A trial has begun in Oakland County Circuit Court in the case of The People v. James Crumbley.
Crumbley is the father of shooter Ethan Crumbley, who is serving a life sentence for the murders of four fellow students in November 2021.
Ten students and a teacher were shot by the then 15-year old at Oxford High School, about 40 miles north of Detroit. The four students who died were Hana St. Juliana, Tate Myre, Justin Shilling and Madisyn Baldwin.
Prosecutors say James Crumbley knew his son was deeply troubled, and that he failed to act numerous times to prevent his son from carrying out the murders. He is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, and four counts of gross negligence.
“This nightmare — these murders — were preventable by him, foreseeable, by him,” Oakland County prosecutor Marc Keast told the jury in his opening statement. He said Crumbley purchased the gun for his son as a birthday gift, four days before the shooting took place.
“The decision that James Crumbley made to buy that gun as a gift for his son was made even though he knew that his son was in the midst of total and complete social isolation and was in the middle of a downward spiral of distress that had been going on for some time.”
Keast said Crumbley did not use the gun lock provided by the dealer, and he also failed to inform school officials about his son’s mental state when he was called into the school the morning of the murders, and he failed to remove his son from school.
Crumbley’s defense attorney Mariell Lehman made a shorter opening statement. She said the evidence would show that Crumbley was unaware of his son’s intentions.
“What the prosecution wants you to believe, the part that’s not true, is that James Crumbley knew what his son was going to do and knew he had a duty to protect other people from his son,” she added. “Ladies and gentlemen, that’s not true. He didn’t know.”
Lehman said Crumbley also did not know that his son knew where the gun had been stored in the family home.
Prosecutors then called the first of 15 to 20 expected witnesses.
The shooter’s mother, Jennifer Crumbley, was also charged and on February 4, she was found guilty of four charges of involuntary manslaughter. She is scheduled for sentencing in early April. The two parents are the first parents in the U.S. to be charged in a mass school shooting committed by their child.
