‘He must be the shooter’: Judge hears about text exchanges, testimony about accused school shooter’s parents
The mother of accused Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley had a strong feeling her son was responsible for the carnage at Oxford High School soon after hearing about it, according to testimony from her boss.
The mother of accused school shooter Ethan Crumbley had a strong feeling her son was responsible for the carnage at Oxford High School soon after hearing about it, according to testimony from her former boss, Andrew Smith.
Testifying Tuesday morning at a preliminary exam for Jennifer and James Crumbley, each charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter for the Nov. 30, 2021 mass shooting, Smith said Jennifer Crumbley began “screaming” in her office when she heard about the mass shooting, abruptly left the building, and then reached out to him through text and a phone call as she tried to make her way to the school.
The text, Smith said, stated “The gun is gone and so are the bullets.”
But, he added, “I didn’t know what she was saying. I was concerned.”
A couple minutes later, Smith said he received a frantic phone call from Jennifer Crumbley. He put his phone on speaker mode and shared the call with the company’s human resource director, he said.
“She sounded frantic, I heard sirens (in the background). She was trying to get to her son’s school…(she said) ‘Oh my God, Andy. He’s gonna kill himself. He must be the shooter.”
Smith, Jennifer Crumbley’s supervisor at a real estate company, further testified that later she asked him to not fire her over what had happened. In a follow-up text on the day of the shooting, Smith said she stated: “I need my job. Please don’t judge me for what my son did.”
Earlier that morning, Jennifer Crumbley had left the office for a meeting with school officials over concerns they had about her son. At the meeting — a couple hours before the deadly shooting — Jennifer and James Crumbley were shown a math worksheet that their son had reportedly added violent drawings and troubling phrases to, including “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.” School officials said the parents refused to take Ethan home and were told to get him counseling.
Jennifer Crumbley subsequently shared a photo of the drawing with Smith, at least one friend and another coworker.
‘It was not normal’
Smith further testified that when Jennifer Crumbley returned to work after the school meeting, she told him that her son needed counseling. “I think she mentioned a family pet had passed away and a grandparent had passed away. She felt as if she was failing him, or a failure,” Smith testified.
Among the others taking the stand Tuesday was Kira Pemmock, owner of a farm where the Crumbleys boarded their two horses. Pemmock, who said she considered Jennifer Crumbley a friend, testified that when she saw the photo of Ethan’s school worksheet, she “was alarmed.”
“I thought it was not normal, all the violence all over the page,” she said.
She further testified that Jennifer Crumbley would sometimes talk to her about Ethan, describing him as “weird” and having no friends. She also testified that Jennifer Crumbley told her Ethan “doesn’t do normal kid things.”
Amanda Holland, a co-worker at the real estate company, testified that she also saw the photo of the worksheet when Jennifer Crumbley returned to work from the school meeting.
“I told her I thought it was scary. She agreed,” Holland testified.
“I said it would be nice for her to take him for a day, go see a movie, go have lunch,” Holland said. “I said she should have brought him home. I thought it was a disturbing photo and this child needed to be around family.”
Jennifer Crumbley said “she felt like a failure as a parent,” according to Holland, who added that it seemed a “little sarcastic.”
The day before the shooting, a school counselor left a voicemail for Jennifer Crumbley informing her that a teacher was concerned about Ethan doing a search on his phone for ammunition. A series of texts were then exchanged between mother and son, which were read aloud in court by Ed Wagrowski, a computer crimes investigator for the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office:
“Seriously?? Looking up bullets in school??” Jennifer Crumbley wrote.
Her son replied: “Oh yeah. I already went to the office for that. All I did was look up a certain caliber at the end of class because I was curious. Completely harmless.”
“Did you at least show them a pic of your new gun?” Jennifer Crumbley asked.
“No I didn’t show them a pic. My God,” he wrote back.
The Crumbleys’ attorneys insist the couple didn’t know that their son might be planning an attack and that they didn’t make the gun easy to find in their home.
The preliminary exam will continue on Feb. 24. At its conclusion, Judge Julie Nicholson of 52-3 District Court will decide if there’s enough evidence to advance the cases against Jennifer and James Crumbley to Oakland County Circuit Court for possible trial.
While parents are rarely held criminally responsible for teens accused in mass school shootings, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald has said she aims to show that the Crumbleys committed gross negligence and had an obligation to “protect the community.” Investigators say the couple bought the Sig Sauer 9mm handgun used in the shooting as an early Christmas present for Ethan, provided him access to it and ignored warning signs that he was a troubled child in need of psychological help.
Ethan Crumbley, 15, is charged as an adult with murder and other crimes. Late last month, his lawyers filed a notice of an insanity defense, which will likely freeze his case while experts examine him.
The parents have been in the Oakland County Jail on $500,000 bond each since their arrest on Dec. 3.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.