OXFORD, Mich. (CN) — A single witness took the stand Friday in the manslaughter trial of Jennifer Crumbley, mother of convicted high school mass shooter Ethan Crumbley.
She currently faces four manslaughter charges — one for each high school student her son killed.
Former Oakland County detective Edward Wagrowski, a computer crimes expert who worked for the Oakland County Sheriff's Office at the time of the Oxford High School shooting in November 2021, spent the entire day answering questions from state prosecutors and Jennifer Crumbley's defense attorney Shannon Smith.
The questions he fielded related centrally to his investigation into the Crumbley family's text messages and social media posts in the months leading up to the shooting. Using those messages, prosecutors sought to show jurors that Jennifer Crumbley neglected her son's mounting mental health crises — including hallucinations, paranoia and insomnia — and ignored what should have been obvious warning signs.
Among the most damning bits of evidence were text logs from March 17, 2021. Ethan Crumbley, while home alone, sent his mother text messages attesting that he saw a demon in the house and asking her to respond.
“OK the house is now haunted. Some weird shit just happened and now I’m scared,” Ethan Crumbley said to his mother in two texts that evening. Jennifer Crumbley didn't respond until almost two full days later.
Dated to almost the same time Ethan Crumbley sent those texts, Wagrowski testified, there were images on Jennifer Crumbley's phone showing she and her husband James Crumbley were out riding horses.
“Gonna get drunk and ride my horse,” Jennifer Crumbley told her husband in a text message the same day.
Other messages prosecutors focused on included an April 2021 text chain between Ethan Crumbley and his friend where he reported his parents had dismissed his mental health concerns.
“I actually asked my dad to take me to the doctor yesterday, but he just gave me some pills and told me to ‘suck it up,'” the then-15-year-old sent to his friend. He also said his mother "laughed at" him when he asked to see a doctor.
Wagrowski later testified that Jennifer Crumbley searched for "clinical depression treatment options" the day before the shooting took place, but that on the same day she laughed off news that Ethan Crumbley had gotten in trouble for looking up images of bullets at school.
“Lol I’m not mad, you have to learn not to get caught,” Jennifer Crumbley told her son after a back-and-forth on the issue.
On the morning of the shooting, Wagrowski also testified, Oxford High School staff called Jennifer and James Crumbley to the school to discuss their son's drawings of a gun and bullet-riddled body on a math worksheet. The parents and son attended a meeting with a school counselor that lasted less than 15 minutes, and after they left one of the first things Jennifer Crumbley did was send a message asking after the health of her horse.
Ethan Crumbley also sent his mother a text message stating "I love you" about two hours after the meeting concluded. Per the text record, Jennifer Crumbley didn't respond until later that afternoon, after she received news that there was an emergency at the high school.
“I love you too,” she said. “You OK? Ethan don’t do it.”
The defense, while cross-examining Wagrowski, attempted to point out that he lacked intimate knowledge of the Crumbley family's internal dynamics. She also argued the text messages couldn't show Jennifer Crumbley's full reactions to her son's mental state, echoing her opening arguments Thursday that Jennifer Crumbley was a "hyper-vigilant" parent.
"You don't know them. You don't know the context," Smith argued.
The day also featured several heated fights between Smith and state prosecutors Marc Keast and Karen McDonald, over everything from evidence admissibility to what questions Wagrowski was allowed to answer on cross-examination to proper courtroom behavior.
Tensions reached a head around 5 p.m. after jurors had left for the day, when prosecutors asked judge Cheryl Matthews to chide Smith to show "appropriate decorum."
The attorneys objected to Smith stating "I'm going to kill myself" in a joking matter earlier in the trial as she attempted to get her documents in order. Smith struggled with organizing her materials throughout the day, leading to her exasperated comment, but McDonald said it was disrespectful to the shooting victims' families that were present in court.
"I'm just asking that we not engage in that, this is hard enough," McDonald said.
Smith initially responded "I didn't mean it like that, I'm sorry," but quickly became defensive over what she perceived as the prosecutors' attempts to malign her.
The issue dissolved into a shouting match with both sets of attorneys accusing the other of retraumatizing the victims' loved ones.
"It’s the prosecution that’s parading all of this up here and putting the families through this,” Smith said.
Keast shot back: "Parading? This shooting is a result of the defendant’s gross negligence."
After a few more minutes of arguing Judge Matthews said "Everybody needs to go home," and abruptly left the bench.
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