Parents of Michigan school shooter sentenced | CNN (2024)

Theparents of the teenager who killed four studentsin the 2021 school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, were each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison Tuesday, weeks after being convicted of manslaughter.

James and Jennifer Crumbley, who each had faced up to 15 years in prison, have already been imprisoned for more than two years since their arrest in a Detroit warehouse days after the shooting. Though they were tried separately, their sentencing took place together in an Oakland County courtroom.

They are the first parents to be held criminally responsible for a mass school shooting committed by their childas the nation continues to grapple with the scourge of gunfire on campus and mass shootings.

Here’s what everyone said in court today:

The historic trials, and stunning verdicts, of James and Jennifer Crumbleytested the limits of who can be held responsible for a mass shooting.

The prosecution of both parents, and an uptick in other criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits tied to mass shootings, indicates attorneys are increasingly seeking to hold responsible people — and companies — who didn’t pull the trigger.

Prosecutors over the past few years have been slowly, but steadily, expanding the notion of who can be held accountable for a mass shooting, CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig, a former federal and state prosecutor, said last month.

While he cautioned each case rests on its own merits, “we’ve seen groundbreaking prosecutions of parents and security personnel,” he said, “and I’d expect that trend to continue.”

The question remains whether prosecution of non-shooters will be effective in reducing the number of mass shootings in the United States. But undoubtedly, it has expanded prosecutors’ tool boxes, according to Ekow Yankah, law professor at the University of Michigan.

“It gives different prosecutors something to aim at – it gives them a new theory, it gives them something to try,” he told CNN. “It gives prosecutors who are frustrated, are facing a devastating crime, a mass shooting that’s hurt their community, some set of actions that they can take.”

Read about some other high-profile prosecutions of non-shooters in recent years.

The lead prosecutor in James and Jennifer Crumbley’s criminal trials said it was “disappointing” that the parents didn’t express remorse.

“Feeling bad is natural, and we don’t dispute that they feel bad … that’s not what’s important to victims of crime,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said to reporters after the Crumbleys’ sentencing Tuesday. “What they want and need most of all is remorse, which means acknowledgment of the wrongdoing and some sort of reconciliation or apology for that — and that didn’t come.”

The prosecutor said she didn’t think that the case would set a precedent for parents of other school shooters.

“There’s a difference between precedent-setting and rare, and this is really a rare set of facts, it really is,” McDonald said.

“Most of us know that you have to exercise reasonable care at least to prevent other people from the dangers that you know are foreseeable,” she added.

She said her team did the “absolute best” they could, and the victim’s families know that.

“It’s really hard … to remark about how hard we work and how hard it’s been when you’re looking in the eyes of these parents every day, who get up in unbelievable pain and grief and see this play out every day and they still go on,” she said. “And so, my focus is there.”

James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of the teenager who killed four students in a 2021 school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, were each sentenced Tuesday to 10 to 15 years in prison, respectively, weeks after they were convicted of manslaughter.

They will receive credit for 858 days already served.

The judge presiding over the sentencing of James and Jennifer Crumbley said the decision should be a deterrent to try to stop school shootings in the future.

“Opportunity knocked over and over again, louder and louder, and was ignored,” Judge Cheryl Matthews said. “No one answered and these two people should have and sure didn’t.”

She said she is “aware of my job in this situation” and promised not to be “swayed by public opinion” when handing down the sentencing decision.

Talking to the families in the courtroom, Matthews said she could never understand the pain they are experiencing, but reassured them, “I saw what you saw and I heard what you heard” during the trials.

Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald urged Judge Cheryl Matthews to exceed the sentencing guidelines for James and Jennifer Crumbley, asking the judge to consider the “devastating impact of their gross negligence that was foreseeable.”

“I want to be clear, remorse does not sound like, ‘I feel really bad.’ I’m sure they do. I don’t dispute they feel bad, I don’t dispute they have grief. That’s not the kind of remorse and accountability these victims are looking for,” McDonald said in court Tuesday.

She continued, addressing the judge:

“When fashioning a sentence, it is absolutely critical that you listen and consider the impact of what that gross negligence caused. So we’re asking you to exceed the guidelines because I believe all of the factors pursuant to the case law, with the necessary consideration of the impact of these crimes, justifies you to do. We’re asking you, the people are asking you, to consider the devastating impact of their gross negligence that was foreseeable.”

