Witch hunt, or justice? Jennifer Crumbley's case heads to jury on dramatic note

Jennifer Crumbley's historic school shooting trial ended on a dramatic note Friday, with one side claiming the prosecution was "so desperate" to blame someone for the Oxford school shooting that it mounted a "witch hunt" against an innocent mother, while the other side accused the mom of being selfish and negligent, refusing to do even the "smallest" things that could have saved the lives of four children killed by her son.

Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Matthews sent jurors home after the closing arguments, with deliberations to begin Monday.

In closing, the prosecutor turned Crumbley's testimony against her, reminding the jury: "She said she wouldn't do one thing different."

That's what Crumbley said on Thursday, but added: "I wish he would have killed us instead."

Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald, who more than two years ago made history when she announced unprecedented criminal charges against the parents of the Oxford school shooter, had the last word with jurors on Friday as she bears the burden of proving four lives were lost due to alleged gross negligence by Crumbley.

Jennifer Crumbley, who is the first parent in America to face conviction in a mass school shooting, is charged with involuntary manslaughter for buying her son the gun that he used in the 2021 massacre and never disclosing that gun to school officials when given the chance. Her husband, James, is also charged and goes to trial in March. Her son Ethan Crumbley pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

A key issue in the parents' case is reasonable foreseeability, an element that must be proven by the prosecution. The defense says this is a hurdle the prosecution can't clear, arguing there is no evidence that Crumbley could have reasonably foreseen that her son would shoot up his school.

"No one expected this," defense attorney Shannon Smith said. "No one could have expected this, including Mrs. Crumbley."

And the school's assistant principal who knew the shooter since middle school. Smith urged jurors to recall the testimony of Assistant Principal Kristy Gibson-Marshall, who encountered the gunman in a hallway during his rampage: "I asked if he was OK. It just didn't seem right that it would be him ... I didn't think it was possible that he was the shooter."

Smith argued this case is one of hindsight.

"When you look back in hindsight, it is easy to say, this could have been different, that could have been different, this could have changed," Smith said, maintaining the prosecution built a false narrative by presenting "unnecessary" evidence out of context.

"The prosecutor has cherry-picked little pieces of evidence out of a mountain of evidence," Smith said. "… and when you get cherry-picked bits of evidence, it's easy to reach wrong conclusions."

'He literally drew a picture'

During her closing, McDonald zeroed in on what is perhaps the most damning element in this case: a violent drawing that the shooter made on the morning of the rampage and his parents' reactions to that drawing once they were summoned to the school.

The shooter had drawn a picture of a gun on a geometry worksheet, along with a human body dripping with blood, and the words: "The thoughts won't stop, Help me ... Blood Everywhere"

“He literally drew a picture” of what he was going to do, said McDonald, arguing the Crumbleys could have and should have done a number of things when they saw the alarming note, including:

• They should have informed the school that their son had access to a gun, one they had gifted him four days earlier.

• They should have asked their son where the gun was.

• They should have pulled their son aside, talked to him, hugged him and asked him what was wrong.

But the Crumbleys did none of that, McDonald said. Rather the couple left their son at school and returned to their jobs.

Two hours later, their son fired his first shot in a rampage that would claim the lives of Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; and Justin Shilling, 17. Six other students and a teacher were injured.

'Her son is still alive. Find her guilty.'

McDonald stressed to jurors multiple times that the Crumbleys, more than anyone else, could have prevented the tragedy with "small" things.

"The tragic part about it is none of it was hard. None of it," McDonald said. "The smallest thing, just the smallest thing, could have saved Hana, and Tate and Justin and Madisyn."

To prove gross negligence, the prosecution must show that the Crumbleys had a "reasonable foreseeability" that their son was going to shoot up his school given what they knew about him. Prosecutors say he was a troubled boy spiraling downward, but his parents ignored his mental health troubles and fostered his love of guns instead.

