Parents of Mich. school shooter sentenced
Victims’ families give emotional statements
Tresa Baldas, Lily Altavena, Adrienne Roberts, Jeanine Santucci and Cybele Mayes-osterman
Jennifer and James Crumbley, the first parents in America to be held criminally responsible for a school shooting by their child, were sentenced on Tuesday to 10-15 years in prison each.
It was the sentence prosecutors asked for after separate juries found each parent guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Ethan Crumbley is serving a life sentence for the murders of four classmates at Oxford High School in Oxford, Michigan, on Nov. 30, 2021, when he was 15 years old.
The parents have shown no remorse for their actions, prosecutors told Judge Cheryl Matthews in a sentencing memo. The Crumbleys bought their son the gun he used to kill Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; and Justin Shilling, 17, and ignored troubling signs about the teen’s mental health, they said.
Legal experts say the notorious case could impact how society views parents’ culpability when their children access guns and cause harm. Whether the outcome encourages prosecutors to bring future charges against parents remains to be seen.
The judge and the defendants
Before handing down the sentence, Matthews addressed both parents, saying that the opportunity for them to help knocked many times, “and no one answered.”
“Mr. Crumbley, it’s clear to this court that because of you there was unfettered access to a gun or guns, as well as ammunition in your home,” she said. “Mrs. Crumbley, you glorified the use and possession of these weapons.”
Before the sentence was handed down, the Crumbleys addressed the court. Both expressed regret and blamed the school for not telling them more.
“The dragging this has had on my heart and soul cannot be expressed in words, just as I know this is not going to ease the pain and suffering of the victims and their families,” Jennifer Crumbley said.
She clarified a high-profile remark in her trial testimony, when she said she would not have done anything differently. “This was not something I foresaw,” Jennifer Crumbley said of the shooting. “With the benefit of hindsight, my answer would be drastically different.”
She urged the public to take away this message: “This could be any parent ... your child can make any decision.”
“I understand my words aren’t going to bring any comfort,” James Crumbley said, appearing close to tears. “I really want the families of Madisyn Baldwin, Hana St. Juliana, Tate Myre and Justin Shilling to know how truly sorry I am.” He said that if he’d known what was happening with his son, he would have done things differently.
For the victims’ families, this was too little, too late.
Victims’ family speak
In tearful, angry impact statements, family members of the slain students addressed the Crumbleys directly, saying they were bad parents who did not take responsibility for their key roles in the massacre.
“They chose to stay quiet, they chose to ignore the warning signs,” father Steve St. Juliana said. “They continue to choose to blame everyone but themselves.”
Reina St. Juliana brought many in the courtroom to tears as she talked about how her little sister, best friend and better half would never see prom, graduation or even her 15th birthday.
She looked at the Crumbleys and said, “Instead of giving quality time ... you gave him a gun.”
She continued, “I have never known pain that is forever until I saw Hana in a casket.”
Through tears, and her voice shaking at times, Nicole Beausoleil, the mother of Madisyn Baldwin, asked the judge to give the maximum punishment.
Step by step, she took the Crumbleys through the pain she suffered and reminded them of the daughter she lost because of their parenting decisions.
“Madisyn, she was a kind soul,” Beausoleil said. “She lit up a room when she walked in ... Her laugh, I could listen to all day.”
Then she described the day of the shooting.
“When you texted, ‘Ethan don’t do it,’ I was texting Madysin, ‘I love you. Please call Mom.’
“When you found out about the lives lost that day, I was still waiting for my daughter in the parking lot . ...
“When you asked him why ... I was waiting for the last bus that never came.”
“The loss that you say you have suffered,” Beausoleil concluded, “does not come close to the life sentence that I was given.”
Why were Crumbleys culpable?
The Crumbleys’ son went on a rampage hours after his parents were called to the school by counselors to discuss concerns over disturbing drawings he had done on a math assignment. The parents left their son at school, and didn’t tell school officials that he had access to guns in the home.
Moreover, the prosecution said, the parents could have prevented the shooting if they had taken ordinary care to secure the gun and taken action when it was clear their son was having severe mental health issues.
Defense attorneys said the parents never foresaw their son’s actions. Jennifer Crumbley portrayed herself as an attentive mother, and James Crumbley’s lawyer said the father properly secured the gun. In an interview with the Detroit Free Press, the jury foreman in James Crumbley’s trial said the gun storage was the key issue that drove him to convict.
James Crumbley had asked to be sentenced to time already served since his arrest, according to the prosecutors’ sentencing memo, while Jennifer Crumbley hoped to serve out a sentence on house arrest in her lawyer’s guest house. Both are planning appeals.
It was not immediately clear whether the three incarcerated family members will be allowed to contact each other. The probation department recommended that as part of their sentences, the parents not be allowed to have any contact with each other or their son.