The father of Oxford school shooter Ethan Crumbley has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter after delivering the gun used in the shooting to his son.
A jury convicted James Crumbley of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the fatal shooting in 2021 after deliberating for ten hours.
Crumbley, 47, joins his wife Jennifer Crumbley, who was also found guilty Feb. 6 of involuntary manslaughter.
The two are the first parents in the United States to be held responsible for a child who carries out a mass school attack.
Their son Ethan, then 15 years old, opened fire at the school in Oxford, Michigan, killing Hana St. Juliana, Madisyn Baldwin, Tate Myre and Justin Shilling.
Crumbley, seen here, joins his wife Jennifer Crumbley, who was also found guilty on Feb. 6 of involuntary manslaughter
His son Ethan, then 15 years old, opened fire at the school in Oxford, Michigan, killing Hana St. Juliana, Madisyn Baldwin, Tate Myre and Justin Shilling
Ethan Crumbley pleaded guilty to his crimes and is currently serving life in prison without the possibility of parole after murdering four classmates in the 2021 Oxford High School shooting
He pleaded guilty in 2022 to four counts of first-degree murder and other charges and was sentenced to life in prison without parole in December.
Crumbley faced four counts of involuntary manslaughter, one for each of the victims at Oxford High School in the 2021 shootings. Jurors began deliberating Wednesday.
“This is a very eerie and rare, rare set of facts,” Oakland County, Michigan, prosecutor Karen McDonald told the jury during closing arguments Wednesday.
McDonald said Crumbley ignored signs that his son was deeply disturbed, didn’t get him the help he needed and didn’t store the firearm safely in the family home.
McDonald also presented the jury with texts Ethan Crumbley had sent to a friend and journal entries he had written in the months leading up to the shooting.
In these he talked about wanting medical attention and hearing voices, but he was afraid his parent would be ‘pissed off’.
On one occasion, according to a text message to a friend, Ethan asked Crumbley to take him to the doctor, but his father ‘gave me some pills and told me to suck it up’.
Defense attorney Mariell Lehman argued that James Crumbley could not possibly have foreseen that his son would carry out a mass shooting.
“James had no idea his son was struggling,” Lehman told jurors during his closing argument, saying no evidence had been presented that James knew the contents of his son’s text messages or diary.
Justin Shilling, 17, (left) and Tate Myre, 16, (right) were two of four students killed in the senseless shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan
Madisyn Baldwin, 17, (left) and Hana St Juliana, 14, (right) died in the 2021 shooting at Oxford High School in suburban Detroit
Crumbley, accompanied by Ethan, purchased a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol over Thanksgiving weekend in 2021.
The boy called it his ‘new beau’ on social media. His mother described the gun as a Christmas present and took him to a shooting range.
Four days after the purchase, the parents went to Oxford High to discuss a violent picture their son had drawn on a maths paper.
Next to the drawing included phrases that said: ‘Thoughts don’t stop. Help me.’ There was a gun on the paper that looked like a Sig Sauer.
The Crumbleys didn’t take him home, and the school staff – who believed he might be suicidal – didn’t demand it either.
But no one checked the boy’s backpack for a gun, and the shooting happened that afternoon.
During the trial, prosecutors showed that the gun, a newly acquired Sig Sauer 9mm, was not safely secured in the Crumbley home.