Ethan Crumbley: Parents of teenager who shot dead four classmates in the US jailed for manslaughter
The parents of a US teenager who shot four classmates dead have been jailed for at least 10 years for manslaughter.
Ethan Crumbley is serving life in prison for murder after killing four students at Oxford High School, near Detroit in Michigan, in November 2021, when he was 15.
His parents had given him the weapon he used as a Christmas present.
The Crumbleys are the first parents to be convicted of manslaughter in a child’s school shooting.
Ethan’s mother Jennifer Crumbley, 46, was found guilty of four counts of manslaughter – one for each victim – in February this year. She was jailed for 10 to 15 years.
His father, James Crumbley, 47, was also convicted of involuntary manslaughter. The judge also sentenced him to 10 to 15 years in prison.
In remarks to the court before they were sentenced, Jennifer Crumbley expressed her “deepest sorrow” and claimed she had no inkling her son was capable of killing.
“My husband and I used to say we have the perfect kid. I truly believed that,” she said. “I didn’t have a reason to do anything different. This is not something I foresaw.”
Addressing the court, her husband said: “I am sorry for your loss as a result of what my son did. My heart pours out to every single one of you.”
James Crumbley. Pic: Detroit Free Press via AP
Defendant Jennifer Crumbley. Pic: Detroit Free Press via AP
Prosecutors previously argued both parents bore responsibility because they gave their son the gun and ignored signs of violence.
James Crumbley purchased the 9mm semi-automatic handgun as a Christmas present for Ethan just four days before the 30 November 2021 shooting.
Both of the parents were summoned to their son’s school after teachers discovered violent messages like “blood everywhere” and “the thoughts won’t stop – help me” plus drawings on his schoolwork, prosecutors said during the trials.
The Crumbleys were told Ethan needed immediate counselling.
But prosecutors said the couple resisted, taking the boy home that day, and didn’t search his backpack or ask him about the gun they knew he could access.
Both of the Crumbleys had challenged that account in their trials, saying teachers in the meeting mutually agreed Ethan could remain in school that day and at no point did they think he posed a danger.
Ethan was returned to class and later walked out of a bathroom with the gun and began firing, according to prosecutors.
He killed 14-year-old Hana St Juliana, 16-year-old Tate Myre, 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin, and 17-year-old Justin Shilling and injured seven other people.
(L-R) Hana St Juliana, 14, Tate Myre, 16, and Madisyn Baldwin, 17, were killed by Crumbley
Justin Shilling, 17, was also killed in the shooting
What did the victims’ families say?
Madisyn Baldwin’s mother, Nicole Beausoleil, was the first to give a victim impact statement.
She said: “You failed as parents. The punishment that you face will never be enough. It will never bring her back… and it will never heal the pain.”
Ms Beausoleil criticised the Crumbleys for not listening to their son, which “took the right away for me to be a mother”.
“You show no remorse, no respect or compassion for our family. The same traits you bestowed upon your son… which tore my family to pieces.”
In an emotional statement, Ms Beausoleil said their lack of compassion was “disgusting” adding, as well as Ethan, the pair “both killed” her daughter.
The families of the other victims echoed Ms Baldwin’s sentiments.
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What do the Crumbley’s lawyers say?
Both defendants have been behind bars for over two years since their arrest in Detroit days after the shooting and both were unable to post the $500,000 (£394,000) bond before trial.
Mariell Lehman, James Crumbley’s lawyer, said the nearly two and a half years spent in jail was enough time in custody.
James Crumbley “did not believe that there was reason to be concerned that his son was a threat to anyone,” Ms Lehman said.
Jennifer Crumbley’s lawyer, Shannon Smith, previously said the defendant was “not a threat to the community.”
In a court filing, Ms Smith said putting her in prison “does nothing to further deter others from committing like offences” and said “any gross negligence” were mistakes “that any parent could make.”
The lawyer added she was even willing to house Jennifer Crumbley at her property, fitted with an electronic tether.
The Crumbleys will be eligible for parole after serving 10 years in custody and will get credit for having served nearly two and a half years in jail. If parole is denied, they cannot be held longer than 15 years.
On the grass outside the university library, it is as though it never happened.
The tents have been removed. The pavements have been sprayed. The graffiti removed.
Order and control have been restored. The protest has been silenced. For now at least.
A few streets away, at the university police station, an officer calls the names of the students arrested the night before.
On the steps in front of him, the bedraggled are waiting.
