Buck Myre, said. “So our family’s not going to give the Crumbley family a second of our time up here.”
Instead, he called for accountability from Oxford High School, who he said played a role in the tragedy.
“We are ready for our government to perform an investigation on this tragedy,” he continued. “It’s time to learn from this. From the purchase of the gun to the response – that’s when real change happens.”
“It’s time to drive real change from this tragedy,” Myre concluded.
CNN’s Nicki Brown, Antoinette Radford and Maureen Chowdhury contributed to this report.