The parents of the Michigan teen sentenced to life in prison last month for a school shooting that left four of his classmates dead don’t want details of the killing revealed in court to avoid “inflaming the passions” of the jury hearing the involuntary manslaughter case against them.
James and Jennifer Crumbley want a judge to exclude testimony from an Oxford High School assistant principal who gave a dying boy mouth-to-mouth and a teacher who was shot in the arm, the Detroit Free Press reported. They also tried to stop prosecutors from showing surveillance video of the shooting, carried out by then-15-year-old Ethan Crumbley on November 30, 2021, although the judge has since ruled the video is admissable.
Prosecutors say the Crumbleys could have prevented the shooting had they told officials they’d just bought their son a gun when they were summoned to school to discuss his troubling behavior.
Instead, the Crumbleys looked at a picture he’d drawn of a gun and a bleeding body — captioned “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me” — promised to get him help in a few days and asked that he be sent back to class so they could go back to work. Two hours later, Ethan Crumbley, who had brought his early Christmas present to school, opened fire with it, as CrimeOnline reported.
After the shooting, the Crumbleys fled to Detroit and hid until police tracked them down.
In filings made Friday, prosecutors accused the Crumbleys of trying to “sanitize” the horrific shooting and distance themselves “from the devastation” they could have prevented, the Free Press said.
“Testimony about how the four victims were killed is undoubtedly damaging to the (Crumbleys) … but that does not make it unfairly prejudicial,” Assistant Oakland County Prosecutor Marc Keast wrote in the filing. “The evidence will not confuse the jury. Quite the opposite, this evidence will give the jury a more complete picture of how the deaths occurred.”
The Crumbleys, Keast wrote, are “glossing over the shooting itself.”
Keast wrote that the Crumbleys, by their “own gross negligence,” caused the deaths of Hana St. Juliana, 14; Tate Myre, 16; Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and Justin Shilling, 17. Seven others were wounded, including a teacher.
The prosecutor also wrote that the Crumbleys plan to call their own witnesses to testify about their son’s activities on the day of the shooting even while trying to prevent the prosecution from calling its witnesses.
“The (defendants) want to shift blame to teachers and counselors by limiting witness testimony to events leading up the shooting, and then glossing over the shooting itself,” Keast writes.
Oakland County Judge Cheryl Williams will preside over a hearing on the witness testimony on Wednesday. The Crumbleys face up to 15 years in prison if they’re convicted.
Ethan Crumbley pleaded guilty last year before being sentenced to life in prison without parole. His parents remain in jail on $500,000 bonds awaiting trial.
See previous reporting from CrimeOnline about the Crumbley case.
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[Featured image: Jennifer Crumbley, Ethan Crumbley, and James Crumbley/Oakland County Jail]
