PONTIAC, Mich. — Jennifer Crumbley, the 45-year-old mother of the Oxford High School shooter, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter by an Oakland County jury Tuesday, after an emotional two-week trial that examined a parent’s culpability for their child’s deadly actions.
The jury of six men and six women deliberated for about 11 hours before finding Crumbley guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of Hana St. Juliana, 14; Tate Myre, 16; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; and Justin Shilling, 17.
The Crumbleys bought their son a gun four days before the shooting as an early Christmas gift, a fact that propelled their prosecutions as the first parents of a mass shooter to face such serious charges in connection to their child’s crime. Crumbley’s husband, James, 47, faces identical charges and is scheduled to go to trial in March.
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The Crumbleys’ then-15-year-old son brought a gun to Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021, and killed four students, while wounding seven other people. Ethan Crumbley was charged as an adult and pleaded guilty to two dozen charges, including a rare charge of terrorism. He was sentenced in December to life without parole.
The cases against Jennifer and James Crumbley are at the forefront of prosecutions against the parents of juvenile shooters, a strategy some prosecutors embrace as they and the public reassess who can be held accountable for a child’s violent actions.
“Unfortunately, I think the sea change is that as we’re grappling with an ocean of firearms, we are going to — and should — see more of these prosecutions brought,” said Eric Rinehart, the Lake County state’s attorney in Illinois who prosecuted the father of the Highland Park shooter for sponsoring the shooter’s firearms card despite knowing of his mental health issues.
“This verdict confirms that the legal system will hold parents criminally responsible when they [allow] their kids access to firearms and they are also aware of their kids’ dangerous statements or behavior,” Rinehart said. He noted that in the Highland Park case, the two-year gap between the father’s action and the harm that action caused warranted a charge of reckless conduct. In the Crumbley case, he said, “the time span of hours or days warranted involuntary manslaughter.”
When the jury forewoman read the verdict Tuesday, Jennifer Crumbley’s reaction was not clearly visible as she sat hunched next to her attorney, but she looked dejected as sheriff’s deputies later led her away in restraints.
Family and supporters of the victims reacted solemnly, some with quiet tears and others with sighs of relief. After the verdict was read, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald leaned into the gallery to hug Craig Shilling, whose son, Justin, was among the slain students. “Thank you,” Shilling said softly as he shook hands with members of the prosecution’s team.
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Shilling told reporters after the verdict that his son was an “awesome individual” whom he thinks about every day.
“He loved life, and he deserved to live it,” Shilling said. He called the conviction important for accountability and noted there was still another trial to get through.
Oakland County Circuit Judge Cheryl Matthews imposed a gag order in the Crumbley cases that prevented McDonald and defense counsel Shannon Smith from commenting after Tuesday’s verdict.
McDonald and her team presented two theories in their case against Jennifer Crumbley: that she was “grossly negligent” by failing to properly store the gun her son obtained, and that she failed her legal duty to prevent her child from harming others.
Most of the evidence in Jennifer Crumbley’s trial had already been introduced during her son’s hearings. Victims’ family members again heard how James Crumbley bought a gun for his son at a Black Friday sale four days before the shooting and that Jennifer Crumbley took her son to a shooting range the following day.
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The court also heard now-familiar testimony from witnesses including the shooter’s counselor, who noticed in 2021 that he seemed sadder than usual, and the shooter’s assistant principal, who locked eyes with him as the carnage began.
“It was when I realized it was Ethan that I didn’t think he could possibly be the shooter,” Oxford High School assistant principal Kristy Gibson-Marshall recalled on the witness stand.
Oxford High counselor Shawn Hopkins testified that when the Crumbley parents were called to school the morning of the shooting to discuss violent drawings and messages from a math assignment, he worried the shooter was showing signs of suicidal rather than homicidal ideation. The shooter had scrawled phrases “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me,” “my life is useless,” “blood everywhere” and “the world is dead” along with drawings of a gun, a bullet and a bleeding body.
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Prosecutors also presented text and Facebook messages Jennifer Crumbley exchanged with her son, husband and friends that gave a view into some of the shooter’s behavior in the eight months prior. They included texts in which he told his mother he believed the house was haunted and that he was seeing demons and objects flying around the room.
Crumbley’s trial was the first time a jury heard either of the parents speak directly about their actions. While the defense is not required to present a case since the prosecution bears the burden of proof, defense attorney Smith called Crumbley as a witness. From the stand, Crumbley had an opportunity to counter the prosecution’s narrative of her as a negligent, distant mother who ignored her son’s pleas for help.
She testified that her son had never been in trouble before, and that although she noticed he might be depressed, she understood he was struggling with the deaths of his grandmother and the family’s dog, followed by his only friend moving away. Texts about seeing demons and hallucinating people in the house were interpreted as her son playing on the family’s running joke that their 1920s home had a ghost, Crumbley said.
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She tracked her son’s grades and closely monitored when he was home from school, she said, but she did not read his private journal or text messages with his friend, where he shared more violent, troubling thoughts.
Crumbley’s son had struggled through the pandemic and was anxious about his future, including college, but not troubled “to a level where I felt he needed to go see a psychiatrist,” she testified.
At the counselor’s meeting the morning of the shooting, Crumbley testified, she was concerned but understood — as did the counselor and school dean — that they were dealing with a mental health issue, not disciplinary one. Crumbley’s son asked to go back to class, and she and her husband said they had to return to work.
The Crumbley parents, who maintain that the gun was locked and hidden separate from the bullets in their bedroom, did not mention the new gun purchase during that meeting, or that their son had recently visited a shooting range. Neither the parents nor school staff searched the shooter’s backpack before he was sent back to class. Two hours later, the teen opened fire in school.
Jennifer Crumbley is scheduled to be sentenced in April. She faces up to 15 years in prison.
