On Nov. 30, 2021, 15-year-old high school student Ethan Crumbley, armed with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun, entered Oxford High School in Oxford, MI, before murdering four students and injuring seven people, including one teacher.
Among the four victims, Madisyn Baldwin, age 17; Tate Myre, age 16; and Hana St. Juliana, age 14, succumbed on campus during the massacre. The fourth adolescent fatality, 17-year-old Justin Shilling, later perished due to injuries while hospitalized on Dec. 1, 2021.
Ethan Crumbley was sentenced to life in prison and pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including first-degree premeditated murder and terrorism causing death.
However, in early Feb. 2024, the incomplete case resurfaced in the courts when Ethan’s mother, 45-year-old Jennifer Crumbley, became the first parent convicted by a MI jury of four counts of involuntary manslaughter for a school shooting that was executed by her now 17-year-old son in 2021. She faces at least 10 years in prison as her sentence began on April 9, 2024.
Prosecutors accused Crumbley of negligence when she permitted her son to purchase a weapon in the form of a gun and by not providing him with the correct mental health reinforcement upon noticing concerning warning signals. She was specifically held accountable for not taking action to prevent her son’s actions in his sadistic plan of a schoolwide mass murder.
Her husband, James Crumbley, appeared in front of the courts in March of the same year.
Leading up to the shooting, Ethan Crumbley exhibited some concerning behavior that his parents neglected to manage properly. On the morning of the school shooting, the high school contacted Crumbley’s parents to pick up their son. This action was prompted after his struggles took a turn for the worse when Crumbley began to draw violent drawings on his paper and his classmate’s papers, when he researched bullets, and when he occupied his time by watching shooting videos.
Despite the high school’s advice to remove their son from campus that same day, both parents ultimately decided to leave Ethan at school due to their work commitments and to avoid the risk of increasing Ethan’s chances of isolation that could potentially lead to more suicide attempts. They promised to provide the mental health care in the near future that he so desperately needed.
Although the school allegedly provided facilities and mental health care services for Ethan’s protection, they complied with the parents’ orders from their previous experience dealing with Ethan’s past suicidal thoughts.
Jennifer Crumbley retaliated against the school board’s testimony, with her attorney Shannon Smith accusing the school of “nonchalant” behavior during the meeting without emphasizing the importance of Ethan’s removal from school grounds.
The issue soon resurfaced on April 1, 2025, when Jennifer Cumbley’s attorney filed an instant motion after her legal team concluded that Prosecutor Karen McDonald had committed numerous ethical violations.
The judge, however, determined that the court did not have the authority or jurisdiction for this decision regarding the conviction.
In her ruling, Judge Cheryl Matthews alluded to the case’s unwarranted justification, questioning Crumbley’s genuine purpose and intentions behind the proposal
“The court showed it has no tolerance for the defense’s misuse of the legal process, and they have been appropriately sanctioned,” said McDonald.
McDonald also mentioned the distraction tactics that allegedly motivated Crumbley to file in the first place, demonstrating her persistence to alleviate some of the responsibility from her own actions.
In this way, McDonald also referenced that hiring a Public Information Officer would not prove necessary and would subsequently decrease any relevance to the primary case and its contents. Following this declaration, she asserted that this decision exemplifies a “collateral attack.”
“The suggestion of a smear campaign is ludicrous. The crisis communications firms fielded an overwhelming number of media inquiries, not drumming up coverage,” she said.
At this time, citizens continue to recognize the targeted attack that claimed the lives of numerous young adolescent students, while also continuing to commemorate their memory.
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