Mass Shooting in Michigan High School

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is it because of crack epidemic?

Testimony during the first day of the preliminary exam for the parents of accused Oxford High School shooter Ethan R. Crumbley delved into infidelity, possible mental illness, Jennifer Crumbley’s love of horses and her 15-year-old son’s fascination with guns.

The prosecution intends to prove parents James and Jennifer Crumbley knew or should have known their son was disturbed, that he needed help, but they were too busy with their own lives, including work, horses and extramarital affairs, to take the measures necessary to head off the shooting that resulted in the deaths of four high school students on Nov. 30.

Oakland County Sheriff’s Detective Edward Wagrowski reviewed photos, videos, call logs and messages extracted from the Crumbleys phones, in addition to analyzing social media posts, school surveillance videos and 911 calls connected to the shooting investigation during a Tuesday, Feb. 8 preliminary examination in Rochester Hills.

“Now it’s time to shoot up the school,” Ethan Crumbley sent in a text to an unidentified person on Aug. 20, according to Wagrowski. Crumbley then typed “j/k,” multiple times, which the detective said is shorthand for “just kidding.”

The messages were accompanied by a video of a hand holding a gun that was played in court.

“My dad left it out, so I thought, well, why not,” Crumbley texted. While the detective didn’t name the recipient of the texts, he said it was a juvenile. Previous testimony indicated Jennifer Crumbley told a coworker her son only had one friend.

In other text conversations, the pair talked about “kidnapping and killing another classmate,” Wagrowski testified. “There’s also videos of killing and mutilating baby birds.”

Within minutes of hearing about the shooting at Oxford High School, James Crumbley, who worked as a food delivery driver for Door Dash, drove home and shortly after called 911.

“I’m at the house, there’s an active shooter at the high school, my son is at the high school, I have a missing gun at my house,” James Crumbley told the dispatcher. “My son took the gun. I don’t know what’s going on.”

A couple hours earlier, James and Jennifer Crumbley were called to the school to discuss with Ethan Crumbley’s counselor the disturbing words and drawings their son is believed to have scribbled on a workbook assignment, including a drawing of a gun and the phrases, “help me,” “My life is useless,” and “The thoughts won’t stop.”

The parents didn’t remove their son from school, but they were ordered to obtain professional psychiatric or psychological assistance for him within 48 hours.

After Jennifer Crumbley received a voicemail from the school the day prior, alerting her that Ethan Crumbley was caught looking up bullets on his phone in class, the mother searched for “clinical depression treatment options” on her phone, according to the Wagrowski.

As early as March, Ethan indicated he may have been experiencing paranoid thoughts, according to other text messages the prosecution revealed in court Tuesday.

Amanda Holland, an administrative assistant at the real estate company, testified that Jennifer Crumbley began speaking with her occasionally about “marital issues” that began in 2021 and led to a temporary separation.

Holland testified that Jennifer Crumbley told her she was having an extramarital affair and meeting with the person during work hours.

Defense attorneys for the Crumbleys, Shannon Smith and Mariell Lehman, argued that the status of the Crumbleys’ marriage wasn’t relevant to the hearing.

The defense’s objection was overruled by Oakland County 52nd District, 3rd Division Court Judge Julie A. Nicholson.

In the meantime, James Crumbley was returning to the family home to look for the gun that prosecutors said the couple gave Ethan Crumbley as an early Christmas gift.

“The gun is gone and so are the bullets,” Jennifer Crumbley soon after told her boss, Andrew Smith, in a text message, Smith testified. “OMG, Andy, he’s going to kill himself. He must be the shooter ... Ethan did it.”

The preliminary hearing for his parents is scheduled to resume at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 24.

A preliminary hearing is held to determine if there is adequate evidence for a case to move forward toward trial in circuit court.

The teenage student who killed four classmates in a shooting rampage at a Michigan high school last year pleaded guilty on Monday to two dozen charges, including terrorism — an extraordinarily unusual charge in a school shooting.
Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 when he opened fire at an Oxford, Mich., high school, was charged as an adult with one count of terrorism causing death, four counts of fir-degree murder, seven counts of assault with intent to murder and 12 counts of possession of a firearm.

News of his plan to plead guilty emerged Friday, nearly 10 months after his lawyers said in court filings that they planned to pursue an insanity defense.

Crumbley’s guilty plea to even one count of first-degree murder could lead to him spending the rest of his life in prison.

