ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. — The parents of the accused Oxford High School shooter were ordered Thursday to stand trial for involuntary manslaughter in connection with the deadly Nov. 30 rampage.
Judge Julie Nicholson of 52-3 District Court made the ruling regarding James and Jennifer Crumbley following a two-day preliminary examination with more than a half-dozen witnesses in Rochester Hills District Court. The couple's 15-year-old son, Ethan Crumbley, is accused of carrying out the shooting that killed four and injured six other students and a teacher.
“There was extensive testimony that Ethan Crumbley was a troubled young man,” Nicholson said in making the ruling. “And they purchased him a gun, which he did use.”
The case was likely to go to trial because legal experts said the prosecution had to meet a low bar of evidence, only proving there is probable cause an offense was committed. By contrast, at trial, James and Jennifer Crumbley are still presumed innocent and must be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
The couple faces four counts each for the four slain victims — Hana St. Juliana, 14; Tate Myre, 16; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; and Justin Shilling, 17. Each felony charge is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
“If they (James and Jennifer) had exercised reasonable care for their son, Hana, Tate, Madison, and Justin would still be here,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said. “It was a direct result of this gross negligence.”
Defense attorney Shannon Smith insisted that there was no information that Ethan was going to commit a school shooting.
“There is no reason to predict and foreshadow that there would be a school shooting," she said.
Smith said prosecutors were trying to make the couple out to be "the worst people in the world."
“But at the end of the day, the law doesn't care about what kind of parents they were,” she said. “It cares whether we knew their son was going to commit murder. James and Jennifer Crumbley did not know that a murder would be committed. Jennifer and James would have been horrified.”
Testimony Thursday revealed the teen allegedly kept a 21-page notebook detailing his desire to commit "the biggest school shooting in Michigan's history" and that his first victim had to be "a pretty girl."
Details of the accused Oxford High School shooter's journal were laid out in testimony from Oakland County Sheriff Department Lt. Timothy Willis.
“The first victim has to be to be a pretty girl with a future so she can suffer like me,” Willis added, citing writings from the notebook.
The journal continued: “I will do the biggest school shooting in Michigan’s history."
A school counselor told the court Thursday that hours before the shooting unfolded a "sad" Ethan had confided in a school counselor that his family dog had died, he'd lost a grandparent, his friend moved away and the COVID-19 pandemic had been "tough for him."
Oxford High counselor Shawn Hopkins said he called Ethan down to the office to talk about the distressing drawing he allegedly made on a math paper that at one point depicted a gun and a dead body.
Hopkins said Ethan first told him he was drawing a video game, but Hopkins pressed him over a phrase also scribbled on the paper: "My life is useless."
"I wanted to ask 'What does that mean? This does not sound like a video game,'" he said. "His demeanor then changed. He became sad. He started to pause more in his speech."
Hopkins testified that he called the parents to the school on Nov. 30. When they arrived they "weren't friendly or showing care," he said. They didn't address their son or physically comfort him.
Before James and Jennifer arrived, Hopkins said he worked to engage Ethan, inquiring about his plans after high school in an attempt to relieve the high nerves of a child waiting for his parents.
Ethan told him: “I know this looks bad, but I’m not going to do anything," Hopkins testified Thursday.
Hopkins stressed to the court that he'd "determined there was enough suicidal ideation that I called his home." But he did not believe the teen was "actively suicidal" nor did he believe Ethan was a threat.
Other testimony this month showed the parents spent about 15 minutes at the school that morning before they departed, without their son, to return to their respective jobs. Ethan returned to class with the gun allegedly used in the killings inside his backpack. Hopkins testified Thursday that the backpack was not searched.
The shooting began less than two hours later, leaving four students dead and six other students and a teacher wounded.
Late morning testimony characterized the parents as cold and uncaring and came after defense attorneys pushed back on claims that the couple ignored warning signs of their son’s troubling behavior and asserted they were unaware of multiple social media accounts depicting “guns and ghost-looking figures.”
Defense attorney Smith opened the second day of the preliminary exam by questioning Oakland County Sheriff's Office Detective Edward Wagrowski about text message exchanges and social media posts between the parents, with their son, and between the teen and a juvenile friend.
The teen, via text message exchanges with his friend, she said, talked about "not getting caught" for his actions, including allegedly torturing a family of birds and beheading at least one of them.
“There is no way to tell if Jennifer and James even saw those photographs,” Smith said referring to social media activity from Ethan Crumbley. “Even beyond that, there’s no way to tell whether they (the parents) knew about other existing Instagram accounts."
Smith read off text messages between the parents reflecting the couple's mutual alarm over the alleged school drawing by their son.
"There is absolutely nothing in there (text exchanges) to suggest ... 'our son is going to commit a mass shooting,'" Smith stressed, and Wagrowski agreed.
She also noted that in messages between Ethan Crumbley and his friend, Ethan talked about "not getting caught" including for his alleged mutilation of a bird.
"He talks about efforts he's making to wait until his parents leave the house so he can do things and not get caught," Smith said. "There’s certainly nothing in those texts that show ‘my mom and dad know I’m cutting off the head of a bird and support me in doing those things.'"