Crumbley, 45, took the stand in her own defense and disputed the prosecutor's claims, telling jurors she was a "hypervigilant" mother who took her son on family vacations, hiking trips, monitored his homework, drove him to soccer and bowling, and brought along his closest friend on family trips.

She said she never saw any signs that her son was mentally ill or needed counseling, other than him having anxiety over school, and that she never could have predicted her son would shoot up his school. She also told the jury that she has lost "a lot" since the shooting: her child, home, family life, friends - but that the real victims are those who lost their children.

It's probably the only thing Crumbley and the prosecutor agreed on.

"When she took the stand and she testified about her own loss … she hasn't lost everything ladies and gentleman," McDonald said in closing. "Her son is still alive. Find her guilty."

Defense works to outline reasonable doubts

Smith spent twice as long as the prosecutor in closing, and started by citing prosecutor's final words about the case: "This is shocking, unthinkable, unbelievable, unfathomable," Smith said, stressing there's a reason for all this:

"No one expected this," said Smith, who accused the prosecution of trying to portray her client as the worst parent in the world.

"She's not a perfect person or a perfect parent," Smith said, noting her client got on the stand and exposed "every nook and cranny" of her life to the world.

"She wanted you to see the whole truth … where she had to show you that she has made immoral decisions to have an affair … Mrs. Crumbley got up there and literally stripped her armor and let the prosecution cross-examine her about what happened in her messy life," said Smith.

"If you hate her … that's OK," Smith said. "You don't have to like her."

"Can every parent really be responsible for everything their children to do, especially when it's not foreseeable?"

'This case is a very dangerous one for parents out there'

During her closing, Smith talked about when parents should be held responsible for their children's acts.

Referring to her own teenage son, Smith said: "If he starts looking at nude pictures on his cellphone that I got him on his birthday, should I be held accountable? … Am I responsible if he sends a picture of his penis to a girl?"

That's what happened here, she said, stressing repeatedly that the shooting was not foreseeable for Jennifer Crumbley — or school officials for that matter, she said, pointing out that educators, professionals in dealing with student behavior, let Ethan Crumbley stay in school after the meeting with his parents.

"This case is a very dangerous one for parents out there. And it is the first of its kind," she said, adding: "The prosecution cannot prove its burden of proof."

She went on to blast the prosecution, saying it "was so desperate to bring this case" that it brought in a mountain of evidence that was "designed to inflame you and get you to hate Mrs. Crumbley, which, by the way, has been very effective."

Smith went piece by piece trying to dismantle the prosecution's case, which she said relied heavily on a small batch of text messages between the son and his mom, and the son and his friend — all of which she argued were refuted and explained during testimony.

Smith said the prosecution provided no context around little bits of “useless evidence,” like Jennifer Crumbley calling her son an “oopsie baby.”

“I call my son that, so what, does that mean I hate my son?” Smith said.

Then she brought up the shooter's texts to his mom about seeing a demon throw bowls around the house, and their house being haunted. That wasn't him hallucinating, she said, but as Crumbley said in her testimony, the family had a running family joke about ghosts in the house, where the son and dad named ghosts "Victoria" and "Boris Johnson." She said her son was always "messing with us" about ghosts, made videos of pretend ghosts slamming doors, and was convinced for more than a year that his house was haunted and played with a Ouiji board with his friend.

Smith said the prosecution used a small sample of text messages to his mother and a friend in which he mentioned ghosts and paranoia. But when put in context, she told jurors, the texts were not serious and were only a sliver of the more than 20,000 texts he exchanged with his friend alone - a stack she she showed the jury.

She proceeded to attack the prosecution's exhibits that she argues show nothing illegal.

'If they had better evidence, they would be up here showing' it

For example, prosecutors showed pictures of Jennifer Crumbley on her horse and texts to her husband that she was going to "get drunk" and go horseback riding on St. Patrick's Day. So what? she asked; her client was drinking on St. Patrick's Day.

"Big deal. Jennifer is at the barn. Their son is texting something weird," she said, saying it fit the family's playfulness.

