Oxford school shooter Ethan Crumbley’s mom Jennifer convicted of failing to stop massacre in first-ever case
Watch chilling footage of Jennifer Crumbley's court case in the video aboveTHE mother of Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley who killed four students has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in an unprecedented court case.
Jennifer Crumbley is the first American parent to ever be convicted of the crime over a mass shooting carried out by their child.
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11Crumbley, 45, was led into the courtroom in shackles to hear the verdict on Tuesday.
The 12-panel jury deliberated for 10 hours after hearing from 21 witnesses - including Crumbley's testimony.
They found her guilty on four counts of involuntary manslaughter after prosecutors argued that she had multiple opportunities to prevent her son's rampage on November 30, 2021.
The mum remained still with her eyes closed and biting her bottom lip as the jury foreperson read the guilty verdict aloud.
She is facing up to 15 years in prison per count and her 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 gruelling week-long trial as the verdict set a new legal standard, marking the first time a parent of a school shooter was held accountable for a role in 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.
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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.
On the morning of the shooting, a teacher discovered a harrowing note on Ethan's desk.
It was a drawing of a gun pointing at the words "the thoughts won't stop. Help me".
Next to it was a drawing of a person who had been shot twice with the words "blood everywhere", "my life is useless" and "the world is dead".
Ethan's parents were called into the school that morning at 10am - but later left and around three hours later, the teen took a gun out of his backpack and killed his fellow students.
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.
She and her husband James were charged just days after the shooting - when cops found them "hiding in a building in Detroit".
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11'MY PARENTS WON'T LISTEN TO ME'
Prosecutors shared excerpts of Ethan's private journal writings and texts with the jury considering Crumbley's testimony.
School shooter Ethan Crumbley's mom called him an 'oopsie baby,' witness says in disturbing testimony as manslaughter trial continuesDuring one text message exchange in spring 2021, just months before the attack, 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."
A GUN FOR CHRISTMAS
Prosecutors slammed Crumbley, arguing she was responsible for the deaths after she and her husband irresponsibly gave Ethan a gun for Christmas, 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."
But prosecutors claimed Crumbley was grossly negligent and could've foreseen the horrific violence ahead of the shooting.
Ethan's dad James, 47, bought him the 9mm handgun for Christmas - even though he was too young under state laws to own a gun.
It was this gun that he took to school on the day of the shooting - when no one checked his bag.
It was reportedly bought four days before the shooting ahead of the holiday, and was "freely available" to the teen.
Crumbley maintained that she didn't know much about guns and that it was her husband who was responsible for the firearms in the house.
She also posted about the gun the day after they gave it to Ethan, writing that the family were "testing out his new Christmas present".
The defense also blamed James for failing to notify her about Ethan's behavioral issues.
'EXTRAMARTIAL AFFAIR'
Earlier in the trial, prosecutors revealed that Crumbley was having an affair with her longtime friend and firefighter Brian Meloche in the months leading up to 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 defendant 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 after pleading guilty to murder, terrorism and other charges.
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.
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"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.
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