Jennifer and James Crumbley, who were convicted of involuntary manslaughter for failing to stop their teenage son from killing four classmates in the worst school shooting in Michigan history, will be sentenced by a judge on Tuesday.
Separate jury trials resulted in guilty verdicts in February and March, making them the first parents in the country to be convicted of the deaths of their child in a mass shooting.
Involuntary manslaughter charges are punishable in Michigan by up to 15 years in prison, and prosecutors asked in sentencing briefs filed in court last week that the Crumbleys serve at least 10 years each. Both have been in prison for more than two years awaiting trial and asked the court for a lighter sentence.
Prosecutors said Ms. Crumbley, 46, asked to be sentenced to house arrest at her defense lawyer’s property, rather than serve a prison sentence. And Mr Crumbley said he had been wrongly convicted and his sentence should be equivalent to the time he had already served in prison, adding that he felt “absolutely horrible” about what had happened.
Prosecutors revealed that Mr. Crumbley, 47, had made threatening statements from jail to Karen McDonald, the Oakland County district attorney who made the rare decision to prosecute the attacker’s parents. Mr. Crumbley’s prison communication privileges were restricted during the trial, but the reason for that action was not disclosed at the time.
Prosecutors said Mr Crumbley made a phone call from prison in January in which he said he was “in a rage” and that Ms McDonald “better be scared”, adding an expletive. Mariell Lehman, a lawyer for Mr. Crumbley, did not respond to a request for comment.
The Crumbleys will be sentenced by Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Matthews in Pontiac, Mich., who oversaw their trials.
The Crumbleys’ son, Ethan, was 15 when he opened fire on Nov. 30, 2021, at Oxford High School, killing Madisyn Baldwin, 17. Tate Myre, 16; Justin Schilling, 17; and Hana St. Juliana, 14. Seven others were injured. He pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including first-degree murder, and was sentenced last year to life in prison without parole. He still has the right to appeal this decision. His parents can also appeal.
In both parents’ trials, prosecutors focused in part on their failure to remove their son from school after he made a violent drawing the morning of the shooting. It included a written plea for help.
They also highlighted Ethan’s access to a gun that Mr. Crumbley had purchased. And they said Mrs Crumbley had missed signs her son was struggling with his mental health, adding she had taken him to a gun range just days before the shooting.
The parents requested separate trials and Ms. Crumbley chose to testify while Mr. Crumbley did not take the stand. Defense lawyers for both parents said they could not have foreseen the unspeakable violence their son would commit.
Their trials became a lightning rod for parenting issues in an era of high-profile gun violence by minors. In recent months, parents in other states have pleaded guilty to reckless conduct or neglect after their children injured or killed others with guns.
But the manslaughter charges against the Crumbleys were unique, and legal experts are helping their trials serve as a playbook for other prosecutors seeking to hold parents accountable in the future.
Prosecutors said in their sentencing briefs that Ms Crumbley and her defense lawyer, Shannon Smith, had asked for Ms Crumbley to be released from prison “on house arrest” and had suggested Ms Crumbley could stay at her home Mrs. Smith. boarding house in Oakland County.
Prosecutors called this idea “a slap in the face to the seriousness of the tragedy caused by the defendant’s gross negligence.”
In Ms Crumbley’s own statement, according to the same note, she said “there are so many things I would change if I could go back in time”. She added that she saw her son as “a quiet, good kid” and that she “never imagined he would hurt other people the way he did.”
Ms. Smith declined a request to be interviewed.
