(WXYZ) — On Wednesday evening, 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley was moved to the Oakland County jail after previously being held at a juvenile detention center.
He's now being charged as an adult, facing 24 charges including terrorism causing death, first-degree murder, assault with intent to murder and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony.
Few words and deafening silence were heard Wednesday from the 15-year-old student accused of shooting and killing four classmates while also injuring seven others at Oxford High School on Tuesday.
During his virtual arraignment, Crumbley appeared on video along with his parents. The county sheriff says right now, neither are talking to investigators.
“Regardless of what the parents or what the individual suspect does, our investigators are well on a path to create a very good case to hand the baton to the prosecutor,” Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said.
As Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald announced those charges, she said the same. She claimed to have a "mountain" of digital evidence from the suspect showing intent.
"I am absolutely certain after reviewing the evidence that it wasn’t even a close call. It was absolutely premeditated,” McDonald said.
Much of that evidence was found during a search of the suspects home, and some of it was revealed during arraignment.
“Two separate videos recovered from Ethan's cell phone taken at a search warrant depicted a video made by him the night before the incident wherein he talked about shooting and killing students the next day at Oxford High School," Lt. Tim Willis with the Oakland County Sheriff's Office told the judge. "Further, a journal was recovered from Ethan's backpack also detailing his desire to shoot up the school to include murdering students.”
Bouchard also revealed the student had no criminal or disciplinary record, and was not on their radar.
However teachers at the high school became worried about Crumbley's behavior the day before and day of the shooting, even calling his parents to the school for a meeting. The meeting took place just hours before the shooting, with Ethan and his parents present.
“They (teachers) brought him down to the office and in conjunction with school personnel called his parents to the school and talked about that behavior," Bouchard explained. "But after that, the child was dismissed back into the school and the parents left the building.”
Neither the sheriff’s office or the school district would disclose what took place during the meeting or what the behavior before the meeting was.
The prosecutor also has not ruled out potential charges for the parents.
