Parents of Ethan Crumbley, the Michigan teenager who is serving life in prison after killing four students at Oxford High School, near Detroit in Michigan in November 2021, when he was 15, have been handed a 10 to 15 years prison sentence.
A seven-year sentence was recommended, but prosecutors asked for more. James and Jennifer Crumbley, the first parents of a US school shooter to be convicted, appeared together for the first time in months at Tuesday’s sentencing hearing.
Both expressed regret about their son’s attack, as their lawyers pushed to minimise their prison sentence. In a landmark case, jurors in separate trials found each parent of shooter Ethan Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter earlier this year.
School shooter, Ethan Crumbley
Judge Cheryl Matthews said that the expanded sentence of 10 to 15 years was “to act as a deterrent” and reflected the parents’ failure to stop the attack. Mathews said;
“They [parents] are not expected to be psychic. But these convictions are not about poor parenting. They concern acts that could have halted a runaway train,. Opportunity knocked over and over again, louder and louder, and it was ignored.”
The Crumbleys are eligible for parole after they serve 10 years in prison, but they cannot be held for more than 15 years if parole is denied. Prosecutors had alleged that the pair had dismissed clear signs that their son’s mental health had deteriorated and noted that the parents had bought Ethan Crumbley the gun he used in the 2021 attack.
On the day of the shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford, Michigan, the Crumbleys cut short a school meeting about a disturbing drawing their son had made, instead opting to go to work and not take him home.
School staff later sent him back to class without checking his backpack, which contained the gun his parents had purchased.
An independent investigation published last year alleged multiple failures from the school system, including the decision to allow Ethan to return to class. In response, the school district has pledged to review and improve its practices and policies.