The parents of Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 when he fatally shot four of his classmates at school in November 2021, could face trial for the involuntary manslaughter charges filed against them.
The Michigan Supreme Court on Tuesday denied James and Jennifer Crumbley’s appeal challenging a lower court’s decision to allow the couple to stand trial.
The Supreme Court said it denied the appeal because judges “are not persuaded that the question presented should be reviewed by this Court.”
James and Jennifer are each facing four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Evidence filed against them so far includes text messages that appear to show how they ignored their son’s pleas for help in the year prior to the shooting. Jennifer also said in a Facebook post prior to the shooting that she and her husband purchased a gun as a Christmas present for their son.
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The day of the shooting, both parents met with Ethan’s school counselor after he was caught with violent drawings in class. Prosecutors say the parents “flatly refused” to take him home that morning.
Hours later, Ethan took the gun his parents apparently purchased for him out of his backpack and killed 16-year-old Tate Myre, 16-year-old Justin Shilling, 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana and 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin. He injured seven others.
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Ethan could face life in prison without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled last week.
In a March filing, the Michigan Court of Appeals laid out its reasoning behind allowing a trial for James and Jennifer Crumbley.
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“Despite their knowledge of all of these circumstances, when given the option to help [Ethan] and take him out of school, defendants did nothing,” the filing states. “They did not, contrary to the recommendations of [school counselor Shawn] Hopkins, take [Ethan] home and get him immediate medical help. Nor, when they decided to leave him at school, did they tell school officials about [Ethan’s] history of mental health issues nor explain to them that [Ethan] had access to a gun similar to the one he drew on the math worksheet.”
The filing added that neither James nor Jennifer Crumbley asked Ethan “if he had the gun with him nor did they look in his backpack. And, when they left the school, defendants did not go home and ensure [Ethan] had not taken the gun.”
Attorneys for the Crumbley parents argue they could not have predicted their son’s plan to commit a mass shooting before it happened.
If James and Jennifer Crumbley do make it to trial, it would be the first of its kind.
The parents left their hometown of Oxford at the time of the shooting, and authorities, including the U.S. Marshals Service, issued an alert for their arrests. Their attorneys said they fled for their own safety and turned themselves in several days later.