James Crumbley, the father of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley, addressed the courtroom, opening his statement by apologizing to the victims, something he said he had not been able to do yet.

“I want to say I can’t imagine the pain and agony … for the families that have lost their children and what they are experiencing and what they are going through. As a parent, our biggest fear is losing our child or our children, and to lose a child is unimaginable. My heart is really broken for everybody involved,” he said.

“I really want the families of Madisyn Baldwin, Hana St Juliana, Tate Myre and Justin Shilling to know how truly sorry I am, and how devastated I was when I heard what happened to them,” Crumbley said.

Crumbley added that he was not aware his son was planning a school shooting, and he asked Judge Cheryl Matthews to “sentence me in a fair way.”

Jennifer Crumbley began her statement to the court by expressing her condolences to the victims and their families.

“I sit here today to express my deepest sorrows for the families of Hana, Tate, Madisyn, Justin and to all those affected on November 30, 2021,” she said.

Crumbley said that a previous statement made on the stand was “completely misunderstood.”

When she took the stand in her own defense during her trial in February, she had said, “I’ve asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have.”

On Tuesday, Crumbley said that she did not foresee the actions of her son and therefore would not have done anything different, and that is how she interpreted the question.

“With the benefit of hindsight and information I have now, my answer would be drastically different,” she said.

Crumbley added that if she knew her son was capable of the crimes committed, her answer would have “absolutely been different.”

James and Jennifer Crumbley continue to deflect blame, the father of a victim of the 2021 Oxford High School shooting said at the Crumbleys’ sentencing Tuesday.

“The defendants, through their choices, through their indifference and gross negligence, enabled their son to murder my daughter Hana and three other children,” Steve St. Juliana, the father of Hana St. Juliana, said in a victim impact statement Tuesday.

“They chose to stay quiet. They chose to ignore the warning signs. And now, as we’ve heard through all of the objections, they continue to choose to blame everyone but themselves,” he said.

Steve St. Juliana said his daughter’s death “destroyed a large portion of my very soul.”

“I will never think back fondly on her high school and college graduations. I will never walk her down the aisle as she begins the journey of starting her own family. I am forever denied the chance to hold her or her future children in my arms,” he added.

St. Juliana said his position on the Crumbleys’ sentencing evolved throughout the trial as the defendants’ “defiance” increased. “Hana, Madisyn, Tate, and Justin are the ones who have lost everything — not the defendants,” he said before requesting the parents receive the maximum possible sentence.

Buck Myre, the father of victim Tate Myre, gave his impact statement following Steve St. Juliana. He was the last person to give an impact statement.

Reina St. Juliana, sister of Hana, who was 14 years old when she was killed in the Oxford High School shooting, opened her victim impact statement with a damning image of the impact her death has had on her family’s life.

“Our 10-year-old little brother had to learn how to write a eulogy for his sister before he even learned how to write essays,” she told the court.

“I met up with Hana and a friend during school that day. When we split ways to go back to class, I just looked back and smiled. I didn’t say goodbye. I never got to say goodbye. I never got to remind her that I love her, that she’s my everything. The person I want to walk through life with side-by-side,” she said.

Reina said the maximum sentence being 15 years is “too short”: “Hana didn’t even have 15 years to live.”

Craig Shilling, the father of 17-year-old Justin Shilling, said he believes Jennifer and James Crumbley deserve the full sentence.

Wearing a hoodie featuring a picture of his son and the words “Fly High Our Hero,” Shilling described how he lives every day with “pain, anger, heartache, regret, anxiety, stress, you name it. They’re all there wreaking havoc in my once normal life.”

After more than two years since the deadly shooting, Craig Shilling said that the wounds caused by that day still feel fresh.

He spoke about the lack of accountability from both parents on the actions of their son.

“I just can’t get over the fact that this tragedy was completely avoidable,” Craig Shilling said. He said there were obvious signs that were completely overlooked and “the bulk of the responsibility to address those signs lie on the parent, and they failed — across the board failed.”

The mother of a victim killed in the Oxford High School shooting said “the ripple effects of both James and Jennifer’s failures to act” to prevent their son Ethan from carrying out the deadly Michigan school shooting “have devastated us all.”

