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Tag: jennifer crumbley
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Inside James and Jennifer Crumbley’s sentencing
Inside James and Jennifer Crumbley’s sentencing – CBS News
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Crumbleys sentenced to 10-15 years in prison for role they played in son’s mass shooting
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James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of the teenager who killed four classmates in a mass shooting at Oxford High School in 2021, were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison on Tuesday.
The Crumbleys were charged with four counts of voluntary manslaughter for the deaths of Justin Shilling, 17; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; and Hana St. Juliana, 14.
The Crumbleys bought their then-15-year-old son, Ethan Crumbley, a gun as a Christmas gift, despite numerous signs that he was troubled and depressed. He used the gun to kill four of his classmates and wound seven others in November 2021.
Oakland County Circuit Judge Cheryl Matthews said she exceeded the sentencing guidelines, in part, because the parents continue to defend their actions leading up to the shooting.
“Parents are not expected to be psychic, but the convictions are not about poor parenting,” Matthews told the Crumbleys during sentencing. “These convictions confirm repeated acts or lack of acts that could have halted a runaway train.”
Prosecutors alleged the parents knew their son had been troubled for years when they bought him the gun. They also failed to divulge that their son had a gun when they were called to the school after a teacher found a note that included a drawing of a gun, blood, and the words, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.”
Instead of taking their son home for the day, they urged school officials to keep him in class.
Before sentencing, Jennifer Crumbley, wearing a black-and-white striped jail uniform, diminished the role she played in her son’s actions and accused prosecutors of unfairly maligning her and her husband.
“I’ve been criticized that I don’t show emotion, I’m not sympathetic, I don’t cry enough,” Crumbley said. “But alone I grieve. If you were to look into me internally, you would find I have died from the inside. I will be in my own internal prison for the rest of my life.”
Ethan Crumbley was charged as an adult with first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Dec. 8. He also pleaded guilty to injuring six other students and a teacher. During his sentencing, he was soft-spoken and apologetic and called for the maximum penalty.
Before his sentencing, James Crumbley, wearing an orange jumpsuit, stood up, removed his glasses, and read a written statement addressed to the families of the victims.
“I am sorry for your loss as a result of what my son did,” James Crumbley said. “I cannot express how much I wish that I had known what was going on with him or what was going to happen because I absolutely would have done a lot of things differently.”
The Crumbleys were given credit for the more than 850 days they have already served in jail.
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald asked the judge to exceed the sentencing guidelines because of the “devastating impact of their gross negligence that was foreseeable.”
“We don’t give power or authority to victims to decide or render a verdict,” McDonald told the judge before sentencing. “But we should not and cannot sanitize their pain or the weight of the impact.”
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Eye Opener: Republicans fail to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
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Jennifer Crumbley trial: Jury finds Crumbley guilty on all counts in manslaughter trial
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PONTIAC, Mich. — A jury has found Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley, guilty of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the shooting deaths of four students at Oxford High School in November 2021.
Crumbley was found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the shooting, one for each victim.
The jury deliberated for over 10 hours, beginning on Monday morning. Sentencing is scheduled for April 9.
Jennifer and James Crumbley are a rare case of parents being charged in connection with a shooting carried out by their son. James Crumbley, who also faces four counts of involuntary manslaughter, will have a separate trial in March.
Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 years old at the time of the shooting, has been sentenced to life in prison for killing four students and injuring seven others at Oxford High School. He had pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including first-degree premeditated murder and terrorism causing death.
In a dayslong trial, prosecutors presented damning evidence of the Crumbley parents — who bought their son the gun used in the shooting — failing to respond to warning signs exhibited by the shooter prior to the attack.
School officials had called the Crumbley parents to the school the morning of the shooting after finding violent drawings he had done on a school assignment. He was also caught searching online for bullets at school, watching shooting videos in class and drawing violent images on several other papers.
School officials testified that the parents chose not to take their son home despite the school telling them to get him immediate help, and offering them facilities that provided same-day mental health care services.
The parents told the school they could not take him home because they both had to return to work and that if he left school he would walk home and be alone. School officials, who were worried about his mental health, did not think it was a good idea for him to be alone since they were concerned he was considering suicide.
The parents chose to send him back to class and told the school that they would get him mental health care.
Jennifer Crumbley and her attorney Shannon Smith argued that the school had been “nonchalant” during the meeting and did not insist he be taken home.
