Jury to begin deliberating manslaughter charges against Michigan school shooter’s dad

PONTIAC, MI -- Attorneys in the manslaughter trial for James Crumbley, the father of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley, concluded their closing statements on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 13.

“James Crumbley is not on trial for what his son did,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald told the jury. “He is on trial for what he did and what he didn’t do.

“James Crumley had a willful disregard of a known danger and that caused the deaths of four student in Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021.”

Jurors, after receiving jury instructions from Oakland County Circuit Judge Cheryl Matthews, are set to begin deliberating whether James Crumbley, 47, is guilty of four counts of manslaughter, a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

James Crumbley purchased the eventual murder weapon, a 9mm Sig Sauer handgun, for his son as an early Christmas gift four days prior to the shooting that caused the deaths of Hana St. Juliana, 14, Madisyn Baldwin, 17, Tate Myre, 16 and Justin Shilling, 17.

A jury on Feb. 6 convicted James Crumbley’s wife, 45-year-old Jennifer Crumbley, on four counts of involuntary manslaughter. She is jailed and awaiting sentencing.

Prosecutors claim the father failed to adequately secure the gun or seek help for his son when the shooter presented signs of depression and possible mental illness.

On the day of the shooting, both parents were called to the school for an emergency meeting after a teacher discovered concerning violent drawings and statements scrawled on their son’s geometry assignment. The teen wrote, “Blood everywhere,” “My life is useless,” and “The world is dead,” near drawings of a gun and a bleeding body with two bullet holes.

James and Jennifer Crumbley declined to remove their son from school, citing work obligations, and administrators allowed the student to return the class with his backpack containing the gun.

“He doesn’t get a pass because you don’t feel the teachers did enough,” McDonald said in her closing statements.

The parents never notified school officials James Crumbley had purchased the teen a gun days earlier. “This is information they’re going to need immediately,” the prosecutor said, adding “he didn’t stop at home to see where that gun was.”

McDonald argued the deadly outcome was “reasonably foreseeable” and James Crumbley’s failure to intervene was criminal.

“We aren’t here to look at things in hindsight,” James Crumbley’s attorney, Mariell R. Lehman, told the jury. “James Crumbley had no idea what his son was capable of, he had no idea what his son was planning and he had absolutely no idea that his son had access to those firearms.”

The attorney said that even school officials, despite their advanced professional training and experience with teens, “didn’t believe that there was a reason to be concerned that James’s son was a danger to anyone.”

Lehman told the jury this is the first school shooting case in which parents have faced manslaughter charges for murders committed by their children.

Ethan Crumbley, who was a 15-year-old sophomore at the time of the shooting and is now 17, pleaded guilty to 24 felonies, including four counts of first-degree murder. He is sentenced to a mandatory life in prison.

A jury foreperson, who found Jennifer Crumbley guilty, told media outlets her decision was based heavily on the failure to keep the shooter from obtaining the gun purchased by James Crumbley.

James Crumbley, who wore headphones throughout the trial due to hearing loss, declined to take the stand in his own defense. His wife testified at her own trial.

“It was for him to use at the shooting range, only,” she told the court. Jennifer Crumbley visited a shooting range with her son two days before the shooting.

What happened with the gun after the mother-son day at the shooting range was a point of contention in Jennifer Crumbley’s trial.

The mother said James Crumbley told her he’d locked and hidden the gun and ammo. She didn’t see that happen but believed the gun was hidden in their bedroom, separate from the ammunition and the key to the cable lock. The key, she testified, was hidden in one of the many German beer steins used to decorate the family’s home. She didn’t know which one.

ATF Special Agent Brett Brandon’s testimony during James Crumbley’s trial called into question Jennifer Crumbley’s claims.

Brandon testified that, following the shooting, a gun case that once contained the murder weapon was found open and empty on a bed shared by the Crumbleys.

Brandon said he was “shocked” to learn a youth gun safety pamphlet -- that the ATF requires dealers provide with guns they sell -- was tucked behind the protective foam in the case with the sales receipt.

Brandon testified police located a cable lock provided at the sale of the murder weapon in its original packaging -- a clear plastic bag -- inside an otherwise empty gun case for a different firearm in the kitchen. It didn’t appear the lock had ever been used, the agent said.

Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Marc Keast, during his opening statements on March 7, showed the jury a picture taken after the shooting depicting the cable lock still in its packaging with the keys inserted in the locking mechanism, as they were on the date of the sale.

“It was never used,” Keast said.

McDonald showed the jury how a cable lock works, securing the murder weapon with one during her closing statement.

“This is me inserting a cable lock,” she said. “It takes less than 10 seconds.”