Moment Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley’s parents confront him in police station after he killed four people in rampage
The parents of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley asked him ‘why? why?’ and told him ‘I love you’ when confronting him in a police station just hours after he shot and killed four classmates.
New video of Jennifer and James Crumbley confronting their son in the aftermath of the shooting on November 30, 2021 was shown during Jennifer’s trial on Monday.
The couple has been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter each in the deaths of four of the shooting victims while Ethan, 17, has been sentenced to life in prison.
As Ethan sat in a chair in the corner of an interview room with his head down, Jennifer shouted ‘Why? Why?’ at him while James said ‘I don’t think we need to ask him questions right now,’ and then told him: ‘I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you’.
In a prior interview, the parents told police: ‘I really wish we would have taken him home,’ after seeing a violent drawing of a gun with the words ‘The thoughts won’t stop. Help me,’ that Ethan had made on the morning of the shooting.
Jennifer and James Crumbley confronted Ethan in a police station just hours after the shooting, with the mom asking her son ‘Why?’, while James repeated ‘I love you’
James later said he was a ‘perfect’ kid and never did anything wrong
In the clip, Ethan appears to look at his parents and say, ‘please take care of Dexter,’ referring to his cat.
Ethan shot and killed four students, Hana St. Juliana, 14, Madisyn Baldwin, 17, Tate Myre, 16, and Justin Shilling, 17, and injured seven others, including a teacher, on the afternoon of November 30 2021.
Jennifer and her husband are accused of contributing to the deaths at Oxford High School by neglecting their son’s needs and making a gun accessible at home.
It is the first time parents have ever been charged in a US mass school shooting.
In the new video revealed on Monday, on day three of testimony, the pair can be seen running through the events of the day with police hours after the shooting.
The couple was called into Ethan’s school on the morning of the shooting to discuss his mental health after teachers found a concerning drawing of a gun – but they left him at school and returned to work.
Jennifer later told police the counselor ‘hadn’t seemed worried about it, and told them ‘he can stay at school or he can go home’.
She added: ‘I really wish we would have taken him home.’
At the start of the interview as James started telling investigators about meeting with the school counselor, Jennifer interrupted saying, ‘I think we probably should have a lawyer.’
James replied: ‘I think we can speak to the cops.’
Jennifer then described how she had texted with her son just minutes before the shooting, saying she had asked if he was OK at 12.21pm and he replied saying he had just gotten back from lunch.
She said she told him he could talk to his parents and they wouldn’t judge him, and he replied ‘I know, I love you.’
Crumbley’s parents, James and Jennifer have both been charged in connection with the shooting
Jennifer Crumbley in court on Tuesday, she is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter
Jennifer Crumbley’s attorney Shannon Smith listening to testimony during the trial on Tuesday
Jurors at the involuntary manslaughter trial of Jennifer Crumbley were shown disturbing drawings by mass shooter son Ethan hours before he opened fire at Oxford High school, killing four
Ten minutes later he fired his first shot and went on to kill four students and injure seven others over the next nine minutes before he was detained by police.
In the interview, James said: ‘I mean it’s Ethan, Ethan is like, he’s a perfect kid, he doesn’t do anything.’
James also described where the gun and bullets were hidden in an armoire with the bullets hidden separately under a pair of jeans.
Part of the case against the couple is that they bought Ethan a new gun just days before the shooting.
But they insisted target practice is a family hobby, and James told the investigator that he took his son to the shooting range ‘all the time’ and added ‘I’ve been trying to teach him safely.’
The pair later asked for a lawyer again saying: ‘we would like a lawyer present from here on out’ and Jennifer, who could be seen on her phone throughout the interview, said she was messaging someone to find an attorney.
After the charges against them were announced – the couple went missing, but their lawyers insisted they were not on the run.
‘The Crumbleys left town on the night of the tragic shooting for their own safety. They are returning to the area to be arraigned. They are not fleeing from law enforcement despite recent comments in media reports,’ the attorneys said.
However, it was revealed on day two of the trial that Jennifer had sent a text to her boss a day before the involuntary manslaughter charges were announced saying ‘We’re on the run again. Helicopters. Not sure where to. I’ll message you.’
Other new evidence has been unearthed in court this week and presented in the case against Ethan’s parents.
Jennifer was shown the depraved etchings at a meeting with school staff but allowed her son to remain in school
Jennifer became emotional after seeing video of her son walking through Oxford High School during the Nov. 30, 2021 shooting rampage in the courtroom of Oakland County Judge Cheryl Matthews
ATF Special Agent Brett Brandon holds up and identifies the SIG Sauer murder weapon used by Ethan Crumbley in the Oxford High School shootings
Evidence shows Jennifer and her husband James were riding horses and didn’t respond when Ethan sent her text messages on March 17, 2021 saying their house was haunted.
