Jurors to decide fate of Michigan school shooter’s mother

PONTIAC, Mich. – An Oakland County jury will decide whether the mother of the Oxford High School shooter should bear criminal responsibility for her son’s violence, or if she simply made tragic lapses in judgment but could not have foreseen the harm her son caused.

Deliberations are set to begin Monday in the trial against Jennifer Crumbley, 45, on involuntary manslaughter charges in connection with the deaths of four students her son killed in the Nov. 30, 2021, shooting: Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; and Justin Shilling, 17. She faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors called 21 witnesses over two weeks, including school officials who raised concerns about the shooter’s mental health, survivors of the shooting and law enforcement officers who investigated. The case marks the first time a parent has been tried with manslaughter in connection with a mass shooting.

“She has done the unthinkable, and because of that, four kids have died,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said Friday about Crumbley.

Crumbley’s defense attorney, Shannon Smith, countered by calling a single witness: Crumbley herself.

During her rebuttal at the end of closing arguments, McDonald’s voice rose in anger on Friday as she rebuked the defense attorney’s characterization that the charges against Crumbley were a political “witch hunt” or an attempt to atone for the victims’ suffering.

She told jurors the case is about everything Crumbley chose not to do in the face of warning signs her son had descended into a mental health crisis: Not taking him seriously when he texted her he was hearing and seeing things in their house; buying him a gun even as Crumbley vocally worried to acquaintances about her son’s recent loneliness and mood swings; and not immediately taking him out of school when Crumbley learned about violent drawings he made on a class assignment the day of the shooting.

“When she took the stand and she testified about her own loss, and she was asked the question, ‘You lost everything,’ she said yes,” McDonald said during her closing arguments Friday afternoon. “She hasn’t lost everything, ladies and gentlemen. Her son is still alive.”

But Smith accused prosecutors of cherry-picking evidence to make Crumbley look like a negligent parent who ignored the shooting’s warning signs but called her a “hypervigilant” parent throughout the trial. Crumbley’s lawyer said the shooter also didn’t have a mental illness but was a manipulator, and no parent would purchase their child a gun if he or she were mentally ill.

“He has never shown signs of mental illness,” Smith said.

She also said the case could set a dangerous precedent for other parents.

“Can every parent really be responsible for everything their children do?” Smith asked.

Two pictures of Crumbley emerged throughout the trial. Prosecutors portrayed her as a distracted mom who wouldn’t respond to her son’s texts, even when he was nervous about being home alone. They contended she was more concerned about her two horses, volunteering for ski patrol and carrying on an affair with a friend from high school at the time of the shooting.

Smith, Crumbley’s attorney, maintained even until her closing argument that her client was a caring parent, always asking about his whereabouts, taking him on trips and to the doctor when he had a mole on his back that changed colors.

“She cared about her son,” Smith said. “These are parents that clearly loved their child.”

Earlier in the trial, prosecutors highlighted dozens, if not hundreds, of texts the shooter shared with his only friend. He shared concerns about having hallucinations and told his friend that he told his parents that he wanted to see a doctor months before the shooting, but his mom just “laughed” at him.

Testifying on the stand Thursday, Crumbley denied her son asked for help. She also said she never read his text messages and never saw the journal in which he outlined his plans.

During prosecutors’ cross-examination Friday, they also played audio recordings of calls Crumbley made in the weeks after the shooting while booked at the Oakland County Jail. She asked her father to look up calorie counts for bologna sandwiches and start a GoFundMe to raise money for her horses’ board, but it took 10 days before she asked about her son.

Crumbley said she didn’t ask about the teen because she was under the impression her call would be flagged.

Prosecutors said Crumbley also was negligent for buying her son a gun despite concerns about his mental health, but guns were actually so common in the high school’s culture that students posed with them in pictures for dances, Smith said.

Still, McDonald said it was very clear that the 9mm gun purchased a few days before the shooting wasn’t for Jennifer or James Crumbley, her husband. It was a gift for Ethan.

“Not only was it gifted to him, she bragged about it on social media before the shooting,” McDonald said.

The prosecutor said the “smallest of things” could’ve potentially prevented the tragedy that unfolded on Nov. 30, 2021, and that Crumbley did not give her son the help he wanted.

“If you just look at what happened that day, she walked out of school and she knew. She knew. Something bad might happen,” McDonald said. “… She walked out of the school when just the smallest of things could’ve helped Hana, Tate, Madisyn and Justin.”

Still, Smith, Crumbley’s attorney, said prosecutors took much of their evidence out of context.

To illustrate her point about prosecutors taking evidence out of context, Smith picked up a stack of printouts representing 2,000 pages of Facebook messages between James and Jennifer. She set the stack on the podium, adjusting her arm under its weight. Then she held up a manila folder containing a much smaller sheaf of messages that prosecutors introduced as evidence between the beginning of 2021 and the shooting.

“This is it, ladies and gentlemen,” Smith said.

She also suggested prosecutors introduced evidence meant to appeal to the jurors’ emotions but wasn’t actually relevant, out of desperation to make their case stronger. For example, Judge Cheryl Matthews allowed the prosecution to show silent surveillance footage from the shooting and photos from the school in the aftermath of the carnage, including the bodies of two victims and a pool of blood in the bathroom where the fourth died.

As far as her meeting with school officials on Nov. 30 and deciding not to take him home, Smith said Crumbley relied on the guidance of Oxford High School officials who allowed the shooter to stay in school. The shooter’s school counselor and the dean of students testified during the trial that they believed the behavior they saw was an indication of possible mental health concerns, not a threat to others.

“Trained professionals told Mrs. Crumbley her son was not a risk,” Smith said.

The court seated 17 jurors, but only 12 will deliberate the case.

When they return Monday, Matthews will randomly choose five as alternates in case any jurors deliberating become incapable of continuing. The alternate jurors will remain in court until deliberations finish.