(The Center Square) – A jury has found Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of the 2021 Oxford school shooter, guilty of manslaughter.
The jury decided the mother was grossly negligent when her actions resulted in her then-15-year-old son Ethan Crumbley obtaining a 9 mm pistol he used to shoot and kill four Oxford High School students in November 2021 and wounded seven others.
The decision followed about a day of deliberations. Jennifer Crumbey pleaded not guilty to four counts of involuntary manslaughter and argued her husband, James, was responsible for securing the firearm. James’s trial is scheduled for next month.
The prosecution argued Ethan Crumbley asked his parents for mental health help via text messages and drawings but they laughed at him and ignored him.
Jennifer Crumbley took the stand last week to argue her son had general anxiety about school and the future but didn’t need mental health help.
Jennifer admitted to spending about $21,000 on horses in 2021 but didn’t evaluate her son’s mental health after he texted her the same year claiming he was seeing “demons.”
On the day of the shooting, Ethan and his parents met with school staff after they found drawings of shootings of violence, blood and guns.
The drawings were alongside the words: “the thoughts won’t stop [sic] help me”, “life is useless”, and “the world is dead.”
Ethan Crumbley is serving life in prison without parole for killing 16-year-old Tate Myre, 14-year-old Hanna St. Julian, 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin, and 17-year-old Justin Schilling.
The conviction marks the first time that a parent of a school shooter has been charged and convicted for allowing a minor access to a firearm.
The shooting helped enact support for a safe storage law passed by the Michigan Legislature that will require guns to be locked away when minors are in the home or are expected to be.
