Two days after a 15-year-old student was charged in the Oxford High School shooting that left four students dead and seven others injured, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald announced a rare move to charge the suspected gunman’s parents, Jennifer and James Crumbley in the massacre as well.
Authorities arrested the suspect, a sophomore at Oxford High School, on November 30 in connection to the deadly shooting. The Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office charged him with four counts of first-degree murder; one count of terrorism causing death; seven counts of assault with intent to murder; and 12 counts of felony firearm possession.
His parents face four charges of involuntary manslaughter, which, under Michigan law, requires the government to prove the defendants created a situation that had an unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily injury.
Despite the shocking number of school shootings in the US, additional charges targeting people other than the shooting suspect are largely unprecedented, if not extremely rare, legal experts told Insider.
But two former federal prosecutors said the charges brought against Jennifer and James, though uncommon, are likely to stick, given the circumstances leading up to the Tuesday tragedy.
“The evidence is so strong here,” Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and the president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told Insider. “I would expect guilty verdicts.”
Prosecutors released a timeline of disturbing evidence leading up to the shooting
On the morning of November 26, James Crumbley took his son shopping on Black Friday and purchased the 9mm handgun that authorities said was used in the shooting. The next day, Jennifer said she and her son were “testing out his new Christmas present” in a social media post, according to officials.
The suspect later posted a photo of himself holding the gun captioned, “Just got my new baby today SIGSaur 9mm.”
On November 29, a teacher at Oxford High School notified school officials after witnessing the shooting suspect using his cellphone to search for ammunition. The school contacted Jennifer and left a voicemail, but she never returned their call, authorities said.
She later sent a text message to her son that read: “Lol I’m not mad at you, you have to learn not to get caught,” according to investigators.
On November 30, the morning of the shooting, another teacher found a note in the suspect’s desk, which included a picture of a semi-automatic handgun and the words “the thoughts won’t stop, help me” and “blood everywhere.” The drawing included a person who appeared to have been shot accompanied by a laughing emoji and the words “my life is useless.”
School officials removed the student from class and scheduled an in-person meeting with his parents. Jennifer and James Crumbley were shown the drawing and told they had to get their son counseling within 48 hours. The couple resisted officials’ suggestion that he be removed from class that day and insisted he returned to class, according to prosecutors.
Later that afternoon, authorities said the suspect emerged from a bathroom and began shooting. When news broke of an active shooter, Jennifer texted her son, telling him “don’t do it.” Meanwhile, James called 911 and reported a missing gun from his house and said he believed his son might be the shooter.
According to prosecutors, the new gun had been stored in an unlocked drawer in Jennifer and James’ bedroom.
On Friday, after McDonald announced charges against the Crumbleys, the couple disappeared, skipping their scheduled arraignment. Police classified them as fugitives and the US Marshals office joined the search. Jennifer and James were eventually arrested early Saturday morning in the basement of a Detroit building.
Mounting detailed evidence against the Crumbleys will likely aid the prosecution in securing convictions, Robert A. Sanders, a former federal prosecutor and chair of the national security department at the University of New Haven, told Insider.
“[The Crumbleys] have all this knowledge, and they don’t tell anybody that [the suspect] has ready access to a firearm,” Sanders said. “The argument is that they could be held to a duty based on their parental responsibility to act before their child did.”