Son of 45-year-old man is in prison serving life for Oxford High School shooting that also injured seven
The mother of the Oxford High School shooter was charged with four counts of manslaughter unleashed by her son in Michigan in November 2021, as she failed to prevent the mass shooting that claimed the lives of her son's four classmates, according to Tuesday's court decision.
Jennifer Crumbley and her husband James face separate trials on the same charges, as prosecutors' evidence suggested she failed to prevent her son from having a gun and ignored signs of such a shooting.
The Oakland County Court first charged Jennifer Crumbley with four counts for the involuntary manslaughter committed by her now 17-year-old son.
The 45-year-old man's son is in prison serving a life sentence for a shooting at Oxford High School that also injured seven people.
While speaking to jurors, the judge said this was probably “the hardest thing they've ever done.”
Relatives of the victims expressed relief at the verdict, as he was charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years.
“The People Spoken!” Buck Myre, the father of Tate Myre, a 16-year-old killed in the shooting, told the bbcHe added that “you can agree or disagree with people, but that's how the system is supposed to work.”
The jury was examining the question of whether the mother foresaw and could have prevented the shooting.
Crumley and her husband purchased the gun days before the Oxford High School shooting.
Following the information, police arrested the parents and they were charged following the murders. They were jailed and could not get any bail.
Prosecutors during their investigation discovered that shooter Ethan Crumbley needed mental health assistance and complained of hallucinations, however, his parents did not provide him with treatment. The convicted mother said she did not believe her son had mental health problems.
Media reports show that the parents did not take their son's disturbing condition seriously on the morning of the shooting and were called to a meeting about it. They also refused to take their son home.
School officials sent him back to class without checking his bag.
After a few hours, the shooting killed Hana St Juliana, 14, Myre, 16, and Madisyn Baldwin and Justin Shilling, both 17.
These cases may pave the way for other parents to be criminally charged for the mass shootings of their children, experts say.
While he did not agree with the jury's decision, Stephen J. Morse, a professor of law and psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, was quoted in a BBC report that he did not agree with the verdict and that like Ethan Crumbley had declared guilty, he was the only one responsible for the shooting.
“I understand that she was not necessarily the best mother in the world, but this is not a crime,” he said, adding that the decision could set a bad precedent, leading courts to look for “scapegoats” in similar situations.
