Both parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, will be sentenced on April 9, with up to 15 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter.
A Michigan jury convicted the father of a teenager who fatally shot four classmates at a high school near Detroit of involuntary manslaughter after prosecutors argued he was responsible because he and his wife gave their son a gun and ignored warning signs of violence.
James Crumbley, 47, was found guilty Thursday, a month after his wife, Jennifer Crumbley, 45, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in February in connection with the shooting. James Crumbley faced four counts of manslaughter, one for each of the 2021 shooting victims.
The couple faced separate trials and were the first parents in the United States to be charged in a mass school shooting committed by their son. Ethan Crumbley was 15 at the time of the Oxford High School attack and used a semi-automatic pistol.
The verdicts were read around 7:15 p.m. (02:15 GMT) at the end of a full day of deliberations at the Oakland County Courthouse.
Both will be sentenced on April 9. Reckless manslaughter carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison.
Ethan 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. The United States, a country with persistent gun violence, has experienced a number of school shootings over the years, often carried out by current or former students.
“This is a very egregious and bizarre set of facts,” Oakland County, Michigan, prosecutor Karen McDonald told jurors during closing arguments Wednesday.
McDonald said James Crumbley repeatedly ignored warning signs that his son was deeply disturbed, did not give him the help he needed and did not do enough to store the firearm safely in the family home.
“He did nothing over and over again,” McDonald said.
McDonald also presented the jury with texts that the teenager had sent to a friend and diary entries he had written in the months before the shooting, in which he spoke of wanting medical attention and hearing voices, but expressed concern that his parents were ” p*****.”
On one occasion, according to a text message sent to a friend, McDonald said Ethan had asked James Crumbley to take him to the doctor, but his father “gave me some pills and told me to hold on.”
Mariell Lehman, a defense attorney, argued that James Crumbley could not have foreseen that his son would carry out a mass shooting.
“James had no idea his son was going through a difficult time,” 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. .
'Blood everywhere'
Gun safety experts have said they hope Crumbley's trials serve as a wake-up call for parents to better protect guns in their homes. About 75 percent of school shooters used the weapons in attacks from their own homes, according to government research.
According to prosecutors, James Crumbley purchased the gun used in the attack four days before the Nov. 30, 2021, shooting.
That morning, a teacher discovered drawings by Ethan Crumbley depicting a gun, a bullet, and a bleeding figure next to the words “Blood everywhere,” “My life is useless,” and “Thoughts won't stop, help me.”
The Crumleys, summoned to school that morning, were told that Ethan needed counseling and that they should take him home, according to prosecutors. But the couple resisted taking their son home and did not search his backpack or ask him about the gun, prosecutors said.
Both Crumbleys disputed that account in their lawsuits, alleging that the teachers at the meeting mutually agreed that Ethan could remain in school that day, and that at no time did they think he posed a danger to other students.
Ethan returned to class and then emerged from the bathroom with the gun and began shooting, according to prosecutors.
Ethan killed 17-year-old Justin Shilling; Madisyn Baldwin, 17 years old; Hana Santa Juliana, 14; and Tate Myre, 16 years old. Six more students and one faculty member were injured. No one had checked the backpack, although a school administrator had joked that it was heavy.
