James Crumbley echoes wife's concerns about 3 school shooting witnesses

Though facing separate trials, James and Jennifer Crumbley are on the same page this week as both have now asked the judge to disqualify three key witnesses from their historic school shooting case: a student, teacher and assistant principal who all survived their son's deadly massacre at Oxford High School.

In back-to-back court filings, attorneys for the Crumbleys argue that the testimony of these eyewitnesses is both irrelevant to the parents' cases and could unfairly inflame jurors given the horror they witnessed.

"The gruesome and horrifying testimony about what occurred in the school is not relevant and would certainly inflame the jury and confuse them as to what the relevant issues are," the father's attorney, Mariell Lehman, wrote in a late Wednesday filing, stressing:

"There is no dispute that the victims of the Oxford High School shooting experienced the most traumatic thing in their lives, and Mr. Crumbley does not intend to dispute or minimize their experience in any way during his trial."

Lehman's filing echoed the same concerns made a day earlier by the mom's attorney.

At issue for the defense lawyers is this: The parents' cases involve what happened before the Nov. 30, 2021 shooting, not during, with the focus being on how the Crumbleys raised their son, whether they had a duty to protect others from him, and whether they could have prevented the deadly shooting that killed four students and injured seven others, including a teacher. Hana St. Juliana, 14; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16, and Justin Shilling, 17, all died.

The Crumbleys, who are the first parents in America charged in a mass school shooting, go to trial Jan. 23 on involuntary manslaughter charges for buying their son the gun that he used in the massacre, and never disclosing that to the school when they had the chance to do so.

The shooter, Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, pleaded guilty to all his crimes and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole last month.

To the chagrin of the parents, among the witnesses the prosecution wants to use at their trial are three people who last summer delivered gut-wrenching testimony about what they saw and experienced on the day of the shooting. They are:

• Assistant Principal Kristy Gibson-Marshall, who gave mouth-to-mouth to a dying teenage boy who had been shot in the back of the head, telling him she loved him and to hang on, though the boy would not make it.

• Gregory Keegan, a student who was stuck in a bathroom with the shooter, frantically texting his family as he heard the gunman shoot his final victim, who was ordered to his knees before being shot execution-style.

• Teacher Molly Darnell, who locked eyes with the gunman before he opened fire on her, shooting her in the arm, just 6 inches from her heart.

Prosecutors have long argued that the Crumbleys, more than anyone else, could have prevented the shooting had they disclosed to school officials that their son had access to a gun on the morning they were summoned over his troubling behavior. Hours before the shooting, the Crumbleys were called to the school over a violent drawing their son had made on a math worksheet. It included a gun, a bleeding body and the words: "The thoughts won't stop. Help me."

During the school meeting, the Crumbleys never disclosed that their son had a gun, but instead said they would get him help in the coming days, and asked whether he could be returned to class because they had to get back to work.

The Crumbleys returned to their jobs. Their son was sent back to class. Two hours later, he emerged from a bathroom and opened fire.

The Crumbleys, who have been jailed on bonds of $500,000 each since the shooting, have long maintained they had no way of knowing their son would carry out a school shooting, and that the gun at issue was properly secured and locked in their home.

If convicted, they each face up to 15 years in prison.

Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Crumbleys fight to ban Oxford school shooting witnesses from their trials