During trial, the CEO of the company where Jennifer Crumbley worked testified that she could have left work if she needed to care for her son or she could have brought him back with her to the office. On the stand, Crumbley admitted that she would have been able to not return to work.
In text messages she sent after the shooting, Jennifer Crumbley told a man she was having an affair with — long-time friend Brian Meloche — that the shooting “could have been prevented” and that the school should not have allowed him to return to class.
Ethan Crumbley’s parents purchased him the gun he used in the shooting as a gift and had taken him to the shooting range before the attack. Prosecutors argued that the parents did not secure the gun or limit their son’s access to it.
Jennifer Crumbley testified that it was her husband’s responsibility to ensure the gun was stored securely and that their son could not access it. One of the arguments made by her lawyer was that she did not know guns well.
Smith also argued that in Oxford, where the shooting happened, it is common for students to go hunting with guns. A school official testified that many seniors take prom portraits with their guns and that they often need to be reminded not to come to school with their guns during hunting season.
Extramarital affairs
In a turn of events, Jennifer Crumbley came under fire when a witness took the stand — Meloche — and it was revealed they were having an affair at the time of the shooting. In a previous ruling, Judge Cheryl Matthews had excluded all evidence pointing to Crumbley’s extramarital affair from being used in the trial.
But, during the defense’s questioning, Smith suggested that police intimidated and threatened Meloche into providing his testimony, so prosecutors pushed back and sought to allow the judge to include evidence that the two had an affair. Prosecutors argued that Meloche was not pressured, but that he didn’t want information about their affair to become public.
The information regarding the affair was admitted into evidence and Crumbley later confirmed the affair when she took the stand in her own defense. She testified that they were having a six-month affair at the time of the shooting, meeting in a Costco parking lot during work hours.
Prosecutors argued that she spent a significant amount of time on her affair and taking care of her horses, often leaving her son alone and ignoring his messages. Crumbley said her affair only took place while her son was at school and that she always offered to take him with her when she went to see her horses, but he was not interested.
Prosecutors then pressed Jennifer Crumbley on her testimony, revealing that she had multiple affairs and together with Meloche had arranged meetups using Adult Friend Finder. Prosecutors revealed she had been using the app just two days before the shooting, but she did not meet up with anyone on that day.
Smith sought to defend Jennifer Crumbley as a mother who was doing the best that she could, at times giving examples from her own life as a mother and saying her house was just as messy as the photos the jury was shown of Crumbley’s home.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Copyright © 2024 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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Jury deliberations underway in Jennifer Crumbley trial
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Jury deliberations underway in Jennifer Crumbley trial – CBS News
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Mom Of Michigan School Shooter Wishes Son Had ‘Killed Us Instead’
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PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — The mother of a Michigan school shooter testified in her own defense Thursday, denying any responsibility for the deaths of four students but also wishing her son would have “killed us instead.”
“I don’t want to say that I’m a victim because I don’t want to disrespect those families that truly are the victims on this,” Jennifer Crumbley told the jury. “But we did lose a lot.”
“You lost everything,” attorney Shannon Smith said.
“We did,” Crumbley replied at the end of an afternoon of testimony in which she rejected blame for the gun used by her son Ethan Crumbley and denied claims that she ignored his mental health.
Jennifer Crumbley, 45, and husband James, 47, are accused of making a gun accessible at home and not addressing their son’s mental care. They are the first parents in the U.S. to be charged in a mass school shooting committed by their child.
Ethan Crumbley pulled a handgun from his backpack and shot 11 people on Nov. 30, 2021, killing four.
The attack came a few hours after school staff summoned his parents to a meeting to discuss a violent drawing on a math assignment. The Crumbleys declined to take him home, and the shooting ensued.
“As a parent you spend your whole life trying to protect your child from other dangers,” Jennifer Crumbley told the jury. “You never would think you have to protect your child from harming someone else. That’s what blew my mind.”
“I have asked myself if I would have done anything differently. I wouldn’t have. I wish he would have killed us instead,” she said.
Crumbley took the stand after days of unflattering evidence about her meeting at the school, an extramarital affair, a deep concern about the welfare of her horses after the tragedy, and the emptying of a $3,000 bank account with her son’s name on it.
She said she had no role in buying or storing the handgun used by her son and instead shifted responsibility to her husband, who will face trial on the same involuntary manslaughter charges in March.