Pic: Reuters
Police clash with pro-Palestinian demonstrators on the UCLA campus early on Thursday morning. Pic: AP
Students, charged and released with a date in court, are here now to collect their belongings. They’re missing bags, belts, shoes, all lost in the chaos of the night before.
From the very heart of the protest encampment, our cameras had captured the chaos.
Officers moving in. Tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse. Stun grenades to disorientate.
Police detain a demonstrator, as they clear out the protest encampment in UCLA.
Pic: Reuters
They were scenes which have stirred an already fevered debate about Israel and Gaza, yes, but about much more too. About America, about policing, and about free speech too.
President Biden said yesterday: “Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations – none of this is a peaceful protest.”
‘Wrong’ say the protesters. Their movement, they say, is the very essence of protest; of civil disobedience which is threaded through US college campus history.
Law enforcement official moves a tent at the protest encampment in support of Palestinians at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)
Signs of the days-long protest on campus being gradually cleared.
They reject any notion that they are threatening or violent. Yet the deeply divisive history of the Israel-Palestine conflict ensures that the beholder will so often be offended by the actions of the other side.
It was the students perceived antisemitism through their pro-Palestinian slogans which had drawn a group of pro-Israel protesters to the encampment earlier in the week.
The chaos of that night was reflected in a statement by the university’s student radio station which has been covering every twist.
This embrace turned out to be a thread of history
“Counter protestors used bear mace, professional-grade fireworks and clubs to brutalize hundreds of our peers, UCLA turned a blind eye. Police were not called until hours into the onslaught and stood aside for over an hour as counter-protestors enacted racial, physical and chemical violence,” the statement from the UCLA Radio Managerial team said.
Watching the clear-up after the nighttime police sweep of the protesters I spotted two people embracing. A young man and an older woman.
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Professor recalls violent arrest at protest
It turned out to be a thread of history. One was a student who’d been arrested the night before.
The other was a student from a past time. Diane Salinger had been at New York’s Columbia University in 1968, at protests which now form a key chapter in American history.
Diane Salinger had been at New York’s Columbia University in 1968, at protests which now form a key chapter in American history
“I’m so proud of these people here. I’m so proud,” she told me.
“You know the civil unrest of the students back in ’68 and it continued for several years, it actually changed the course of the Vietnam War and hopefully this is going to do the same thing.”
But then, back at the police station, a conversation that hints at the wider challenges for America.
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‘Tom’ is a protester who wanted to remain anonymous – a graduate who feels politically deserted in his own country. For him, no government is better than any on offer.
‘Tom’ is a protester who wanted to remain anonymous – a graduate who feels politically deserted in his own country.
“The problem with our system is that we can’t rely on the police, we can’t rely on the military to keep us safe.
“When we need to make our voices heard, we need to make them heard, and the only way to do that without being repressed is by keeping each other safe and I think that last night and the last few months have really exemplified that,” he told me.
These protests are about more than Gaza. They are aligning a spectrum of dissent.
A scuba dive boat captain has been jailed for four years for criminal negligence over a fire that killed 34 people.
Captain Jerry Boylan was also sentenced to three years supervised release by a federal judge in Los Angeles, California.
The blaze on the vessel named Conception in September 2019 was the deadliest maritime disaster in recent American history.
Boylan was found guilty of one count of misconduct or neglect of ship officer last year.
Captain Jerry Boylan. Pic: AP
The charge is a pre-Civil War statute, known colloquially as seaman’s manslaughter, and was designed to hold steamboat captains and crew responsible for maritime disasters.
In a sentencing memo, lawyers for Boylan – who is appealing – wrote: “While the loss of life here is staggering, there can be no dispute that Mr Boylan did not intend for anyone to die.
“Indeed, Mr Boylan lives with significant grief, remorse, and trauma as a result of the deaths of his passengers and crew.”
The Conception was anchored off Santa Cruz Island, 25 miles south of Santa Barbara, when it caught fire before dawn on the final day of a three-day voyage, sinking less than 30 metres from the shore.
Thirty-three passengers and a crew member died, trapped below deck.
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The victims included an environmental scientist, a Singaporean data scientist and a family of three sisters, their father and his wife.
Boylan jumped overboard, and four crew members who followed suit also survived.
The burned hull of the dive boat. Pic: AP
Boylan initially faced 34 counts of seaman’s manslaughter, meaning he could have faced a total of 340 years behind bars.
His lawyers argued the deaths were the result of a single incident and not separate crimes, so prosecutors instead charged Boylan with only one count.
While the criminal case has concluded, there are several ongoing lawsuits.
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