“This tragedy was completely preventable,” Jill Soave, the mother of Justin Shilling, said in her victim impact statement. “If only they had done something, your honor, anything, to shift the course events on November 30 (2021), then our four angels would be here today.”

Soave requested the Crumbleys receive the maximum possible sentence.

Justin Shilling was “the least deserving of his fate,” his mother said, adding that he spent his final moments protecting another student.

Soave also shared a heartfelt message her son wrote to her on a birthday.

“It is devastating and heartbreaking that it doesn’t appear that either of you cherished or even wanted your son,” she said to the Crumbleys. “But I wholeheartedly wanted and cherished mine. You have failed your son, and you have failed us all.”

Nicole Beausoleil, the mother of Madisyn Baldwin, who was killed at the Oxford School shooting, described her daughter as: “smart, funny, loving, passionate, determined and genuine.”

“Madisyn, she was a kind soul. She always had a smile on her face. She lit up the room when she walked in. Her laugh, I could listen to all day. It was infectious,” Beausoleil told the court in her victim impact statement.

Through tears, Beausoleil questioned Jennifer Crumbley’s statement in court that she would not “do anything different,” by drawing comparisons between Crumbley’s actions and her own.

“While you were purchasing a gun for your son and leaving it unlocked, I was helping her finish her college essays,” she said. “When you knew the gun was missing, you called the police, knowing it was your son that took it. I was having family call every hospital describing what she looked like,” she later said.

“While you were hiding, I was planning her funeral,” she added.

Ultimately, Beausoleil told the court there was one fundamental difference she wish she could have made.

“The one thing I would’ve wanted to be different was to take that bullet that day, so she could’ve continued to live the life she deserved.”

Oral victim impact statements are beginning in the sentencing hearing of Jennifer and James Crumbley.

Nicole Beausoleil, mother of 17-year-old shooting victim Madisyn Baldwin, is the first to speak.

Court has resumed for the sentencing hearing of James and Jennifer Crumbley, theparents of the teenager who killed fourstudentsin a 2021 school shooting in Oxford, Michigan.

Court is now in a break in the sentencing hearing for James and Jennifer Crumbley, theparents of the teenager who killed fourstudentsin a 2021 school shooting in Oxford, Michigan.

The Crumbleys are set to be sentenced to prison this morning, weeks after being convicted of manslaughter. They each face up to 15 years in prison. Attorneys for the parents have asked for their clients to be sentenced to fewer than five years in prison each.

Victim impact statements are expected to happen after the break.

Attorneys for James and Jennifer Crumbley have asked the judge to lift a no-contact provision between the three Crumbleys: James, Jennifer, and their son Ethan, the shooter.

There is already a no-contact order between Ethan Crumbley and his parents.

“Despite even having felonies on their records, they have a constitutional right to be a family,” Shannon Smith, Jennifer’s attorney, said.

Oakland County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Marc Keast asked the court to hold this in advance so prosecutors can respond, and the judge agreed.

Judge Cheryl Matthews gave the prosecution until next Tuesday to respond regarding the no contact order, and then gave the defense until April 23 to respond.

Matthews mentioned that if James and Ethan Crumbley are both in prison, the Michigan Department of Corrections will categorize them in a way so they won’t be housed in the same facility. Co-defendants normally aren’t housed together, the judge added.

The sentencing hearing has begun for James and Jennifer Crumbley, theparents of the teenager who killed fourstudentsin a 2021 school shooting in Oxford, Michigan.

The Crumbleys are set to be sentenced to prison this morning, weeks after being convicted of manslaughter. They each face up to 15 years in prison.

The two have already been imprisoned for over two years since their arrest in a Detroit warehouse days after the shooting. Though the parents were tried separately, their sentencing is taking place together in an Oakland County courtroom.

Attorneys for the parents have asked for their clients to be sentenced to fewer than five years in prison each.

Before court began, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald spoke with several of the victims’ families in the gallery.

Several family members of the four students killed in the Oxford High School shooting are expected to give victim impact statements at the sentencing of James and Jennifer Crumbley.

During shooter Ethan Crumbley’s sentencing in December 2023, several survivors and family members of victims gave emotional statements.

Both Crumbleys will be sentenced at the same hearing on Tuesday at 9 a.m. ET. They were convicted on the same charges in separate trials.