“I just didn’t feel comfortable being in charge of that. It was his thing,” Jennifer Crumbley said of her husband, turning to jurors as she spoke.
Ethan was with his father when the 9mm handgun was purchased just four days earlier on Black Friday. Jennifer Crumbley took her son to a shooting range and posted photos about the trip on social media.
But she otherwise denied any role in handling or storing the gun. She said the gun was kept in a locked box with a key kept in a beer stein.
Jennifer Crumbley spoke clearly and calmly for more than two hours, in contrast to her sobbing when video of the shooting was played in court. She apologized to the jury for her neck and chest turning red and hoped she wouldn’t break out in hives.
Prosecutors last week presented Ethan Crumbley’s own text messages from spring 2021 in which he told his mom that “demons” were “throwing bowls” and clothes were “flying off the shelf” at home. It was presented as evidence of hallucinations.
But Jennifer Crumbley said it was “just Ethan messing around.”
“He’s been convinced our house has been haunted since 2015,” she said, adding that her son called the ghost “Boris Johnson.”
Earlier in the day, an investigator read portions of Ethan’s journal to the jury.
“I have zero help for my mental problems and it’s causing me to shoot up the … school,” Ethan, then 15, wrote.
“My parents won’t listen to me about help or therapist,” the boy said.
But Jennifer Crumbley said she saw no mental health problems.
“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.”
Smith, the defense lawyer, renewed her call for Ethan Crumbley to be brought to court to be challenged about his journal and other evidence. But Judge Cheryl Matthews said no, noting that the teen’s lawyers have indicated that he would invoke his right to remain silent.
Ethan Crumbley, now 17, is serving a life sentence that will likely be appealed.
A meeting between school staff and the Crumbleys a few hours before the shooting has been a key point in the case.
The parents were presented with a disturbing drawing their son had scrawled on an assignment. It depicted a gun and bullet and the lines, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me. The world is dead. My life is useless.”
Jennifer Crumbley said she “felt concerned” and figured her son would be suspended.
A counselor and school administrator both said they urged the parents to get him into mental health care as soon as possible. They said the Crumbleys, however, declined to take him home, citing the need to return to work.
Jennifer Crumbley offered a different take.
“We agreed it might stress him out more to do school remotely (at home) the rest of the day,” she testified. “There was never a time where I would refuse to take him home if he wanted to go.”
She said she told her husband to “start making calls” to mental health providers after his DoorDash runs.
Ethan returned to class and began shooting later that day. No one had checked his backpack for a gun.
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Ethan Crumbley parents trial: Shooter’s mother denies responsibility for gun used to kill 4 | LIVE
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PONTIAC, Mich. — The mother of a Michigan school shooter testified in her own defense Thursday saying she had no role in buying or storing the handgun used to kill four students in 2021 and shifted responsibility to her husband.
“I just didn’t feel comfortable being in charge of that. It was his thing,” Jennifer Crumbley said of her husband, turning to jurors as she spoke on the sixth day of her trial on involuntary manslaughter charges.
Jennifer Crumbley’s affair was revealed during her trial this week.
Crumbley took the stand after days of unflattering evidence about her meetings with staff at Oxford High School, an extramarital affair, a deep concern about her horses after the shooting and the emptying of her son’s $3,000 bank account before her arrest.
Jennifer Crumbley, 45, and husband James, 47, are accused of making a gun accessible at home and ignoring Ethan Crumbley’s mental health needs. They are 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. Ethan, now 17, pleaded guilty to murder and is serving a life prison sentence.
The teen, who was 15 at the time, pulled a gun from his backpack and shot 11 people at Oxford High on Nov. 30, 2021, killing four students.
Ethan was with his father when the 9mm handgun was purchased just four days earlier. Jennifer Crumbley took her son to a shooting range and posted photos about the trip on social media.
But she otherwise denied any role in handling or storing the gun. She said the gun was kept in a locked box with a key kept in a beer stein.
Jennifer Crumbley told the jury she was nervous, but she spoke clearly and calmly for nearly two hours before a break in the proceedings. She apologized for her neck turning red and hoped she wouldn’t break out in hives.
Prosecutors last week presented Ethan Crumbley’s own text messages from spring 2021 in which he told his mom that “demons” were “throwing bowls” and clothes were “flying off the shelf” at home. It was presented as evidence of hallucinations that were not addressed by the parents.
