He is lodged alone in a cell in the Oakland county jail’s clinic to keep him from seeing and hearing adult inmates. Last month, Ethan Crumbley’s attorneys filed a notice of an insanity defense. The case against them is highly unusual because parents are rarely held criminally responsible for teens accused in mass school shootings. The Crumbleys are jailed on $500,000 bond. A sheriff’s office computer crimes investigator testified 8 February at the couple’s preliminary examination that she later asked her son in a text if he “at least” showed school officials a photo of the gun the parents gave Ethan as an early Christmas gift. Help me.” Authorities said the parents refused to take him home after the 13-minute meeting.Ī day before the shooting, the school left a voicemail for Jennifer Crumbley informing her that a teacher was concerned that Ethan had been searching for ammunition online using his phone. On the morning of the shooting, Ethan’s parents were summoned to the school and confronted with his drawings, which included a handgun and the words: “The thoughts won’t stop. The Crumbleys’ attorneys have insisted the couple didn’t know their son might plan an attack and didn’t make the gun easy to find in their home. The gun used in the shooting was given to Ethan Crumbley as an early Christmas present, prosecutors have said. In addition to the four students slain, six other students and a teacher were wounded. “Their son was deteriorating before their eyes he went through stretches of sleeping only a few hours per night - staying up very late at night while defendants drank, argued and slept only a few feet away in a bedroom that shared a wall with the shooter’s room,” prosecutors said.They are accused of making the gun used in the shooting available to the teen and failing to intervene when he showed signs of mental distress at home and at school.Įthan Crumbley is charged as an adult with first-degree murder, assault with intent to murder, terrorism and gun charges in the 30 November shooting at Oxford high school, about 30 miles (50 km) north of Detroit. When Ethan went through stretches of poor sleep or insomnia, he “complained of seeing demons and asked for help” but his parents ignored him, prosecutors said. When he was older, prosecutors said, Jennifer and James Crumbley would ask their son to investigate potential infidelities or check up on one of the parents, inserting him into their personal problems. Prosecutors also allege that when Ethan was six, his mother took him to stay the night with a person she was having an affair with and left him on the couch. “My grades are falling, my parents hate each other, we have no money, I have zero help for my mental problems and it’s causing me to shoot up the f**king school,” one journal entry states. Ethan felt the financial stress and wrote about it in his journal, prosecutors said. Neighbors and others told investigators that the parents would consistently fight and drink to excess, often leaving Ethan unsupervised.Įvidence also shows the parents spent thousands of dollars on alcohol and care for horses and negligible amounts on medical care, the filing states. Investigators have interviewed witnesses from across the country who interacted with the family as far back as when Ethan was in kindergarten, the filing reveals. “The investigation paints a clear picture of parents who were not just in constant conflict, or who just exposed their son to conflict, but who actively inserted him into their conflict…” “What the evidence will actually show is that these defendants exposed their son to years of chaotic, toxic conflict, which is a well-known risk factor for entering the pathway to violence,” the filing states. They also argued the parents had “every reason” to know their son was dangerous. Prosecutors argued that Jennifer and James Crumbley played “a much larger role than just buying their son a gun,” and that there were many things the parents could have done, other than simply locking up the gun, that could have prevented the tragedy. The parents were each charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter after their teenage son allegedly shot and killed four students and injured seven other people at Oxford High School in November. Attorneys for the couple have called the evidence “extraneous.” In a court filing Thursday, prosecutors argued that evidence of Jennifer and James Crumbley’s personal problems, including an extramarital affair and substance abuse, should be allowed to be introduced at their trial. (CNN) - Michigan prosecutors say the parents of accused Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley exposed him to years of “chaotic, toxic conflict,” and that they left him in an unstable home often with little supervision, creating a pathway to violence.
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