(From left) James Crumbley, attorney Mariell Lehman, Jennifer Crumbley and attorney Shannon Smith sit in court in Pontiac, Mich., for Tuesday’s sentencing on four counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the deaths of four Oxford High School student was shot and killed by the Crumbleys’ son.
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Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
(From left) James Crumbley, attorney Mariell Lehman, Jennifer Crumbley and attorney Shannon Smith sit in court in Pontiac, Mich., for Tuesday’s sentencing on four counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the deaths of four Oxford High School student was shot and killed by the Crumbleys’ son.
Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
James and Jennifer Crumbley, whose son murdered four classmates and shot seven others at Oxford High School in 2021, were each sentenced Tuesday to 10 to 15 years in prison.
Both Crumbleys were convicted in separate trials of four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Each of those charges carries a maximum penalty of 15 years and the sentences will run concurrently.
The sentences handed down by Judge Cheryl Matthews in Pontiac, Michigan, bring to a close a case that many legal experts said could set a precedent of charging parents with serious crimes because of their children’s actions.
Their son, Ethan Crumbley, pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the school shooting he committed when he was 15 years old.
Prosecutions are rare
The Crumbleys are believed to be the first parents of a school mass shooter to be charged and convicted of such crimes.
Prosecutors have never claimed that their son’s parents knew about the plan to commit the murder at Oxford High School in Michigan. However, they argue that the Crumbleys ignored signs that their son was in serious trouble and instead bought him a powerful Sig Sauer 9mm pistol as an early Christmas gift.
They never told counselors about the gun they gave their child when they were called to a school assembly the day of the shooting, even when they were shown drawings he lacked The young man’s drawing showed a pistol similar to Sig Sauer along with a figure with bullet holes. and phrases like “blood everywhere” and “help me, the thoughts won’t stop.”
Instead, the Crumbleys left their son at school and went back to work. A few hours later, Ethan emerged from the school bathroom with a gun and began firing the first 32 shots.
Prosecutors told the jury that if the Crumbleys had taken “several tragic steps”, the four Oxford students might still be alive.
They presented evidence that the murder weapon was never secured from their troubled son.
In court, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald used the murder weapon to demonstrate how to use a cable lock to keep the gun from being fired.
This process takes about 10 seconds.
Lack of repentance ‘chilling’
The prosecution had asked for the Crumbleys to serve 10 to 15 years in prison, citing what they called a “cold lack of remorse” by both parents after the shooting.
Prosecutors noted that Jennifer Crumbley testified during the trial that “I asked myself if I would have done anything differently. And I wouldn’t have.”
And they point to repeated profanity-laced threats James Crumbley made against Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald over jailhouse phone calls he knew were recorded, as well as in an electronic message.
‘Mistakes any parent can make’
James Crumbley’s lawyer countered that his client had not threatened the prosecutor but had only “vented” his anger over what he saw as an unjust detention.
The Crumbleys said they were also victims of their son, who they said “manipulated” them into buying a gun they didn’t know he would use to kill someone.
They argued that they made “mistakes that any parent would make” based on the information they had.
The couple’s defense attorneys noted that an Oxford High counselor determined Ethan could have remained at school the day of the shooting because he did not appear to be a danger to himself or anyone else. anyone else.
The couple insisted they thought their son was a normal teenager, simply depressed over losing his grandmother, a pet dog and a friend who had moved away.
In an introductory interview with state officials, Jennifer Crumbley said that the benefit of hindsight is that “There are a lot of things I would change if I could go back in time.”
The defense’s request for additional jail time is unnecessary
The Crumbleys asked for a sentence of time served.
Defense attorneys argued that the parents had already spent more than two and a half years in prison, locked in a cell 23 hours a day, and that the additional jail time was unnecessary because the Crumbleys were not a threat to general public.
Defense attorney Shannon Smith also said more time will not deter others from committing similar crimes because “no one wants a repeat of the events of November 30, 2021.”
Smith added that, far from being the heartless, callous mother that prosecutors portrayed to the public and the media, Jennifer Crumbley was focused only on her son and distraught over the devastation caused by him. she caused.
In the sentencing memorandum, Jennifer Crumbley’s parents and others asked the court for leniency. A young woman who said she was 18 when she became Crumbley’s cellmate for a year and a half also wrote to the judge.
She said Crumbley welcomed her with a basket of snacks and treated her like a mother.
The woman also wrote that inmates yelled threats at Crumbley, who tearfully told them she was sorry and “wished she could change everything her son did.”
The sentences
The Crumbleys will likely appeal their verdict.
Their son, Ethan Crumbley, is expected to do the same. He did not testify in either trial for his parents. He pleaded guilty to murder in October 2022 and was sentenced. sentenced to life in prison prison without parole.