She had told her husband earlier that day that she wanted to ‘get drunk and ride my horse,’ according to a message displayed to the jury.
Ethan said he was scared because ‘demons’ were ‘throwing bowls.’
‘Can you text back?’ he asked his mother.
It also emerged that in April 2021, seven months before the school attack, Ethan Crumbley told a friend that he was ‘mentally and physically dying.’
He said he asked his father to take him to a doctor but was told to ‘suck it up.’
The main issue at stake is the disturbing homework shown to his parents just hours before he carried out his murderous rampage.
On the morning of the shooting, school counselor, Scott Hopkins, called Ethan’s parents in to discuss drawings Ethan had made of a gun with the words ‘the world is dead’.
Ethan had also scrawled the words ‘blood everywhere’, ‘my life is useless’ and ‘the thoughts wont stop, help me’ over the book.
His parents discussed the drawings with Hopkins, and decided he could go back to class.
Hopkins said on Monday: ‘If I believed he (the shooter) was a threat to people, I would’ve taken different actions.’
Ethan Crumbley pleaded guilty to his crimes and is currently serving life in jail
Ethan texted his mother about his paranoia and fears that someone was in their home, but she didn’t reply
Then school dean Nicholas Ejak was questioned over why Crumbley’s bag wasn’t searched at a meeting on the day of the shooting
By the day of the shooting, four different employees had reported alarming behavior from Ethan Crawley
School officials later said that Crumbley talked his way out of trouble by claiming the drawings were part of plans to create a video game.
On Tuesday, then-school dean Nicholas Ejak was questioned over why Crumbley wasn’t removed from the school and why his bag wasn’t searched after the meeting.
He said: ‘It wasn’t necessary… that I do that because I didn’t have any reasonable suspicion to do that.’
By the day of the shooting, at least four employees had raised concerns about Ethan’s behavior.
As well as the drawings, a teacher had told management they had seen him researching bullets and another teacher spotted him watching a video of a person gunning people down.
In one email to Ejak, a teacher wrote that he ‘was on his phone looking at different bullets’.
She added: ‘Now that he’s on my radar, I’m also noticing that some of his previous work that he’s completed from earlier in the year leans a bit toward the violent side.’
Despite the reports, Ethan was allowed to return to class after the meeting with his parents, and he later emerged from a bathroom with a pistol and began firing on fellow students.
Police said Crumbley’s first victim was freshman Phoebe Arthur, who was shot in the face but miraculously survived. A total of 13 people were shot, four of whom died.
He walked up and down hallways firing off shots until police arrived and took him into custody.
Justin Shilling, 17, (left) and Tate Myre, 16, (right) were also killed in the senseless shooting
Madisyn Baldwin, 17, (left) and Hana St Juliana, 14, (right) died in the 2021 shooting rampage at Oxford High School in suburban Detroit
Police say Crumbley’s first victim was freshman Phoebe Arthur (pictured), who was shot in the face but miraculously survived. A total of 13 people were shot, four of whom died
Oxford High School educator Molly Darnell shows the jury her gun shot wound as she is questioned by Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald
Both of his parents have been in jail for more than two years awaiting trial, unable to afford a $500,000 bond. James Crumbley is due to stand trial in March.
Ethan, who is now 17, was sentenced to life in prison in December after he pleaded guilty to murder, terrorism and other crimes. Ethan was 15 at the time of the shooting.
Smith told jurors Thursday that the mother was ‘hypervigilant’ about her son and shouldn’t be blamed for the deaths. Jennifer is expected to testify in the days ahead.
Smith wants to challenge some evidence by having Ethan or his doctors speak to the jury. But his lawyers have said he would invoke his right to remain silent and also would not waive a right to privacy with psychiatrists.
Earlier this week, the attorney representing Jennifer, Shannon Smith, was forced to apologize for joking about killing herself in court in front of victims’ families.
Smith, a criminal sexual conduct defense lawyer of over 16 years, made a terrible blunder in court on Friday while appearing at Jennifer Crumbley’s involuntary manslaughter trial over the Oxford High School mass shooting.
In court on Friday Smith said ‘I’m going to kill myself’ as she struggled with disorganized evidence in front of a courtroom full of family members of shooting victims
The lawyer was struggling to operate her computer and organize her evidence when she said in frustration: ‘I’m going to kill myself’.
Families of victims from the school shooting carried out by her client’s son were in court at the time of her insensitive joke.
Smith apologized for her words before the trial on Monday.
‘In my frustration, I made a comment that was offensive to victims’ families,’ she said before adding that it was ‘absolutely by accident’. ‘I am apologizing for that comment.’
The senseless joke came about during the cross examination on Friday when Oakland County Judge Cheryl Matthews asked Smith to disassemble a pile of papers before it fell over – jokingly referring to it as the ‘Leaning Tower of Pisa’.