(The Center Square) – The parents of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley have been sentenced to 10-15 years in prison for allowing their minor son access to a firearm that he used to kill four students in and wound seven others in 2021.
Ethan pleaded guilty in 2022 and 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.
a jury found Jennifer and James Crumbley both guilty of manslaughter.
Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Matthews said the parents didn’t take action to stop the shooting.
“These convictions confirm repeated acts or lack of acts that could have halted an oncoming runaway train,” Matthews said. “Repeated ignoring things that make a reasonable person feel the hair on the back of their neck stand up
Matthews said the sentences were in the “best interest of justice, and are reasonable and proportionate to the seriousness of the matter…”
Jennifer was granted 858 days for time served.
The prosecution argued Ethan 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.”
Jennifer expressed her “deepest sorrow” about the mass shooting before the sentencing.
James told the victim’s families that he was “truly very sorry” and that he wished he had known about the shooting beforehand.
“I cannot express how much I wish that I had known what was going on with him or what was going on,” James said in the courtroom.