Smith established that Ethan had at least two social media accounts his parents didn't follow and might not have been aware of and further questioned Wagrowski over an Instagram video depicting Ethan holding a gun. There is a lock on the gun.
“You can’t tell if parents were there, if friends were there, or if Ethan was alone, correct?” Smith said. He agreed. She also noted that "it's not illegal to take a video racking a gun."
Smith pointed to a Facebook message exchange on Nov. 30 sent by Jennifer to James after she was alerted of Ethan's alleged drawings.
“CALL NOW,” she wrote. Jennifer also had sent her husband a screenshot of the drawings Ethan allegedly made, Smith said.
James responded: “My God, WTF."
The texts admitted as evidence in the case between James and Jennifer span from September 2020 to Nov. 30, 2021, the day of the shooting.
Prosecutors argue Crumbley's parents were distracted and unconcerned as their son allegedly spiraled. But Smith sought to challenge that, using the year-plus string of text messages, noting "in the grand scheme of things, they (James and Jennifer) discuss their son frequently."
“If there were texts indicating they were concerned their son would become homicidal, that would’ve been included," Smith added.
Earlier this month, the Oakland County prosecutor’s office presented a series of witnesses who testified that the couple knew their son was lonely and troubled leading up to the shooting and the morning it transpired.
Prosecutors have portrayed the pair as more concerned with their jobs, marital issues and the care of two horses they owned at a Metamora ranch.
Marc Keast, an assistant Oakland County prosecutor, noted Thursday that Ethan had texted his friend about his home life and mental health. In one message, Ethan writes “everybody makes me feel like I’m the problem."
“It’s like I’m asking to go to the doctor,” Ethan texted. “Then seeing my mom laugh when I told her.”
Wagrowski testified that Ethan and a friend were “playing a lot of video games,” at “all hours of the night.”
Keast cited a text from Ethan when he said he only got 17 hours of sleep in five days.
Keast said Ethan, in exchanges with his juvenile friend, talked about being "f----- up" and about "his dark side."
He also talked about trying to bring things up to his parents. Including on April 5, 2021, Keast said, when his mom suggested that he was “so mad and sad all the time because I take drugs," Ethan wrote to his friend, and said his mother “doesn’t worry about my mental health.”
"My mom makes everyone feel like a piece of s---," Ethan wrote. "I actually asked my dad to take me to the doctor yesterday but he just gave me some pills and told me to 'suck it up.'"
Cammy Back also took the stand Thursday. Back is an office manager at the gun store where James Crumbley on Nov. 26 purchased the 9mm handgun allegedly used in the shooting.
Back noted the store has notices posted throughout on youth gun safety, with a “don’t lie for the other guy,” to warn people against buying guns for those unable to buy their own. Due to his age, Ethan would not have been allowed to buy a gun.
Back testified Crumbley, who had purchased guns at the store before, told her he wanted to buy the gun outright and it wasn't necessary for him to first take a look at it, saying "I've had my eye on it for a few days."
The store was busy the day of the purchase, she said, and several people were in line. James Crumbley was with someone “not an adult,” she testified.
He was about 5’7", young, with dark hair, Back said.
Lehman on cross-examination noted “under federal law, it is not illegal for a minor to temporarily possess a handgun, under certain conditions," citing shooting ranges and gun instruction as examples.
“It wouldn’t be illegal if Mr. Crumbley allowed his son to use a handgun at a shooting range?” Lehman asked.
“In his presence, yes,” Back testified.
Prosecutors have said James and Jennifer Crumbley failed to properly secure the gun purchased for their son as a Christmas present and to heed warning signs pointed out by school officials about his mental health.
Thursday afternoon prosecutors played video footage of the teen and his mother visiting a firing range three days prior to the shooting.
Jennifer Crumbley reserved 30 minutes of range time, purchased two boxes of ammunition and a single paper target.
The video depicts Ethan at ease as he loads and racks the gun and begins firing repeatedly at the paper target. His mother then takes a turn, appearing to struggle with the weapon. Ethan steps in to guide her and then she fires a few rounds.
Dillon O’Connell handled the purchase that day. He testified Thursday that he later gave information to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives of Jennifer Crumbley's Nov. 27 purchase.
Hopkins, the school's counselor, in response to questions from McDonald admitted he'd had no knowledge about Ethan's home life, his allegedly unanswered pleas for mental health care and support from his parents. He also was unaware that the parents had purchased Ethan a gun.
The parents, he told McDonald, didn't ask questions about Hopkins' assessment of their son's fragile mental state and they didn't display concern.
Jennifer Crumbley playfully admonished her son for being called to the school office the day before the shooting, according to earlier testimony, after he was caught in class searching for bullets on his cellphone. She assured him he wasn't in trouble.
Attorneys for the couple have argued that James and Jennifer Crumbley believed that the weapon was secured in a bedroom.
James Crumbley also placed a frantic call to 911 after he'd heard of the shooting at the school and realized the gun was missing.
Their son, who has pleaded not guilty and provided notice to Oakland County Circuit Court of plans to assert an insanity defense, faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison.