The Nov. 30 shooting prompted extraordinary charges: a state-level domestic terrorism count against the suspect and involuntary manslaughter charges against his parents, who bought him the gun used in the attack.

Crumbley’s case is notable for the fact that most defendants in school and mass-shooting cases never make it to trial; most kill themselves or are killed by police during a standoff. But his state terrorism charge represents a relatively novel approach to prosecuting mass shootings.

Michigan was an early adopter of the post-9/11 trend in making terrorism a state-level felony and has among the most-robust laws of the 34 states and District of Columbia that prosecute terrorism at the state level. The laws were originally developed for a very different purpose than the way they’re being used in the Crumbley case, according to Javed Ali, a University of Michigan public policy professor who worked in counterterrorism for the federal government.

“Even though the [laws] have been on the books for years, for some reason it only seems now that prosecutors and attorneys general are using this part of their tool kit to be more aggressive about mass shootings,” Ali said.

Michigan’s law is one way state and local authorities can fill the gap in federal law, since there is no federal charge of domestic terrorism, only a statutory definition of it. That’s why every act of violence in the United States that fits the definition of domestic terrorism is never federally charged as such, Ali said.

“It’s usually a hate crime or a conspiracy charge,” he said.

The Oxford attack marks a turning point in how mass shootings are being prosecuted, Ali said, citing the suspect of the Topps Grocery store shooting suspect in Buffalo who was indicted on hate crime charges at the state and federal level, and on New York domestic terrorism charges.

Last year, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald explained that her decision to bring the terrorism charge against Crumbley was a way to address the victims and their families who may have survived the shooting but whose lives were permanently altered by it.

Crumbley’s plea means he could be compelled to testify at his parents’ trial; if subpoenaed, he could not invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination because he has already pleaded guilty to his charges.

James and Jennifer Crumbley last year were charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, another relatively rare move in which prosecutors sought to spread liability for a mass shooting to a suspect’s parents. Investigators said the Crumbleys purchased a firearm for their son as a gift and allegedly did not intervene when he showed signs of distress.

After the shooting, prosecutors revealed that the Oxford High teachers had raised concerns about Ethan Crumbley to his parents up to the day of the shooting when they summoned the family to school for a meeting.

“I am by no means saying that an active-shooter situation should always result in a criminal prosecution against parents,” McDonald said at the time. “But the facts of this case are so egregious.”

On the day of the shooting, a teacher found a drawing of a semiautomatic handgun with a written note: “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.” James and Jennifer Crumbley met with school administrators that morning, but refused to take their son home, allowing him to return to class.

Hours later, when news of the shooting broke, Jennifer Crumbley texted her son: “Ethan, don’t do it.”
The couple, who have pleaded not guilty, tried in July to have their case thrown out, arguing that they never should have been charged because their son is the sole person responsible for killing four people.

Their trial was set to begin Monday but was postponed over apparent challenges from the defense to the kind of expert testimony that may be allowed at their trial, according to court records. No new date has been set.

A teenager who killed four students at his Michigan high school in 2021 was like a “feral child,” deeply neglected by his parents during crucial years and mentally ill, a psychologist testified Tuesday at a hearing to determine if the mass shooter will get a life prison sentence.

Ethan Crumbley’s lawyers also played disturbing videos from jail showing the 17-year-old in deep distress as deputies restrained him while he wailed. In one incident, his head is completely covered with a hood. No dates were disclosed.

“Why didn’t you stop it? I’m sorry. ... Stop it, God, why?” he said.

A psychologist, Colin King, said the shooter was experiencing psychosis, a break from reality. He later predicted that the boy “absolutely” can be rehabilitated.

“A number of my clients have had issues with the law,” said King, who has testified in many homicide cases. “Through psychotherapy and support, they’ve been able to make progress. ... Ethan’s brain is still maturing.”

Crumbley pleaded guilty to murder, terrorism and other charges in a shooting that killed four students and wounded seven others at Oxford High School, about 40 miles north of Detroit.

Because of his age — 15 at the time — the shooter can’t automatically be a given life sentence. Oakland County Judge Kwame Rowe first must consider the shooter’s maturity, mental health, unstable family life and other factors set by the U.S. Supreme Court.

