Ethan Crumbley’s parents were sentenced to between 10 and 15 years behind bars each on manslaughter charges in a Michigan court Tuesday for their son’s 2021 school shooting which left four dead and six injured.
James and Jennifer Crumbley were handed down the prison time by Judge Cheryl Matthews in a Pontiac, Michigan courtroom after they were found guilty on involuntary manslaughter charges at separate trials in March and February, respectively.
The duo are the first parents in the nation’s history to be convicted in relation to a school shooting carried out by their child.
The parents faced prison for failing to intervene despite obvious warning signs their son was troubled and for failing to keep a gun locked away in their home.
Prosecutors had asked Judge Matthews to put James, 47, and Jennifer, 46, away for at least 10 years for the rampage that killed four students, injured six more and also injured a teacher at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021.
Both parents, who’ve been locked up for the two-and-a-half-years since their arrests, asked for no additional prison time. Jennifer requested she be released with GPS tracking to live with her lawyer.
Speaking before the sentencing, Jennifer was allowed to address the court, where she said she had found god and claimed she had no idea what her son was capable of.
She said: “The gravity and weight this has taken on my heart and soul has no words, just as I know there is nothing I can say to ease the pain of the families.
“If I even thought my son would be capable of crimes like these my actions would have been different …He was not the son I knew when I woke up on Nov. 30. The Ethan I knew was a good quiet kid.”
James was also given an opportunity to speak on the stand and apologized for the “pain and agony” his son had caused.
“Part of you will be missing forever but please know I am truly very sorry. I am sorry for your loss as a result of what my son did. I cannot express how much I wish that I had known what was going on with him or what was going to happen.
“You know that what my son did. I was not aware of that or that he was planning it or that he obtained access to the firearms in my house, there is no evidence that suggested that,” he said.
Addressing Judge Matthews, he added: “I’m simply going to ask that you sentence me in a fair and just way.”
At their trials, jurors heard testimony about how the parents went to the school the day of the shooting to discuss a violent drawing found on Ethan’s math assignment with officials. The pictures showed a gun, a bullet and a person bleeding with the words, “Blood everywhere,” and “The thoughts won’t stop — help me.”
But James and Jennifer didn’t take Ethan, then 15, out of school that day, instead returning to work after the school gave them list of mental health services, according to trial testimony.
Staffers didn’t insist Ethan be removed from school grounds but they also weren’t aware that the parents had bought their son a Sig Sauer 9mm handgun only four days earlier, which looked like the gun in Ethan’s drawing, jurors learned at trial.
Ethan, now 17, copped to murder and terrorism charges for the deaths of Justin Shilling, 17; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Hana St. Juliana, 14; and Tate Myre, 16.
He is serving a term of life imprisonment without parole.
With Post wires