Jurors heard closing arguments Friday in the case against Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of the then-15-year-old boy who opened fire at Michigan’s Oxford High School in 2021, killing four of his classmates and injuring several others.
Deliberations are expected to start Monday morning.
Jennifer Crumbley, 45, and her husband, James Crumbley, are facing four counts each of involuntary manslaughter for the deadly shooting carried out by their son son, Ethan Crumbley. The elder Crumbleys are being tried separately, with James Crumbley’s trial expected to start in March.
Prosecutors allege that the Crumbleys failed to respond appropriately to signs that their son was in mental distress, instead gifting him with a gun days before the Nov. 30, 2021 shooting. On the stand Thursday and Friday, Jennifer Crumbley testified that Ethan Crumbley never said anything to make her think that he needed mental health help.
Prosecutors described Ethan Crumbley as a lonely boy who showed signs of depression and other mental issues which were ignored or flatly dismissed by his parents. He lost his only close friend in an unexpected move shortly before he carried out the shooting and was grappling with the aftermath of losing a grandparent and a family dog, according to testimony.
Prosecutors characterized Jennifer Crumbley as a neglectful mother who didn’t take her son’s cries for help seriously and instead focused on her own well-being. Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said she failed to give her son “ordinary care,” putting her work and interests over her son even after she was called to his school on the day of the shooting because of disturbing messages and images he had drawn on a math assignment.
“She testified that when she’s looking back, she still wouldn’t do one thing different,” McDonald said in closing arguments. “Not one. Not any of those small, those tragically small things — even now, she told you she wouldn’t do anything different.”
Defense attorney Shannon Smith argued that Jennifer Crumbley was not criminally responsible for her son’s actions. She gave her own family situation as an example, talking about her son.
“As he gets older — I do know that he’s interested in girls — if he starts receiving nude pictures of a girl on the cellphone I own but let him use and gave him for his birthday when he turned 11, should I be held accountable for receiving child pornography if a girl sexts him over some inappropriate pictures?” she asked jurors in closing arguments.
She said that the Crumbleys were a family that played together and joked with one another, adding that Ethan Crumbley never showed signs that he needed help. Her client earlier testified that texts from her son in which he appeared to exhibit paranoid behavior, saying that the family’s house was haunted and urging her to contact him, were part of a running joke in the family.
The case is the first in which parents have been charged for a mass shooting carried out by their child.
Ethan Crumbley, now 17, pleaded guilty in 2022 to two dozen charges, including terrorism and multiple counts of first-degree murder. Last month, a judge sentenced him to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors said that social media posts showed that Ethan Crumbley planned the mass shooting at Oxford High School in advance. He shot and killed Hana St. Juliana, 14; Tate Myre, 16; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; and Justin Shilling, 17. Seven other people were injured.
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