James Crumbley, whose son killed four fellow students in a 2021 U.S. school shooting, criminally failed to heed warning signs about his son’s instability, resulting in a foreseeable tragedy, prosecutors said in closing arguments on Wednesday at his manslaughter trial.
Crumbley, 47, is being tried on four counts of involuntary manslaughter for allegedly ignoring his son’s mental state and not securing the semi-automatic pistol that prosecutors say he bought as a Christmas present for his son, Ethan.
That was just days before Ethan Crumbley, then 15, used the gun in the 2021 shooting, killing four fellow students at Oxford High School near Detroit.
The case against Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley's parents
- Ethan Crumbley’s parents, James and Jennifer, have each been sentenced to between 10 and 15 years behind bars in a Michigan court in their son’s 2021 school shooting, which left four dead and six injured.
- They are now the first parents in the nation’s history to be convicted of manslaughter in a school shooting carried out by their child. Both were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter charges at separate trials in March and February.
- The couple faced prison for failing to intervene despite obvious warning signs their son was troubled.
- Prosecutors told jurors James failed to intervene despite his teen son’s unstable mental state, even neglecting to lock up the semi-automatic handgun the dad bought for Ethan as a Christmas presen before the shooting.
- James was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in March and Jennifer was found guilty in February after jurors found her to be an unreliable witness.
- In September 2023, Ethan Crumbley was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the deaths of Justin Shilling, 17; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Hana St. Juliana, 14; and Tate Myre, 16.
“He did nothing over and over and over again,” Oakland County, Michigan, prosecutor Karen McDonald told the jury.
Defense attorney Mariell Lehman argued that James Crumbley could not have known what his son would do.
Jurors began deliberations on Wednesday.
Last month Crumbley’s wife was convicted on the same unusual charge.
Ethan Crumbley pleaded guilty in 2022 to four counts of first-degree murder and other charges and was sentenced to life in prison without parole in December.
Witnesses have testified during the trial that on the morning of the shootings, a teacher discovered drawings by Ethan Crumbley depicting a handgun, a bullet and a bleeding figure next to the words “Blood everywhere,” “My life is useless,” and “The thoughts won’t stop – help me.”
The Crumbleys were summoned to the school that morning and told that Ethan needed counseling and they needed to take him home, according to prosecutors.
The couple resisted taking their son home and did not search his backpack or ask him about the gun, prosecutors said; the teenager returned to class and later walked out of a bathroom with the gun and began firing.
McDonald also presented the jury with texts that Ethan Crumbley had sent to a friend and journal entries he had written in the months leading up to the shooting, in which he talked about wanting medical attention and hearing voices, but he was worried his parent would be “pissed.”
On one occasion, according to a text message to a friend, McDonald said Ethan had asked James Crumbley to take him to the doctor but his dad “gave me some pills and told me to suck it up.”
Defense attorney Lehman argued that “James had no idea that his son was having a hard time,” saying there was no evidence that James knew the contents of his son’s text messages or journal.
Lawyers for Jennifer Crumbley, James’ wife, made a similar argument in her trial on the same charge, which ended with her conviction on Feb. 6.
That was the first time a parent faced such a charge stemming from a U.S. school shooting by a child.
The U.S., a country with persistent gun violence, has experienced a series of school shootings over the years, often carried out by current or former students.