But Jennifer Crumbley said it was “just Ethan messing around.
“He’s been convinced our house has been haunted since 2015,” she said, adding that her son called the ghost “Boris Johnson.”
Earlier in the day, an investigator read portions of Ethan’s journal to the jury.
“I have zero help for my mental problems and it’s causing me to shoot up the … school,” Ethan, then 15, wrote.
“My parents won’t listen to me about help or therapist,” the boy said, adding that he would spend his life in prison and that “many people have about a day left to live.”
But Jennifer Crumbley said she saw no mental health problems 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.”
Jennifer Crumbley’s attorney, Shannon Smith, again renewed her call for Ethan Crumbley to be brought to court to be challenged about his journal and other evidence. But Judge Cheryl Matthews said no, noting that the teen’s lawyers have indicated that he would invoke his right to remain silent.
Although Ethan Crumbley pleaded guilty to murder and other crimes, his no-parole sentence still can be appealed.
A meeting between school staff and the Crumbleys a few hours before the shooting has been a key point in the mother’s case.
The parents were presented with a disturbing drawing their son had scrawled on an assignment. It depicted a gun and bullet and the lines, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me. The world is dead. My life is useless.”
The school recommended that Ethan get help as soon as possible, but the Crumbleys declined to take him home, saying they needed to return to work. Their son stayed in school and later pulled a handgun from his backpack to fire at students.
Copyright © 2024 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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Prosecutors make case against mother of Oxford school gunman
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Official Thought Michigan School Shooter’s Mom Actions Towards Son ‘Strange’
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A Michigan school official told jurors Tuesday that he felt he had no grounds to search a teen’s backpack before the boy fatally shot four fellow students, even though staff met with the teen’s parents that morning to discuss a violent drawing he had scrawled on a math assignment.
Nick Ejak, who was in charge of discipline at Oxford High School, said he was concerned about Ethan Crumbley’s mental health but did not consider him to be a threat to others on Nov. 30, 2021.
After the meeting about the drawing, the teen’s parents declined to take their son home. A few hours later, he pulled a 9mm gun from his backpack and shot 11 people inside the school.
Jennifer Crumbley, 45, is charged with involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors say she and her husband were grossly negligent and could have prevented the four deaths if they had tended to their son’s mental health. They’re also accused of making a gun accessible at home.
Much of Ejak’s testimony focused on the meeting that morning, which included him, the parents, the boy and a counselor. The school requested the meeting after a teacher found the drawing, which depicted a gun and a bullet and the lines, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me. The world is dead. My life is useless.”
Ejak said he didn’t have reasonable suspicion to search the teen’s backpack, such as nervous behavior or allegations of vaping or possessing a weapon.
“None of that was present,” he told the jury, adding that the drawing also didn’t violate the school’s conduct code.
Ejak said he found it “odd” and “strange” that Jennifer and James Crumbley declined to immediately take their son home.
“My concern was he gets the help he needs,” Ejak said.
Jennifer Crumbley worked in marketing for a real estate company. Her boss, Andrew Smith, testified that the business was “very family friendly, family first,” an apparent attempt by prosecutors to show that she didn’t need to rush back to work after the morning meeting at the school.
Smith said Jennifer Crumbley dashed out of the office when news of the shooting broke. She sent him text messages declaring that her son “must be the shooter. … I need my job. Please don’t judge me for what my son did.”
“I was a little taken aback,” Smith said. “I was surprised she was worried about work.”
The jury saw police photos of the Crumbley home taken on the day of the shooting. Ethan’s bedroom was messy, with paper targets from a shooting range displayed on a wall. The small safe that held the Sig Sauer handgun was open and empty on his parents’ bed.
Ejak, the high school dean, said the parents didn’t disclose that James Crumbley had purchased a gun as a gift for Ethan just four days earlier. Ejak also didn’t know about the teen’s hallucinations earlier in 2021.
“It would have completely changed the process that we followed. … As an expert of their child, I heavily rely on the parents for information,” he said.
Near the end of the day, prosecutors played a video of Jennifer Crumbley sitting in a police car after the shooting. She sobbed at times, expressed disbelief about her son — he “ruined his life” — and asked for cigarettes.
“I don’t get what happened,” she said.
James Crumbley, 47, will stand trial in March. The couple are the first parents in the U.S. to be charged in a mass school shooting committed by their child. Ethan, now 17, is serving a life sentence.
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