(Image via abcnews.go.com)
Volunteer Writer: Julia Besse
Email: jbesse1@umassd.edu
Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of Michigan high school shooter Ethan Crumbley, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the 2021 mass shooting that claimed the lives of four students and injured six others.
This is the first time that a parent is facing responsibility for a mass shooting carried out by their child.
Ethan Crumbley, then 15-years-old, opened fire at Oxford High School in Michigan on November 30th, 2021, killing Madisyn Baldwin (17), Tate Myre (16), Hana St. Juliana (14), and Justin Shilling (17).
Now 17, Crumbley plead guilty to twenty-four charges, including one count of terrorism causing death and four counts of first-degree murder.
Crumbley was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in December of 2023.
Charges were then brought against his mother and father due to their inability to prevent the shooting. The prosecution argued that his mother, Jennifer, was “grossly negligent” by ignoring her son’s mental health issues, contemplation of violence, and purchasing a gun for Ethan just four days before the deadly rampage.
The prosecution posed Jennifer as more concerned about her hobbies and “carrying out an extramarital affair” than with helping her son, even after he told them he was “seeing a demon.” Ethan had been throwing bowls across their home and asking for mental health care.
As part of the investigation, a series of text messages extracted from the phones of Ethan and his parents reveal Ethan asking his parents to take him to a doctor because he was experiencing hallucinations and hearing voices. According to Ethan, his father “gave him pills” and told him to “suck it up,” while his mother laughed at him.
A journal inside Ethan’s backpack was found in an Oxford High School bathroom following the shooting with some jarring entries. Twenty-one pages were dedicated to the shooting he had planned. One entry states:
“I have fully, mentally lost it after years of fighting with my dark side. My parents won’t listen to me about help or a therapist.”
The morning of the shooting, the Crumbleys were encouraged to take Ethan home after school officials found violent drawings, search history of bullets, and shooting videos connected to Ethan. Despite the school suggesting that Ethan seek immediate mental health care, his parents refused to take him home for the day.
Jennifer asserted that she could not miss any work and that if Ethan were to leave school, he would need to walk. School officials did not allow that due to his suicidal ideation.
During the trial, Jennifer’s former boss, Andrew Smith, testified that “she would have been allowed to leave for the day if she needed to take care of her son” and could bring him to work if need be.
Brian Meloche, a friend of Jennifer and with whom she was having an affair, testified that “she was able to leave work to meet up with him,” despite her telling the school officials on the day of the shooting that she could not miss work to pick up her son.
Texts shared between Jennifer and Meloche reveal that she felt that the shooting “could have been prevented.”
To her defense, Jennifer testified that she was worried about her son and his future after high school, but not enough to get him professional help. On the day of the shooting, she did not think he was capable of such violence, so she did not take him home.
Now, two years after the shooting, she testified that she “wouldn’t have done anything differently” and does not think of herself as “a failure of a parent.”
The father of Hana St. Juliana, the father of Justin Shilling, and the father of Tate Myre all reacted to the verdict with relief and satisfaction that Jennifer is being held accountable for her son’s deadly actions.
Jennifer faces a maximum of fifteen years in prison for involuntary manslaughter. Her sentence hearing is set to take place on April 9th, 2024.
James Crumbley will stand trial for involuntary manslaughter on March 5th, 2024.