Michigan school shooter’s mom guilty in four slayings
Prosecutors say she had a duty to prevent her teenage son from harming others.
PONTIAC, Mich. — A Michigan jury convicted a school shooter’s mother of involuntary manslaughter Tuesday in the killings of four students in 2021, making her the first parent in the U.S. to be held responsible for a child carrying out a mass school attack.
Prosecutors say Jennifer Crumbley had a duty under Michigan law to prevent her son, who was 15 at the time, from harming others. She was accused of failing to secure a gun and ammunition at home and failing to get help for Ethan Crumbley’s mental health.
The guilty verdicts — one for each student slain at Oxford High School — were returned after roughly 11 hours of jury deliberations.
Jennifer Crumbley, 45, looked down and shook her head slightly as each juror was polled after the verdicts were read.
As she left the courtroom, prosecutor Karen McDonald hugged Craig Shilling, the father of victim Justin Shilling, and the family of Madisyn Baldwin.
“Thank you,” a man whispered to her.
Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first parents in the U.S. to be charged in a mass school shooting committed by their child. James Crumbley faces trial in March.
“The cries have been heard, and I feel this verdict is gonna echo throughout every household in the country,” Craig Shilling said outside the courtroom.
A gag order by the judge prevented McDonald and defense attorney Shannon Smith from speaking to reporters.
On the morning of Nov. 30, 2021, school staff members were 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 the school for a meeting with school staff, but they didn’t take the boy home.
A few hours later, Ethan Crumbley pulled a handgun from his backpack and shot 10 students and a teacher. No one had checked the backpack.
The gun was the Sig Sauer 9-millimeter his father, James, purchased with 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 inf luenced by evidence that Jennifer Crumbley was the last adult to possess the gun. That “really hammered it home,” she told reporters.
“You saw your son shoot the last practice round before the [school] shooting on Nov. 30. You saw how he stood . ... He knew how to use the gun,” assistant prosecutor Marc Keast said while cross-examining Jennifer Crumbley last week.
“Yes, he did,” Jennifer Crumbley replied.
In her closing argument Friday, McDonald said she filed the unprecedented charges because of the “unique, egregious” facts leading up to the massacre. School officials said they would not have agreed to keep Ethan Crumbley on campus that day if the parents had shared information about the new gun, which the boy on social media called his “beauty.”
Besides Justin Shilling and Madisyn Baldwin, both 17, Hana St. Juliana, 14, and Tate Myre, 16, were also killed. Seven people were wounded.
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 track of the gun. She also said she saw no signs of mental distress in her son.
In a journal found by police, Ethan Crumbley wrote that his parents wouldn’t listen to his pleas for help. “I have zero help for my mental problems and it’s causing me to shoot up the ... school,” he wrote.
The jury of six men and six women included people who own guns or grew up with them in their home. They said they could put their opinions about guns aside and serve fairly.
Jennifer Crumbley will get credit for roughly 2½ years in the county jail when she returns to court for sentencing April 9. The judge will set 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 actually stays in prison. The maximum term for involuntary manslaughter is 15 years.
Prosecutors have not said whether they will ask for consecutive sentences on the four convictions, which could mean a maximum of 60 years.