He still can order a life sentence, but it would be a rare outcome for a teen. Crumbley otherwise would face a minimum sentence somewhere between 25 years and 40 years in prison, followed by eligibility for parole. A decision isn’t expected Tuesday, the third and likely final day of the hearing

King said he spent more than 20 hours with the shooter during several meetings, interviewing him and running him through a series of psychological tests. He also reviewed the teen’s dark journal entries and text messages.

King disclosed for the first time that the boy believed that a gun was going to be found in his backpack on the day of the shooting when he was sent to the office for drawing violent images in class.

“Ethan said for the first time in his life he felt relieved,” King testified. “He said he just knew the sheriffs were going to burst into the office and arrest him because there was no way, after all that they saw, they weren’t going to search that backpack.”

But the backpack was never checked, and the boy was allowed to remain in school. He later emerged from a bathroom and started shooting.

King said the shooter was raised in a turbulent home by parents who left him alone for hours, argued in front of him and weren’t discreet when discussing infidelity, divorce and suicide. The boy was even forced to figure out what to do with his beloved dead dog.

“He can be considered a feral child,” King said.

“It is essentially a child who has been abandoned. ... Someone who is abandoned has what is called arrested development,” he said. “They lack social cues. They become misfits in society.”

The shooter, King concluded, has major depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

“He’s mentally ill,” the psychologist said.

Prosecutors want a life prison sentence with no chance for parole. During cross examination of King, they suggested the psychologist was giving the shooter a break.

People with depression “all don’t become mass shooters, do they?” assistant prosecutor David Williams said.

Williams repeated evidence that was entered last week: journal writings and a video made the night before the shooting in which the teen declared his plan to attack the school.

He noted that victim Justin Shilling was executed in a bathroom. “You think that’s the product of a juvenile brain?” Williams asked.

“I do,” King replied.

King said adults repeatedly missed opportunities to help the shooter. But Williams noted that help was just a few days away if the boy really wanted it. His parents had assured school staff that he would get counseling within 48 hours after they saw his violent drawings.

Jennifer Crumbley, the Michigan mother accused of involuntary manslaughter when she failed to inform her 15-year-old son’s high school that the family possessed guns shortly before he went to campus and fatally shot four students and injured six, including a teacher, was found guilty of all charges Tuesday afternoon.

The verdict came after jurors on Monday began deliberations in a case that could shape the criminal liability of parents of underage mass shooters. The maximum penalty for involuntary manslaughter under Michigan law is 15 years in prison.

Crumbley was accused by prosecutors of gross negligence for failing to tell Oxford high school officials that the family had guns, including a 9mm handgun that was used by her son, Ethan Crumbley, at a shooting range just a few days earlier.

The school’s inquiry came after it became concerned about a macabre drawing of a gun, bullet and wounded man, accompanied by disturbing phrases, on a math assignment. “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me. The world is dead. My life is useless,” the 15-year-old had written.

But during a 12-minute meeting with school officials, Crumbley, 45, and her husband James, 47, who is scheduled for trial in March, had not informed the school of the weapon at home and Ethan was allowed to stay in school.

Later that day, 30 November 2021, the teenager pulled the gun and 50 rounds of ammunition from his backpack and opened fire.

“He literally drew a picture of what he was going to do. It says, ‘Help me,’” prosecutor Karen McDonald told the court during closing arguments Friday, alleging that his mother knew that the gun in the boy’s drawing was identical to the new one at home.

“She knew it wasn’t stored properly,” McDonald added. “She knew that he was proficient with the gun. She knew he had access to ammunition.”

Investigators later found a text message in which Crumbley implored her son “don’t do it”, that was sent about an hour after the shootings started. Her lawyer said it was a message referring to the possibility he might kill himself.

In addition to knowledge of the gun, the Crumbleys are accused of ignoring their son’s mental health.

Prosecutors pointed to a journal found in their son’s backpack in which he had written that his parents ignored his pleas for help. They also presented evidence that Crumbley had group sex parties at hotels with a firefighter chief who was having an extramarital affair with her instead of addressing her son’s mental health.

“I have zero help for my mental problems and it’s causing me to shoot up the … school,” the boy wrote.

Ethan, now 17, pleaded guilty to murder and terrorism in 2022, acknowledging he had “knowingly, willfully and deliberately” chosen to shoot other students. He is now serving a life sentence.

The parents of the shooter have been in jail for more than two years, unable to post $500,000 bond while awaiting trial. Soon after charges against them were announced, they fled their home with $6,000 in cash and were arrested 13 hours later at an acquaintance’s art studio in Detroit.

