THE mother of Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley has been found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter for her role in the shooting.
Jennifer Crumbley was convicted on Tuesday following a grueling trial where prosecutors argued that the aloof mother had multiple opportunities to prevent her son’s rampage on November 30, 2021, that killed four students and injured seven others.
APJennifer Crumbley (right), the mother of Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley, was convicted of four counts of involuntary manslaughter[/caption]
APEthan Crumbley was sentenced to life in prison last December[/caption]
EPAEthan opened fire inside Oxford High School on November 30, 2021 – killing four students and injuring seven others[/caption]
Law & CrimeJennifer Crumbley remained emotionless as she was convicted on all counts[/caption]
GettyDuring the trial, prosecutors embarrassingly revealed that Jennifer Crumbley was having an affair with a firefighter while her son’s mental health deteriorated[/caption]
The 12-panel jury deliberated for 10 hours after hearing from 21 witnesses and Crumbley’s testimony.
Crumbley, 45, who entered the courtroom shackled by her waist and wrists, sat emotionless, biting her bottom lip with her eyes closed as the jury foreperson read the verdict.
She is facing up to 15 years in prison per count. Sentencing has been set for April 9.
Crumbley’s husband James‘ trial is scheduled to begin on March 5. He is also charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter.
Emotions ran high during the week-long trial as the verdict set a new legal standard, being the first time a parent of a school shooter was held accountable for their child’s crimes.
“It’s a rare case that takes some really egregious facts. It takes the unthinkable, and she has done the unthinkable, and because of that, four kids have died,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said during her closing arguments.
McDonald said the parents failed to give their son proper mental health treatment despite repeated warning signs, including meetings with school administrators over some worrying drawings.
Prosecutors described Ethan as a lonely boy who showed signs of depression and other mental issues.
However, Crumbley testified that her son never asked her for help for his mental health issues.
‘MY PARENTS WON’T LISTEN TO ME’
Prosecutors shared excerpts of Ethan’s private journal writings and texts with friends to the jury contracting Crumbley’s testimony.
During one text message exchange in spring 2021, Ethan told his mom that there was a ghost or a devil in the house and pleaded for her to respond, but she did not.
Crumbley testified that she took her son’s message as him just “messing around.”
“I thought we were pretty close. We would talk. We did a lot of things together. I trusted him, and I felt like I had an open door, and he could come to me about anything,” Crumbley said.
“I felt as a family, the three of us were very close.”
The then-15-year-old also penned disturbing passages in his journal pleading for help with his mental problems, which he said drove him to “shoot up the f**king school.”
“I want help but my parents don’t listen to me,” Ethan wrote in the journal, which was read by Oakland County Sheriff’s Detective Lieutenant Tim Willis.
“My parents won’t listen to me about help with a therapist. I wanna shoot up the f**king so badly. Soon I will buy a 9mm pistol,” the teen wrote.
Crumbley, on the other hand, testified that she saw no signals of mental health troubles in her son.
“There were a couple of times when Ethan expressed anxiety over taking tests,” she said.
“Anxiety about what he was going to do after high school – college? Military? But not at the level where I felt he needed to see a psychiatrist or a mental health professional.”
Prosecutors slammed Crumbley, arguing she was responsible for the deaths after she and her husband irresponsibly gave Ethan a gun, which he used in the shooting.
“The shooter was given the murder weapon by his parents, and this parent is sitting here on trial today,” McDonald said.
Crumbley admitted she and her husband, 47, gifted Ethan the weapon, “We didn’t just hand him a gun as ‘here you go son,’” she testified.
“It was something we could use when we went to the (gun) range as a family.”
Crumbley also maintained that she didn’t know much about guns and that it was her husband who was responsible for the firearms in the house.
The defense also blamed James for failing to notify her about Ethan’s behavioral issues.
‘EXTRAMARTIAL AFFAIR’
Earlier in the trial, prosecutors embarrassingly disclosed Crumbley was having an affair with her longtime friend and firefighter Brian Meloche while her son carried out the shooting.
“She depicted herself as having one extramarital affair for a six-month period of time where she met with him one time a week. That was her testimony,” prosecutor March Keast said.
“It was you and Mr. Meloche arranging with other individuals to meet after work, as well?” Keast asked Crumbley on the stand.
“I only met with Brian during work hours,” she responded.
“The times we were at the hotel, I was on business. We did arrange for other people to meet us there.”
Prosecutors also revealed that two days before the shooting, Crumbley had been using Adult Friend Finder to arrange a meet-up, but she did not meet anyone that day.
Meanwhile, Crumbley’s horse trainer, Kira Pennock, testified that the defendants rarely spoke about her son.
Pennock even claimed that Crumbley called her son “weird” and that she wished he did “normal kid things.”
“There was nothing truly positive when she was talking about him,” she told the jury.
“There were quite a few times that she had voiced that he was an ‘oopsie baby.’”
When pressed further to explain the phrase “oopsie baby,” Pennock said that Crumbley never explained what it meant.
Ethan was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in December.
The 17-year-old told a Michigan courtroom that he wanted the families of the victims to be happy with the sentencing outcome and apologized for what he did.
“I am a really bad person, I’ve done some terrible things. I’ve hurt many people,” Ethan said at his sentencing hearing in December.
Four students – Tate Myre, 16, Hana St. Juliana, 14, Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and Justin Shilling, 17 – were shot and killed during the Oxford High School mass shooting. Seven others were injured.
AFPJennifer Crumbley testified that she did not see any signs that her son needed help with his mental health[/caption]
AFPJames Crumbley’s trial is set to start on March 5[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
