Ethan Crumbley’s victims’ families blasted his parents as they were sentenced to at least 10 years behind bars Tuesday for failing to stop their son killing four students at a Michigan school in 2021.
“Instead of giving quality time and compassion, you gift your son a gun,” said Reina St. Juliana, the older sister of slain student Hana St. Juliana, 14.
Reina spoke in a Pontiac, Michigan courtroom before parents James and Jennifer Crumbley were handed sentences of up to 15 years by Judge Cheryl Matthews.
The parents were convicted of involuntary manslaughter for failing to intervene — including ignoring Ethan’s obvious mental health issues and failing to lock up a gun at home — contributing to their son carrying out his murderous rampage at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021.
“I believe your actions cannot even be confined into the word failure,” the sister said as she looked toward the Crumbley parents. “Your mistakes created our everlasting nightmare.”
In total, six family members of the four murdered teens — who also include Justin Shilling, 17; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; and Tate Myre, 16 — detailed the horrific toll the tragedy has taken on their lives, often through tears, as they asked Judge Matthews to throw the book at the Crumbleys.
Reina and Hana’s dad, Steve St. Juliana said the loss of his daughter “has destroyed a large portion of my very soul.”
“I remain a shell of the person I used to be,” the father continued. “I think of her and miss her constantly. Every day is a battle.”
Steve said James, 47, and Jennifer, 46, “enabled their son to murder my daughter and three other children.”
“They chose to stay quiet, they chose to ignore the warning signs,” he said. “They continue to blame everyone but themselves.”
Baldwin’s mother Nicole Beausoleil cried throughout a lengthy statement and blamed the Crumbleys for all the suffering they caused.
“Because you decided you didn’t want to parent and listen to your son, you took the right away for me to be a mother,” she said.
At two trials earlier this year, jurors heard testimony about how the Crumbleys were called into school the morning of the shooting after staff found violent drawings on Ethan’s math assignment — including a gun, bullets and a person bleeding with the words “Blood everywhere,” and “the thoughts won’t stop — help me.”
They refused to take Ethan, then 15, home despite encouragement from the school to do so.
While the school didn’t insist on it, officials didn’t know at the time the Crumbleys had bought their son a gun just four days prior. And the parents didn’t bother to check Ethan’s backpack, which contained the 9mm Sig Sauer handgun.
Shilling’s dad, Hank Shilling, told James and Jennifer multiple times throughout his statement: “The blood of our children is on your hands too.”
Shilling’s mother, Jill Soave, told the Crumbleys their failures “had devastating and deadly consequences that can never be undone.”
Before handing down the maximum sentence allowed to James and Jennifer, Matthews acknowledged the victims’ families’ “immeasurable grief” and said she wondered “whether or not they will ever smile again.”
And the jurist placed responsibility with the pair for their “acts and lack of acts that could have halted an oncoming runaway train,” of their son’s “catastrophic” choices.
Jennifer and James both expressed sympathy for the victim families but still tried to pass off the blame, claiming they had no idea their son was capable of killing anyone.
Ethan, now 17, is currently serving out a life sentence with no possibility of parole after he pleaded guilty to murder and terrorism charges.