Jury to get manslaughter case against Michigan school shooter’s mother
PONTIAC, MI — A Michigan jury will receive instructions from a judge and begin deliberations Monday in a new trial of the mother of a school shooter, who could go to prison if convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the 2021 deaths of four students.
Prosecutors say Jennifer Crumbley was grossly negligent when she failed to tell Oxford High School officials that the family had guns, including a 9mm pistol used by her son, Ethan Crumbley, at a shooting range a few days earlier.
The school was concerned about a macabre drawing of a gun, bullet and wounded man, accompanied by desperate sentences, for a maths assignment. But Ethan was allowed to stay at school on November 30, 2021, after an approximately 12-minute meeting with Jennifer and James Crumbley, who did not take him home.
The teenager pulled the gun from his backpack in the afternoon and shot ten students and a teacher, killing four peers. No one had checked the backpack.
“He literally drew a picture of what he was going to do. It says, ‘Help me,'” prosecutor Karen McDonald said Friday during closing arguments in suburban Detroit.
Jennifer Crumbley knew the gun in the drawing was identical to the new home, McDonald said.
“She knew it had not been stored properly,” the prosecutor added. “She knew he was skilled with the gun. She knew he had access to ammunition.”
“Just the smallest steps” by Jennifer Crumbley could have saved the lives of Hana St. Juliana, Tate Myre, Justin Shilling and Madisyn Baldwin, the prosecutor said.
Defense attorney Shannon Smith told jurors that a conviction would have a chilling effect on unwitting parents whose children broke the law. According to her, the tragedy was unforeseeable.
Ethan Crumbley was a “skilled manipulator” who had no mental illness, and the gun was James Crumbley’s responsibility, not Jennifer’s, Smith said.
“Unfortunately, this is a case where the prosecutor made a charging decision far too quickly,” Smith said. “It was motivated by obvious reasons, for political gain and done for media attention.”
She said the case will not bring justice to the victims and their families: “It certainly won’t bring any lives back.”
Jennifer Crumbley, 45, and James Crumbley, 47, have become the first parents in the US to be charged in connection with a mass school shooting committed by their child. The latter will be tried in March.
The maximum penalty for involuntary manslaughter is fifteen years in prison. The Crumbleys have been in jail for more than two years and are unable to post $500,000 bail pending trial.
Ethan Crumbley, now 17, pleaded guilty to murder and terrorism and is serving a life sentence.
In addition to knowledge of the gun, the Crumbleys are accused of ignoring their son’s mental health needs. In a diary that police found in his backpack, he wrote that they would not listen to his pleas for help.
“I don’t have any help for my mental issues and it’s causing me to shoot up the…school,” Ethan wrote.
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