Jury selection is set to begin Tuesday in the trial of James Crumbley, whose son killed four students and wounded seven others at a Michigan high school in 2021, the deadliest shooting in state history.
Three days after the Oxford High School shooting, prosecutors took the rare step of filing involuntary manslaughter charges against Mr. Crumbley, 47, and his wife, Jennifer Crumbley, 45, in one of the nation’s most high-profile efforts to keep parents. responsible for violent crimes committed by their children.
Mrs Crumbley was convicted of manslaughter in a separate trial last month. He will be sentenced next month and faces up to 15 years in prison. The Crumbleys’ son pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including first-degree murder, and was sentenced in December to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Here’s what else you need to know about the case.
What happened at Oxford High
Officials called the Crumbleys to Oxford Middle School on the morning of Nov. 30, 2021, after a teacher saw a drawing by their son depicting a gun and ammunition. The son, Ethan Crumbley, was then a 15-year-old sophomore at the school in suburban Detroit.
“Blood everywhere,” he had written next to the drawings. “Thoughts won’t stop. Help me.”
The couple spoke with a counselor and decided their son could stay at school that day, Ms. Crumbley testified during her trial. Neither his parents nor school officials searched his backpack, which contained a Sig Sauer 9mm handgun.
Authorities said Ethan later fired 30 shots with the handgun in a hallway at the school, killing Madisyn Baldwin, 17. Tate Myre, 16; Justin Schilling, 17; and Hana St. Juliana, 14. Seven other people were injured.
According to testimony at his mother’s trial, the teenager had kept a diary revealing his plans for the massacre. The magazine also featured appeals about his mental health. “My parents won’t listen to me for help or a therapist,” she wrote.
Because prosecutors charged the parents
Prosecutors charged the Crumbleys with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, one for each student killed in the shooting. They argued that the parents were guilty of allowing their son access to a gun while ignoring warnings that he was on the verge of violence.
Mr. Crumbley bought the gun his son used in the shooting, records show, and Mrs. Crumbley accompanied her son to a shooting range days before he killed his classmates. Prosecutors said the gun was a Christmas present.
Karen D. McDonald, the Oakland County District Attorney, said she believed the parents had some responsibility for the shooting.
“The facts of this case are so outrageous,” he said at a press conference in December 2021, pointing to what Ethan had written in class hours before the shooting. He added: “The idea that a parent could read those words and also know that their son had access to a deadly weapon that was given to him is unconscionable and I think it’s criminal.”
Lawyers for the Crumbleys said the couple “were completely shocked parents who had no reason to foresee what was going to happen”.
A key issue in the trial of James Crumbley
Prosecutors in the upcoming trial are likely to focus on the gun used in the killings. The teenager said the gun was not locked and Mrs Crumbley testified at her trial that her husband was more familiar with firearms and was responsible for storing the gun.
At the time of the shooting, Michigan, unlike nearly 30 other states, did not require adults to keep guns in their homes away from children. State lawmakers passed legislation last year requiring firearms stored in the presence of minors to be unloaded and locked. The rules came into effect last month.
In a setback for Mr Crumbley’s defence, the judge recently rejected the father’s request to exclude his son’s diary entries and text messages from evidence.
The judge also ruled that a student witness to the shooting could testify. Mr Crumbley’s lawyer had argued that the trial was about parenting decisions that took place before the shooting and that testimony about the massacre itself would not be relevant.
Pursuing the shooter’s parents could be influential
Several parents of children who have committed gun violence in recent years have faced charges of reckless conduct or negligence.
But the involuntary manslaughter charges against the Crumbleys stand out, experts said, making their prosecution an important test case.
Ms. Crumbley’s conviction could have implications for other trials, Ekow N. Yankah, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, said after she was found guilty last month.
“We pay attention to spectacular cases,” he said, “and we don’t pay attention to how much they change the law in non-spectacular cases — how many plea deals, how many people will spend more time in prison because they don’t want to risk a guilty verdict like this.”
The report was made by Jack Healy, Campbell Robertson and Stephanie Saul.
