Suspect’s parents face charges
Prosecutor calls the facts ‘egregious’ in Oxford shooting
As news broke Tuesday of a mass shooting at Oxford High School, the mother of the teen suspect sent her son a text message.
“Ethan, don’t do it,” Jennifer Crumbley wrote.
This and other new, disturbing allegations emerged Friday about the deadly rampage, as charges were leveled against the teen’s parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley. Their son, 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley, is accused of gunning down his classmates at Oxford High School on Tuesday.
The parents are now each facing four
counts of involuntary manslaughter. The crime is a 15-year felony, officials said.
A lieutenant with the sheriff’s office told a district court judge during a hearing Friday afternoon that James and Jennifer Crumbley were not in custody. Later, at about 3:30 p.m. Friday, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office issued a news release saying they were trying to locate the couple.
An attorney for the parents previously told detectives she would make arrangements for the couple’s arrest if charges were issued, according to the news release. But the attorney later told detectives she was unable to reach the couple on Friday, the news release says.
Attorneys Shannon Smith and Mariell Lehman wrote in a statement that their clients, James and Jennifer Crumbley, are not fleeing, but had left town the night of the shooting “for their own safety” and were coming back to be arraigned. The attorneys have not responded to follow-up questions.
A tenative arraignment was scheduled to be held at 4 p.m. Friday, but never happened because the couple was not in custody by that point. Authorities were still looking for the couple as of Friday night.
Officials have said the couple’s son, Ethan Crumbley, brought a gun to school on Tuesday and methodically fired at fleeing students. Four were killed and seven others injured, including a teacher.
Details about what led up to the rampage were revealed Friday during a hearing in 52-3 District Court in Rochester Hills and at a related news conference held by Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald.
McDonald said James Crumbley purchased the 9mm Sig Sauer SP 2022 used in the shooting at a gun store in Oxford on Nov. 26. She said a store employee confirmed Ethan Crumbley was with his father at the time. She said social media posts by the teen that day show the handgun along with the caption: “Just got my new beauty today.” The next day, McDonald said, one of Jennifer Crumbley’s social media posts read: “Mom and son day testing out his new Christmas present.”
The day before the shooting, a teacher at the high school observed the teen searching ammunition on his cellphone during class and she reported it to school officials, officials said. Jennifer Crumbley was contacted through voicemail and email about her son’s search, but school officials received no response from either parent, McDonald said.
McDonald said Jennifer Crumbley exchanged text messages with her son about the incident that day, writing: “LOL, I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught.”
The next day, the day of the shooting, the teen’s teacher saw an alarming note on Ethan Crumbley’s desk and took a photo of it, McDonald said. The note contained a drawing of a semiautomatic handgun pointing at the words: “The thoughts won’t stop, help me.” She said it also contained a drawing of a bullet with the words “blood everywhere” and a drawing of a person who appeared to be shot and bleeding. Farther down on the drawing, McDonald said, were the words: “My life is useless,” and “The world is dead.”
James and Jennifer Crumbley were summoned to the school that same Tuesday morning and Ethan Crumbley was brought to the office with his backpack, McDonald said. She said the drawing, by that point, had been altered. She said the parents were shown the drawing and told they had to get their son into counseling within 48 hours.
“Both James and Jennifer Crumbley failed to ask their son whether he had his gun with him or where his gun was located and failed to inspect his backpack for the presence of the gun, which he had with him,” McDonald said.
She said the parents resisted the idea of their son leaving school at that time and they left without him.
“He was returned to the classroom,” McDonald said.
After news broke of an active shooter at the high school, Jennifer Crumbley texted her son at 1:22 p.m.: “Ethan, don’t do it,” McDonald said.
Then at 1:37 p.m., McDonald said, the teen’s father called 911 and reported a gun missing from his house and that he believed his son may be the shooter. McDonald said the investigation revealed that the gun had been stored unlocked in a drawer in James and Jennifer Crumbley’s bedroom.
McDonald called the facts of the case “egregious.”
“Any individual who had the opportunity to stop this tragedy should have done so. The question is, what did they know and when did they know it?” she said.
Ethan Crumbley was charged Wednesday as an adult with terrorism and multiple counts of first-degree murder, assault with intent to murder and gun crimes and could face up to life in prison.
The high school sophomore is accused of killing four students — Hana St. Juliana, 14; Tate Myre, 16; Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and Justin Shilling, 17 — and injuring seven others, including a teacher, during the mass shooting.
Records show James and Jennifer Crumbley married in 2005 in Florida and bought a house in Oxford in 2015 on a land contract from a relative of Jennifer Crumbley.
According to court records, James Crumbley has two other children, now ages 18 and 24. Records show the children lived in Florida and that James Crumbley has been in arrears on child support payments in recent years, still owing money as recently as last month for the case involving his now-adult daughter.
James Crumbley was furloughed from his job as a telemarketer at a software company shortly after the pandemic hit, said Jay Farr, the CEO of Advantzware, the Florida-based business. Crumbley started at the firm in 2017, according to his Facebook page. Farr said he worked remotely from Michigan, generating sales leads. He started a new job in February at a San Francisco-based security technology company, according to his Facebook page, which on Friday appeared to have been taken down.
Jennifer Crumbley had a real estate license between 2013 and 2018 before it expired, according to state records. Attempts to reach several family members for James and Jennifer Crumbley in recent days have been unsuccessful.
During Ethan Crumbley’s arraignment on Wednesday, Lt. Tim Willis of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said videos were recovered from the teen’s cellphone, including one “made by him the night before the incident wherein he talked about shooting and killing students the next day at Oxford High School.” He said a journal, detailing the teen’s desire to kill students, also was recovered.
Attorney Scott Kozak, who represented Ethan Crumbley during the arraignment but said he wouldn’t be involved in the case moving forward, declined to comment after the teen’s arraignment on Wednesday. Ethan Crumbley is being held without bond at the Oakland County Jail.
During the hearing Wednesday, Assistant Prosecutor Marc Keast said school surveillance video shows Ethan Crumbley went into a bathroom just before 12:51 p.m. Tuesday and came out a minute or two later with a gun. Keast said the teen “methodically and deliberately walked down a hallway, aiming the firearm at students and firing.”
Keast said the teen planned the shooting and “brought the handgun that day with the intent to murder as many students as he could.”