OXFORD, Mich. (CN) — The landmark trial of Jennifer Crumbley has nearly reached its conclusion, after attorneys for both sides gave jurors their closing arguments on Friday.
Prosecutors rested their case on Thursday after putting 21 witnesses on the stand; the defense rested its case Friday after just one: Jennifer Crumbley herself. The mother of Ethan Crumbley — who fatally shot four Michigan high school students in November 2021 — she is the first parent of a school shooter to be held legally responsible for their child's actions.
If convicted on the four involuntary manslaughter charges she now faces, Jennifer could spend up to 60 years in prison.
Friday morning began with the prosecution cross-examining Jennifer Crumbley after her defense attorney Shannon Smith concluded her direct questioning on Thursday afternoon. Smith having no other witnesses to present in her client's case caught state prosecutors Karen McDonald and Marc Keast off guard, leading to a request for a short recess in the mid-morning in order to prepare their closing arguments.
The closings, when they finally began, mirrored both sides' opposing narratives since trial began last week. McDonald argued Jennifer Crumbley, along with her husband James, were selfish, inattentive parents who ignored the clear signs that their son was in the throes of a severe mental health crisis. Ethan Crumbley's own journal, passages of which jurors saw on Thursday, explicitly said so. Worse yet, the prosecutor argued, the couple were obtuse enough to give their troubled son a 9mm handgun, which he then used to carry out the shooting.
"The shooter learned how to shoot and was given the murder weapon by his parents," McDonald said. "And this parent is sitting here today on trial."
McDonald said that there were innumerable small things Jennifer could have done to help Ethan, and thus avoid his shooting spree. Because she didn't do those things, McDonald argued, and was instead more concerned with her job and her horse, the then-15-year-old killed four of his schoolmates at Oxford High School.
The prosecutor also reminded jurors that Jennifer and James Crumbley did not turn themselves in after charges were announced against them in December 2021. Instead police captured them in a building in Detroit, after the couple had withdrawn thousands in cash and Jennifer had deleted numerous texts to friends and relatives related to Ethan, the shooting and being "on the run." She claimed this was a sign Jennifer knew she was culpable.
McDonald said the evidence is "telling you exactly where the defendant was, who she was talking to, what she did, what she didn't do and you can't hide from that."
"She tried. There's a lot of deleted messages," McDonald added.
Smith, conversely, claimed the case against her client was ultimately nothing more than character assassination, supported by a biased law enforcement apparatus seeking to make Jennifer a scapegoat for the shooting. She pointed out, as she has throughout the week, that not even Oxford High School's counseling staff thought Ethan was a threat on the morning of the shooting.
"She was relying on the representations by the school counselor Shawn Hopkins, who took the stand and has had ... hundreds of hours of training, and made it very clear this was just an issue where [Ethan] needed some kind therapy," Smith said.
Smith did concede that Jennifer had a "messy" life and a complicated relationship with her son, but argued that it was unfair to hold a parent responsible for every bad decision a difficult teenage child makes. If parents were held to that standard of responsibility, Smith argued, than any parent in the courtroom, including herself, could eventually find themselves in Jennifer's place.
"Can every parent really be responsible for everything their children do?" she asked rhetorically. "Especially when it's not foreseeable? And this clearly was not foreseeable to Mrs. Crumbley."
The defense attorney also reminded the jury, at one point using a color-coded chart showing all the ways they could arrive at a not guilty verdict, that the jurors didn't have to think Jennifer was a good parent or even a good person — they simply had to assess if the state had proven her guilty of manslaughter "beyond a reasonable doubt."
"This case is a very dangerous for parents out there, it just is, and it is one of the first of its kind," Smith said. "Luckily however, this is a case where the prosecution cannot meet its burden of proof."
McDonald waved away Smith's claim that any parent could find themselves in Jennifer's place. She instead argued the defendant was particularly self-absorbed and uninterested in her son. She referenced the violent drawings Ethan had made on a math worksheet prior to the shooting as a clear sign of distress, one she began paying attention to only after it was too late.
"He drew a picture. It says 'help me,' it has the drawing of the gun that she bought him, posted and bragged about," McDonald argued. "'Blood everywhere,' 'the thoughts won't stop,' 'the world is dead.' He drew her a picture! Pretty egregious and unique circumstances."
Presiding Judge Cheryl Matthews released the jury for the day after McDonald finished her rebuttal, reminding them not to research or discuss the case over the weekend. Jurors will begin deliberations on Monday.
James Crumbley faces his own trial on involuntary manslaughter charges this March.
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