Father of victim says Jennifer Crumbley’s four manslaughter convictions for failing to stop her school shooter son will act as a deterrent for other parents of troubled children

The father of a 17-year-old boy shot in the Oxford High School shooting hopes Jennifer Crumbley’s conviction will serve as a wake-up call to other parents.

“The cries have been heard and I think this verdict will resonate through every household in the country,” Craig Shilling said outside the courtroom moments after Jennifer Crumbley was found guilty.

Crumbley’s son Ethan, 17, killed four classmates and injured seven others during a school shooting in Michigan on November 30, 2021.

She was convicted Tuesday of four counts of involuntary manslaughter, making her the first parent in the U.S. to be held responsible for a child who commits a mass shooting.

Shilling, whose son Justin was one of the four students killed, was present for the Oakland County Circuit Court sentencing.

‘I think it is necessary and I am happy with the verdict. It’s still a sad situation to be in. It has to stop. It is a responsibility, and this is what we have been asking for for a long time,” Schilling said.

Prosecutors said Jennifer Crumbley has a duty under state law to prevent her son, who was 15 years old at the time, from harming others.

She was accused of failing to obtain a gun and ammunition at home and failing to get help to support Ethan Crumbley’s mental health despite several warnings.

The four guilty verdicts – one for each student killed at Oxford High School – were returned after about 11 hours of deliberation.

Jennifer Crumbley, 45, looked down and shook her head slightly as each juror was questioned after the verdicts were read.

On the way to the courtroom, prosecutor Karen McDonald hugged family members of Shilling and Madisyn Baldwin.

“Thank you,” a man whispered to her.

Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first parents in the US to be charged in connection with a mass school shooting committed by their child. James Crumbley will be tried in March.

A gag order from the judge prevented McDonald and attorney Shannon Smith from speaking to reporters.

On the morning of November 30, 2021, school staff became concerned about a violent drawing of a gun, bullet and wounded man, accompanied by desperate phrases, on Ethan Crumbley’s math assignment.

His parents were called to school for a meeting, but they did not take the boy home.

A few hours later, Ethan Crumbley pulled a gun from his backpack and shot ten students and a teacher. No one had checked the backpack.

The gun was the Sig Sauer 9mm that his father had purchased from him four days earlier. Jennifer Crumbley had taken her son to a shooting range that same weekend.

Outside the courthouse, the jury forewoman, who declined to give her name, said jurors were swayed by evidence that Jennifer Crumbley was the last adult to possess the gun. That “really did the trick,” she told reporters.

The jury indeed saw images of Jennifer Crumbley leaving the shooting range with the gun in a box.

“You saw your son shoot the last practice round before the (school) shooting on November 30. You saw the way he stood… He knew how to use the gun,” Assistant Prosecutor Marc Keast said while questioning the mother recently. week.

“Yes, he did,” Jennifer Crumbley replied.

In her closing arguments Friday, McDonald said she filed the unprecedented charges because of the “unique, egregious” facts that led to the massacre.

School officials insisted they would not have agreed to keep Ethan Crumbley on campus that day if the parents had shared information about the new weapon, which the boy called his “beauty” on social media.

The words accompanying the disturbing drawing read: ‘The thoughts do not stop. Help me. The world is dead. My life is useless.’

“He literally drew a picture of what he was going to do,” McDonald said. “It says, ‘Help me.’

In addition to 17-year-old Justin Shilling and 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin, Hana St Juliana, 14, and Tate Myre, 16, were also killed. Seven people were injured.

Ethan Crumbley, now 17, pleaded guilty to murder and terrorism and is serving a life sentence.

Jennifer Crumbley told jurors that it was her husband’s job to keep an eye on the gun. She also said she saw no signs of mental distress in her son.

‘We would talk. We did a lot of things together,” she testified. ‘I trusted him and I felt like there was an open door. He could come to me for anything.’

In a diary found by police, Ethan Crumbley wrote that his parents would not listen to his pleas for help.

“I have no help for my mental issues and it’s causing me to shoot up the…school,” he wrote.

Prosecutors presented evidence that Ethan Crumbley texted his mother in the spring of 2021 about “demons” throwing bowls and other hallucinations.

But she told the jury it was “just Ethan messing around.”

‘I asked myself if I would have done something differently. I wouldn’t have done that. I wish he would have killed us instead,” she testified.

The jury of six men and six women included people who own guns or grew up with guns in their homes.

Jennifer Crumbley will face a sentence of approximately two and a half years in prison when she returns to court for sentencing on April 9.

The judge will determine the minimum prison sentence, based on scoring guidelines and other factors.

It will be up to the Michigan Parole Board to determine how long she will actually remain in prison. The maximum term for involuntary manslaughter is fifteen years.

Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek consecutive sentences for the four convictions, which could mean up to 60 years if Judge Cheryl Matthews agrees.