At trial, Jennifer Crumbley’s defense attorney Shannon Smith had told jurors that a conviction would have a chilling effect on unwitting parents whose children break the law, that Ethan Crumbley was a “skilled manipulator”, and the mass shooting which the teenager carried out was not foreseeable.

A jury on Thursday convicted James Crumbley of involuntary manslaughter in connection with his teenage son’s deadly school shooting in 2021, in step with his wife, who was found guilty last month on the same charge.

The jury's decision after about 10 hours of deliberations caps a landmark case that for the first time in the U.S. held the parents of a mass school shooter criminally responsible. James and Jennifer Crumbley’s son, Ethan, who was 15 when he opened fire at Oxford High School in suburban Detroit, pleaded guilty as an adult and was sentenced in December to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

"Four children are dead because of the gross negligence of the shooter’s parents," Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said in a statement after the verdict.

James Crumbley, 47, faces up to 15 years in prison per the four counts of involuntary manslaughter, each one representing a murdered student. Jennifer Crumbley, 45, will be sentenced in April.

Prosecutors said James Crumbley had bought Ethan a 9 mm Sig Sauer as a gift a day after Thanksgiving, at a difficult time in his son's life when he was struggling emotionally because his best friend had moved away. Crumbley is not accused of knowing about the attack beforehand, which his son had warned about in journal entries.

While the cases against the husband and wife largely mirrored each other, with many of the same witnesses testifying in both trials, prosecutors did not delve as deeply into James Crumbley's social and work life. Testimony took less than a week, and Crumbley did not take the stand in his own defense, like Jennifer Crumbley had.

But his actions in the lead-up to and the day of the school shooting played a vital role. School staff testified that the Crumbleys were called to Oxford High School that morning about a drawing made by their son depicting a gun and a person shot. The parents didn't tell school officials he had access to a weapon and said they couldn’t take him back home that day, saying they had work.

A computer crimes expert testified that James Crumbley had not begun his DoorDash delivery job until after the meeting and that when he started taking orders, he drove by the family's home four times — with the prosecution suggesting he had the opportunity to check on the gun and ensure it was safely secured.

Crumbley later told investigators he hid the 9 mm handgun in an armoire and placed the ammunition underneath jeans in another drawer.

During closing arguments Wednesday, McDonald, the prosecutor, said the deaths were "preventable and foreseeable" if Crumbley had done any number of "tragically small efforts," and she attempted to undercut the defense by telling jurors that parents can be responsible gun owners no matter if their child is planning a mass shooting.

Still, McDonald said, the trial is unusual, and the circumstances surrounding it are what led prosecutors to build a case of involuntary manslaughter.

"This case is not a statement about guns. It's not a statement about parental responsibility. It's not a case about kids doing kid things," she said.

The majority of jurors in Crumbley's trial are parents and also either own guns, grew up around guns or have family or friends who have them — highlighting how firearm exposure is a familiar facet of this region of Michigan, where hunting is a popular activity.

Defense lawyer Mariell Lehman said in her closing arguments that the prosecution had to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt and that it presented no evidence to show Crumbley knew his son was a danger to the public or that he had access to the gun.

"But you didn't see it because it isn't true," Lehman said. "James didn't know. This can be your reasonable doubt."

James Crumbley's trial moved at a faster clip than his wife's trial, in which the prosecution presented 21 witnesses compared to 15 in his. Prosecutors initially expanded the witness list to include a student who survived the shooting and the original owner of the 9 mm handgun, but did not end up calling them to testify.

Prosecutors in the mother's case had focused more heavily on Jennifer Crumbley's perceived parenting failures and how she seemed to ignore her son's mental distress while she was preoccupied with her hobbies and an extramarital affair.

During James Crumbley's trial, prosecutors stressed to jurors that although Michigan now has a safe gun storage law that went into effect this year, it was still his legal duty as a parent to prevent his minor child from causing "unreasonable risk of harm to others."

Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said after the verdict that the Crumbleys showed "tragic inaction" before the shooting.

“If [your] very first thought when you hear about an active shooter at your child’s school isn’t, ‘Is he OK?’ but to worry if your son is the shooter or to rush home to find out if the gun you irresponsibly left unsecure is still there, then you should’ve done something in advance,” Bouchard said.