Are his parents responsible? The mother of a mass shooter is on trial.

The trial of Jennifer Crumbley, whose son Ethan carried out the worst school shooting in Michigan history, began Thursday with dueling portraits: of a negligent mother whose indifference caused a tragedy, and of a good, even “hyper-vigilant” mother who in was in prison. dark about her son's problems until that tragedy occurred.

Attorneys for the prosecution and defense painted those starkly different pictures for jurors in a courtroom in Pontiac, Michigan, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Oxford High School, where the mass shooting occurred on Nov. 30, 2021.

The gunman, Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 at the time, killed four students and injured seven others. He pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including first-degree murder, and was sentenced last month to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The case against the Crumbleys is the precursor to an effort by some prosecutors to hold parents accountable when they are accused of enabling deadly violence by their children. In recent months alone, parents whose children committed gun violence in other states have pleaded guilty to charges of reckless conduct or neglect.

In the Michigan trial, Ms. Crumbley, 45, faces more serious charges: four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors say that despite clear signs of Ethan's violent intentions, his mother's inability to “just be careful” about acting on what she knew made her criminally liable for the Oxford High School massacre.

Her husband, James Crumbley, 47, has also been charged and will be tried separately in March. Unable to post $1 million combined bail, both parents are being held in the Oakland County Jail.

In his opening statement on Thursday, Marc Keast, an Oakland County prosecutor, emphasized that Ms. Crumbley was not charged with murder or simply accused of being a bad parent. But, he said, because of her “deliberate disregard for the danger she knew,” she was a cause of the mass shooting Ethan carried out.

“Jennifer Crumbley didn't pull the trigger that day,” Mr. Keast said. “But she is responsible for those deaths.”

Mr. Keast spent much of his opening statement describing the litany of troubling signs that preceded the shooting — information he said the Crumbleys knew but did not share with the school — while suggesting that prosecutors also investigate the actions of Mrs Crumbley would emphasize in the aftermath. After Ethan's arrest, the Crumbleys fled the area, and police later found them in the basement of a Detroit art studio.

“Her first instinct was to lie,” Mr. Keast said. “Her second was running.”

Shannon Smith, a lawyer representing Ms Crumbley, said the prosecution was trying to pin the blame for a horrific attack on a woman who was “doing her best” in raising her son.

Ms. Smith said that it was only after the shooting that Ms. Crumbley became aware of many of the red flags, such as Ethan's text messages with friends, that the prosecution would cite as evidence of Ethan's mental origins. Ms. Smith said Ethan hid these signs from her and that school officials never told her about some of the more disturbing examples of Ethan's behavior.

“He did something she could never have foreseen, fathomed or predicted,” Ms Smith said.

A long series of motions, rulings and other pretrial filings paint a chaotic home in which, prosecutors say, Ethan's mental breakdown was ignored and his pleas for help went unheeded.

The week before the shooting, Mr. Crumbley took Ethan to buy a 9 millimeter SIG Sauer pistol, and Mrs. Crumbley took him for target practice. On the morning of November 30, both parents were called to school because Ethan had drawn violent images of a shooting on school work. Against a school counselor's suggestion, they did not pick up their son from school to receive immediate medical attention, and they were unaware that he had brought the gun to school that day in his backpack.

Within hours of that encounter, Ethan started shooting.

Ms Smith said Mr Crumbley was responsible for putting the gun away. She also said her client never considered Ethan a risk for committing violence against others, even after being alerted that a mass shooting had occurred at the high school. Until authorities told her explicitly what had happened, Ms. Smith said, “it still never occurred to her that he would ever shoot someone else.”

She also insisted that the Crumbleys went to Detroit after the shooting because they were receiving death threats and that they planned to turn themselves in after learning they were being charged.

Ms Crumbley's lawyers planned to call Ethan to testify at the trial, along with three doctors who had spoken to him. But lawyers representing Ethan told the court in a letter that they advised him to “invoke his right to remain silent” and demand protection when it comes to confidential information, including conversations with treatment providers. Mrs. Crumbley's lawyers responded by asking the judge to compel Ethan and the doctors to testify. The judge has not yet ruled on the question.

After the opening remarks, Molly Darnell, a teacher in Oxford at the time of the shooting, took the stand as the first witness. She described that day: the commotion, the loud bangs, the announcement of a lockdown and the terrifying moment when she wanted to close her door and looked at Ethan. He shot her in the arm.

Mrs. Darnell, remembering that moment, burst into tears. “I couldn't wrap my head around what was happening,” she said.