OAN’s Abril Elfi
2:10 PM – Thursday, February 1, 2024
The mother of the Michigan school shooter, Ethan Crumbley, has taken the stand in her trial for involuntary manslaughter.
On Thursday, Jennifer Crumbley took the stand during her trial after the teenager accused his parents of failing to help him prior to the 2021 attack where Crumbley took the lives of four students at Oxford High School.
According to evidence revealed in the courtroom, the teen had a journal where he described his plan to shoot up the school and that his parents would not listen to his pleas for help.
“I have zero help for my mental problems and it’s causing me to shoot up the … school,” Ethan Crumbley, then 15, wrote in his journal. “My parents won’t listen to me about help or therapist,” the boy said, adding that he would spend his life in prison and that “many people have about a day left to live.”
Jennifer and her husband James are both currently charged with involuntary manslaughter and are accused of making a gun accessible at home and ignoring their son’s mental health.
The Crumbleys are the first parents in the United States to face charges related to a child-perpetrated mass shooting at a school. In March, James Crumbley, 47, will appear for his own trial.
The 17-year-old entered a guilty plea and is currently serving his sentence of life in prison.
Detective Lt. Tim Willis testified on Thursday and said that the couple had more than $6,000 when they were arrested four days after the shooting, which included $3,000 from their son’s bank account.
They “left 99 cents,” he told the jury.
A startling drawing that their son had scribbled on an assignment was shown to the parents. It showed a bullet and a gun along with the words, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me. The world is dead. My life is useless.”
During her trial, it was also revealed that Jennifer was having an affair with a married firefighter before the shooting and that she told her lover that she had ‘failed miserably’ as a parent after the tragic event.
Her lover, Brian Meloche, then responded with “you didn’t do this” and told her to be careful since the “FBI is involved.”
“Be careful of anything you type on messenger or text,” he wrote later. “The FBI is involved, they can access anything and everything.”
Jennifer claimed on the day of the shooting that she and her spouse were unable to bring Ethan home because they were both employed.
Meloche did testify, though, that she told him she could leave work early that morning to meet with him.
He went on to say that they usually had their covert rendezvous in the parking lot across from her place of employment in the mornings of workdays.
The mother’s case has revolved around a meeting that took place a few hours prior to the shooting between the school administration and the Crumbley family.
Ethan’s school advised that he seek assistance as soon as possible, but the Crumbleys refused to take him home because they had to go back to their jobs. Their son continued to attend school, and he later pointed a gun at other students from his backpack.
Although Ethan pleaded guilty to murder and other crimes, his no-parole sentence still can be appealed.
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