No verdict after first day of deliberations in trial of Michigan school shooter’s mom
PONTIAC, Mich. — A Michigan jury went home Monday after a full day of deliberations in a novel trial against a school shooter’s mother who could go to prison if convicted of involuntary manslaughter for the deaths of four students in 2021.
The jury will return today for a second day.
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Prosecutors say Jennifer Crumbley had a duty under Michigan law to prevent her son from harming others.
She’s accused of making a gun and ammunition accessible at home and failing to get help for Ethan Crumbley’s mental health.
Jennifer Crumbley didn’t disclose to Oxford High School that the family had a new 9 mm handgun that Ethan Crumbley had used with her at a shooting range just a few days before the attack, according to evidence.
About four hours into deliberations Monday, the jury sent a note to the judge asking if it could “infer anything” from prosecutors not presenting Ethan Crumbley or others to explain specifically how he got the gun from home.
“The answer is no. You’re only allowed to consider the evidence that was admitted in the case,” Oakland County Judge Cheryl Matthews said.
On Nov. 30, 2021, school staff was concerned about a violent drawing of a gun, bullet and wounded man, accompanied by desperate phrases, on Ethan Crumbley’s math assignment. But he was allowed to stay in school, following a roughly 12-minute meeting with the parents, who didn’t take him home.
The teenager pulled the gun from his backpack in the afternoon and shot 10 students and a teacher, killing four peers.
No one had checked the backpack.
“He literally drew a picture of what he was going to do.
“It says, ‘Help me,’” prosecutor Karen McDonald said during closing arguments Friday in suburban Detroit.