Attorneys for Jennifer and James Crumbleyhave asked for the parents to be sentenced to less than five years in prison each ahead of today sentencingin connection with their role in their son’s fatal mass shooting at a Michigan high school.

In a pre-sentencing memo, James Crumbley’s defense attorney asked the judge to sentence him to 28 months in prison – with credit for the time he’s already served – and a maximum period of supervision.

If the judge “is inclined to sentence Mr. Crumbley to further incarceration,” the memo reads, his attorney requested he be sentenced to 42 months with credit for time served.

Jennifer Crumbley’s attorney argues in her pre-sentencing memo that a guideline of 29 to 57 months with credit for time already served is “certainly more proportional” than the 10 to 15 years prosecutors requested.

Her memo also argues that the no-contact proposal with her, her son and her husband is “unconstitutional,” saying the provisions “violate Mrs. Crumbley’s state and federal constitutional rights in freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life.”

James Crumbley’s memo also claims that he did not threaten physical harm to prosecuting attorney Karen McDonald.CNN previously reportedhe allegedly threatened McDonald in a jailhouse call with a family member. His attorneys argue in the memo that he only wanted to “ensure that she does not do to other people what she had done in this case” and “at worst engaged in frustrated name-calling.”

Both memos from the Crumbleys include letters of support from their family and friends.

In the sentencing memorandum for Jennifer Crumbley, prosecutors pointed to statements she made during her trial, where she testified, “I’ve asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have.”

In her pre-sentence report, she acknowledged she testified she wouldn’t have done anything different but said “That is true without the benefit of hindsight that I have now.”

“With the information I have now, of course my answer would be hugely different,” she said, according to the report. “There are so many things that I would change if I could go back in time. I knew my son to be a quiet, good kind, who loved his pets. I never imagined he would hurt other people in the way that he did.”

She has asked to serve her sentence under house arrest in her defense attorney’s home.

“I have been in jail for over 26 months and have been locked down 23 hours per day,” she added. “I am hopeful the Court will sentence me in a way that allows me to be released for the balance of my sentence. I do have an Oakland County address where I could live and be placed on a tether with house arrest.”

Both Jennifer and James Crumbley have been behind bars since they were arrested in December 2021 at a Detroit warehouse after leading authoritieson a manhuntfollowing the school shooting.

In recently filed court documents, Michigan prosecutors are asking a judge to sentence the parents of school shooterEthan Crumbleyto at least 10 years in prison, alleging they have both showed a “chilling lack of remorse” afterthey were convictedfor involuntary manslaughter.

In two separate sentencing memorandums dated April 3, Oakland County prosecutors asked the judge to sentence each parent to 10 to 15 years in state prison.

In a rare move, prosecutors released excerpts of the pre-sentencing investigation reports and included statements from both defendants written after jurors found them guilty.

The prosecutors allege Crumbley’s father has repeatedly threatened the prosecuting attorney Karen McDonald and has said: “There will be retribution.”

In the prosecution’s sentencing memorandum for James Crumbley, prosecutors noted “his jail calls show a total lack of remorse, he blames everyone but himself, and he threatened the elected Prosecutor.” They also note the father has repeatedly said he is being persecuted and has referred to himself as a “martyr.”

In a pre-sentence investigation report, James Crumbley wrote he feels “absolutely horrible/am (devastated) for what happened,” and that he would “give anything to go back and do something different that would have changed what (happened).”

In that report, he argues he should be released from prison after the time he has already served.

“Ethan always appeared to be a very stable individual. Never did he voice anything to me that anything was bothering him,’” James Crumbley wrote. He later added: “I followed the law and took gun safety to the point as needed. My gun was hidden in a location that, until I found out differently, only I knew of.”

James Crumbley, the father of the teenager who killed four students at a Michigan high school in 2021, was found guilty last month of involuntary manslaughter in a trial that came weeks after the shooter’smother was convicted ofthe same charges.

Crumbley was convicted of four counts of involuntary manslaughter, a charge that carries a maximum punishment of up to 15 years in prison, which would run concurrently.

Jury deliberations came more than two years after his son, Ethan Crumbley, then 15, used a SIG Sauer 9mm to kill four students and wound six students and a teacher atOxford High Schoolon November 30, 2021.

