Watch live: Ethan Crumbley to be sentenced in Oxford H.S. shooting

Just over two years since opening fire in Oxford High School, killing four students and injuring seven other people at the school, Ethan Crumbley will learn his sentence Friday in an Oakland County courtroom.

Survivors and victims' loved ones were led into the courtroom shortly after 8:30 a.m. in preparation for a day dominated by victim impact statements, followed by Oakland County Circuit Judge Kwame Rowe announcing Crumbley's sentence.

As impact statements began, Rowe instructed media not to show the faces of any minors who speak.

The Free Press is monitoring the hearing via livestream and from the courtroom. You can watch the hearing below.

Parents of children killed are first to speak

The first victim impact statement was read by Nicole Beausoleil, mother of 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin, who was shot and killed as she crouched by her locker.

Her mother told in gut-wrenching detail how she learned that day in a manager's office at Meijer that her daughter was killed, how she refused to believe the tragic news, how she had to wait to see her child and the stabbing pain she felt when she had to identify her the next day at the coroner's office.

“Madisyn Baldwin, a name that most didn’t know prior to this horrific act, but now a name that everyone has come to love,” she said.

“When the world gets dark, she’s the stars," said Beausoleil, who struggled at times to maintain her composure before the judge, with a photo of her daughter in a brimmed hat propped up on the prosecution’s table.

In recalling the day her daughter was killed,Beausoleil noted that by the time she received word the school had been attacked, her daughter had already been gone for more than an hour. Beausoleil said that as she paced the nearby Meijer, where students and families were meeting after the shooting, she kept asking where her daughter was, but all she received were blank stares.

Then someone asked for the family of Madisyn Baldwin to follow them and she was told her daughter was killed.

Beausoleil said they were suffocating in disbelief.

“Tears soaked the cold floor I laid on,” she said, adding that she had to tell Madisyn’s then-11-year-old sister that she was gone.

She described seeing her daughter’s body lying on a gurney, blood smeared in her hair. She was not allowed to touch her daughter or hold her hand. She was dragged away, screaming.

“That was not my daughter, Madisyn was far from lifeless," Beausoleil said.

Crumbley, in an orange jumpsuit, started downward at the table as Beausoleil spoke.

“I hope the screams keep you at night and they cause real hallucinations,” she said to Crumbley. “Those four walls become your home suffocating in guilt.”

She said she was happy Crumbley chose not to take his own life: “I truly feel sorry for you that you thought this would be a better life choice.”

Tate Myre's father

Buck Myre, whose son Tate was killed in the massacre, spoke of forgiveness.

“We’re all cried out …We’re the prisoner, not you,” he said to the teen killer.

"We need to find a way to find forgiveness — forgiveness to you, forgiveness to your parents, forgiveness to the school, what other choice do we have?

“Believe me, we will never forget about you — ever. What you stole from us is not replaceable. But what we will not let you take from us is a life of normalcy.”

Myre said that on Nov. 30, 2021, he was working from home and his wife was working in Lake Orion. He heard sirens getting louder. He got a call from his wife and she told him about what was going on at Oxford High. Myre said he finished a conference call, made his way to the school and texted his son a couple of times, with no response.

He and his wife got to the Meijer and started looking for their son. They were summoned to the manager’s office and got the news “that Tate wasn’t with us anymore.”

“The thing that stands out to me is what my wife said. She put her head in her hands and she said, ‘Not my baby boy.’”

He said that for the past two years his family has been navigating through complete hell. He said they wear the pain like a heavy coat.

“Every hour is the darkest time of the day,” he said.

Myre said as the family today navigates “treacherous waters,” they try to honor their son.

“Today is the day when tides change,” Myre said.

Crumbley’s eyes were downcast during the statement.

Justin Shilling's parents

The third impact statement came from Craig Shilling, whose son Justin was shot and killed in a bathroom stall —Crumbley's final victim before he surrendered to police.

"On that day, my life was torn apart," Schilling told the judge. "Grief had consumed me ... the events that took place that day have rocked three generations of our family."

Birthdays and holidays don't carry the special feelings they used to, he said.

"There are no words that can actually describe the pain ... anxiety, stress ... scattered thoughts," he said. "This unfair reality is something I will never get over.

"I still find myself waiting up for him ... it's unbearable to know that he's never going to walk through that door."

Shilling implored the judge to lock the shooter up forever, never mentioning his name.

"I going to ask you to lock this son of a bitch up for the rest of his pathetic life.

"My son doesn't get a second chance, and neither should he."

He expressed his anger, saying, "Ethan Crumbley should be remembered as the biggest coward in Michigan history."

Justin's mother then asked the judge to give Crumbley life without the possibility of parole.

"No mother should have to put her child in the ground," said Jill Soave, Justin's mother, who fought through tears to explain her anger, pain and rage at her family's loss.

How Justin's brothers have to grow up without him, how Justin will never be a father,she was dying of a heart attack on the eve of her son's memorial.

She then directed her statement to Ethan:

"You may have caused the pain and terror you intended to, but you have not destroyed us ... I don't focus on hating you, but i also don't feel a drop of pity to you ... you're nothing to you ... while you rot in jail, we will push on ... and we will spread love and kindness in honor of our angels."

How we got here: Oxford High School shooting case

Crumbley, who was 15 when he carried out the deadly massacre on Nov. 30, 2021, pleaded guilty to murder and terrorism charges last year, admitting he planned and carried out the shooting, and meant to cause panic and fear in the school that day.

According to courtroom testimony, Crumbley planned and obsessed about the school shooting in his journal, and wrote that he wanted to survive the rampage so he could witness the pain and suffering.

The four students who died were Hana St. Juliana, 14; Tate Myre, 16; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; and Justin Shilling, 17.

In September, Rowe determined that Crumbley is eligible for a sentence of life without parole following a lengthy and emotional Miller hearing, a mandatory proceeding that helps judges decide whether juveniles should spend the rest of their lives in prison.

What about James and Jennifer Crumbley?

James and Jennifer Crumbley, meantime, continue to maintain their innocence in the unprecedented case as the first parents in America charged in a mass school shooting. They will face separate trials in January on involuntary manslaughter charges. They are accused of ignoring their son's mental health troubles and buying him a gun instead of getting him help — the same gun he used in the November 2021 massacre.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Watch live: Ethan Crumbley to be sentenced in Oxford H.S. shooting