"If they had better evidence, they would be up here showing" it, Smith said. "This is it, ladies and gentlemen."

In the end, she said: "The Crumbleys' son was a skilled manipulator, and they didn't realize it."

She said their son "has no history of hallucinations. He has never shown his parents signs of mental illness.

"No parent would purchase a weapon if they believed their child had mental illness," Smith said, noting that the Crumbleys already had two guns in their house previously "and nothing happened."

"They had no reason to believe that this third gun was going to make the difference," Smith said.

Smith told jurors: “The other thing that you can find as a reasonable doubt in the is the lack of evidence in the case as a whole. The prosecution has made very serious claims. And when you really look at it, they have very little evidence.”

She held up a large stack of Facebook messages between James and Jennifer Crumbley and showed that prosecutors are using a small amount of them as evidence.

Smith also showed a tall stack of text messages between Ethan Crumbley and his friend that she said contains more than 20,000 messages. The prosecution presented some of those messages where Jennifer Crumbley’s son wrote things including that he asked his dad to take him to the doctor, “but he just gave me some pills” and that when he asked to go to the doctor his mother “laughed.”

“I don’t disagree with the prosecution that these are alarming messages,” Smith said. But the shooter’s friend did not text him back or tell Jennifer Crumbley about them; Smith also said there is no evidence Jennifer Crumbley ever saw the messages.

She said her client also never saw the parts of her son’s journal presented by prosecutors.

“To evaluate this case you have to look at it from the perspective of what she knew,” Smith said. “So the journal information and the small amount of texts compared to all the texts with his friend are things she didn’t know about.”

Smith: Husband was responsible for guns

Smith also defended her client's withdrawal of thousands of dollars from the family's bank accounts after the shooting.

"For her wanting to have cash makes absolute sense," she said, arguing using credit cards anywhere would help people identify her at a time when the Crumbleys say they had been threatened. Smith said Jennifer Crumbley was scared, not fleeing, noting that she was carrying a syringe of horse medicine in her pocket.

"Her intent was not to flee. Her intent was to stay safe," Smith said, adding: "The Crumbleys weren't running. They just wanted to turn themselves in."

Smith noted the texts from the Crumbleys to their lawyers said just that, and their phone alarms were set to 6 a.m. for the following morning, which jurors saw.

Regarding the gun, Smith said:

"It is important to point out that James was responsible for storage of the gun," she said.

Smith also defended Jennifer Crumbley's dedication to work, which was also cast in a negative light by the prosecution, as it alleged she cared more about her job and horses than her son.

"Shes the one with the professional career … He's a DoorDash driver. She's trying to pay the bills. She's the breadwinner … She shouldn't be dinged for that," Smith said.

According to trial testimony, the gun at issue was hidden in the parents' armoire, and the bullets were hidden under a stack of jeans in a separate drawer. The key for the cable lock on the gun case was in a beer stein.

"If you are upset with how the gun was hidden, that's not your case … she is not the person responsible for storing this weapon," Smith said.

"It's a gross overstatement to keep saying the gun was his gift," Smith said, arguing it was more like giving a child a laptop, cellphone, car or jet ski to use. "It doesn't really mean the kids have free access to stuff. It comes with conditions and parameters."

"Unfortunately, the prosecution brought charges too soon," Smith said. "The prosecution and law enforcement have approached this case with tunnel vision from Day One."

Smith also criticized the prosecution for portraying her client as a cold, distant mother by pointing out that she didn't hug her son in the school office.

"Giving him a hug that day in the office was going to stop a mass shooting — there's nothing to prove that anything could stop a school shooting," Smith said.

Smith urged the jurors to dive into the couples' hundreds of text messages, saying they're going to find "a lot of instances where Mrs. Crumbley is anxious about where her son is," arguments between her and her husband and even sex talk.