Prosecutors in closing arguments said James Crumbley was “grossly negligent” because he bought the gun for his son days before the attack, failed to properly secure it, ignored his son’s deteriorating mental health and did not take “reasonable care” to prevent foreseeable danger.

“James Crumbley is not on trial for what his son did,” Oakland County prosecuting attorney Karen McDonald said. “James Crumbley is on trial for what he did and what he didn’t do.”

In response, defense attorney Mariell Lehman asserted the prosecution’s case lacked evidence and was based on “assumptions and hindsight.”

“You heard no testimony and you saw no evidence that James had any knowledge that his son was a danger to anyone,” she said.

Keep reading about James Crumbley’s trial.

Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of the teenager who killed four students at an Oxford, Michigan, high school in 2021, was foundguiltyin February of all four counts of involuntary manslaughter in anovel legal casethat stood as a test of the limits of who’s responsible for a school shooting.

Crumbley, 45, had pleaded not guilty to the charges in the November 30, 2021,mass shooting at Oxford High School, in which her son Ethan killed four students and wounded six students and a teacher. She faces up to 15 years in prison.

What the prosecution said: The prosecution’s case relied on anunusual and novel legal strategyand represented an attempt to expand the scope of blame in mass shootings. While parents have previously faced liability for their child’s actions – such as withneglectorfirearms charges– this was the first time a parent of a school shooter was held directly responsible for the killings.

Theprosecution arguedJennifer Crumbley was responsible for the deaths because she was “grossly negligent” in giving a gun to her son Ethan, who was 15 at the time, and failing to get him proper mental health treatment despite warning signs.

What the defense said: However, the defensearguedthe blame lay elsewhere: on her husband for improperly securing the firearm; on the school for failing to notify her about her son’s behavioral issues; and on Ethan himself, who planned and carried out the attack on his own. Defense attorney Shannon Smith said the case was “dangerous” for parents everywhere.

Jennifer Crumbley took the stand: In a remarkable moment, she expressed no regret for her actions. “I’ve asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have,” she testified.

Read more about Jennifer Crumbley’s trial.

The verdicts in the Crumbley parents’ cases – based on allegations of negligence and foreseeability – likely will be used by prosecutors in other cases, according to CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson.

“If you are a parent and you’re careless because you get your child a weapon – and not only do you get your child a weapon, but you fail to secure that weapon – and you have or should have some sense of your child’s mental health maladies and you do nothing to really oversee it or to act in a way that is appropriate in a way that protects the public, then you could be accountable,” he said last month.

Still, the cases against the Crumbleys reflected parental negligence far outside the norm, prosecuting attorney Karen McDonald told jurors in the latter trial.

Indeed, the elder Crumbleys’ cases were so uncommon that their impact will likelybe limited, Frank Vandervort, clinical professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, said before the trials in January.

“I don’t anticipate there’s going to be a lot of this kind of thing filed; I think this is a pretty unique case,” he said.

Even so, James and Jennifer Crumbley’s guilty verdicts could set an important precedent for who besides the shooter can be held responsible for a mass shooting though such cases remain uncommon, experts said.

Read more about the possible impact for future cases.

TeenagerEthan Crumbleywas sentenced to life in prison without parole in December 2023 for gunning down four classmates and wounding six others and a teacher at Michigan’s Oxford High School in 2021.

Dismissing last-minute defense pleas that Crumbley’s life is salvageable, Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Kwamé Rowe noted that the “defendant in his own words” told the court “this is nobody’s fault but his own.”

Rowe said victim Justin Shilling, 17, was shot at point-blank range after being told by Crumbley to get on his knees. Hana St. Juliana, 14, was shot a second time after she was down, he said, “to finish the job by shooting her again.”

“That is an execution. That is torture. He shot most people multiple times. And, as he wrote, he did this for notoriety. And he wanted to go down … as the biggest school shooter in Michigan history.”

Before sentencing, Crumbley told the judge: “I am a really bad person. I have done terrible things that no one should ever do.” Whatever the sentence handed down, he added, “I do plan to be better.”

Crumbley became the first minor to receive an original sentence of life without the possibility of parole followinga 2012 US Supreme Court rulingthat found sentencing a child to life without parole is excessive for all but the rare offender, according to court documents in the case. He was 15 when he committed the attack.

Keep reading about Ethan Crumbley’s hearing.