"You will read a variety of messages that show real life, and it should make no difference that they mention their horse's name than their sons," Smith said, noting "even if they don't use their son's name," when they say "he," that's who they are talking about."

Smith stressed again that this case could set a dangerous precedent for any parent who is trying their best.

"I do wish, more than anything, that this case could bring justice to victims of the shooting, and to the victims of the terrorism that day," Smith said. "This is not justice. This is not how justice works. This does nothing for people who have lost everything … and it does nothing to (undo) the tragedy that unfolded on Nov. 30."

"The prosecution cannot prove that Mrs. Crumbley knew there was a danger by her son, or that she was grossly negligent, and there is no way she could foresee" the shooting, she said.

Prosecutor argues for conviction

McDonald, though, urged the jurors to convict. And in doing so, she urged jurors not to consider Crumbley's testimony that school officials were at fault for not searching her son's backpack, for assuring her that he was not a threat to the school, for giving him the option of staying in school after the drawing was discovered, and for not sharing with her problems the boy had been having at school during the year of the shooting, like falling asleep in class, feeling depressed, and writing an autobiography that said "My family is a mistake."

"I’m going to tell you right now that this is not an argument that the school did everything they should have done. I’m not going to say that to you,” McDonald said. “I’m not going to tell you that I like everything they testified to. I’m not going to tell you that I think it was OK they didn’t look in the backpack. I don’t think it was.'

She continued:

"But this is about Jennifer Crumbley’s actions and any attempt to make it about what these two individuals did or didn’t do, like it or not, who did not have any of the information that was so jarring, it’s about what she knew and what she didn’t say.”

McDonald asked the jury to consider the testimony of school counselor Shawn Hopkins, who said he called the parents to the school because he was concerned about the drawing their son had made in math class. Hopkins had sent the drawing to the mother, who then texted her husband: "EMERGENCY."

McDonald urged the jury to consider that reaction, arguing it shows the mom knew this was a serious matter.

McDonald next urged the jury to pay close attention to what happened inside the school counselor's office when the parents arrived.

"Jennifer Crumbley didn't hug her son," McDonald said. "Jennifer Crumbley didn't engage with her son at all in the entire 11 minutes she was there."

McDonald argued Crumbley never intended to stay long at the school, given she had told her boss she'd be back by 12 or 12:30.

She also urged jurors to remember what Oxford High counselor Shawn Hopkins told them — "that he felt compassion for the shooter." That's why, she argues, Hopkins let the shooter stay in school: He didn't want him to go home and be alone.

McDonald also reminded jurors about the testimony of Dean of Students Nicholas Ejak, who was in the counselor's office with the parents and the shooter that day. He testified that the mother seemed irritated about being called to the school, and abruptly ended the meeting, saying "Are we done here?"

McDonald then walked the jury through a timeline, and asked them to remember the parents' actions in the hours after the shooting, specifically the comment they made to police about the murder weapon.

When police asked the parents where the gun was located in their house before their son using it, Jennifer Crumbley said: "It was hidden."

McDonald also said the parents' actions proved that they could "reasonably foresee" that their son was going to shoot up his school, and had a duty to exercise "ordinary care" to protect the students from their son.

This, she said, was evident in the parents' actions in the counselor's office on the morning of the shooting.

“She could have told the school we gifted him a gun. She could have told him we care about you. We love you,” McDonald said.

“That worksheet right there is reasonable foreseeability,” McDonald said. “It’s not just any gun — it’s the defendant's son's gun …

“'The thoughts won’t stop. Help me' … that is foreseeability. He’s telling in that drawing, this is the gun that was purchased for me. ‘Help me. Blood everywhere. The world is dead. ‘”

"It's a rare case. It takes some really egregious facts. It takes the unthinkable,” McDonald said. “And she has done the unthinkable. And because of that four kids have died."

Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com

Contact Gina Kaufman: gkaufman@freepress.com. Follow her on X: @ReporterGina.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Witch hunt, or justice? Jennifer Crumbley's fate in jury's hands