Boss: Mom of alleged school shooter felt she was failing him
ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. (AP) — The mother of a teenager who is accused of killing four students at his Michigan school told her boss earlier that day that “she felt as if she was failing” her son, according to testimony Tuesday.
Prosecutors summoned Andrew Smith, the chief operating officer of a real estate company, to talk about Jennifer Crumbley before and after four students were killed at Oxford High School on Nov. 30.
Smith was the second witness at a key hearing to determine if there’s enough evidence to send James and Jennifer Crumbley to trial on involuntary manslaughter charges. They are accused of making a gun accessible to their 15-year-old son, Ethan Crumbley, and failing to intervene when he showed signs of mental distress at home and at school.
Smith said Jennifer Crumbley, the company’s marketing director, indicated that she had to go to Ethan’s school on the morning of Nov. 30 and probably wouldn’t be in until noon. The school summoned the Crumbleys to show them Ethan’s drawings of violence, though Smith said he wasn’t aware at the time of the specific reason for the meeting.
“She had said her son needed to get some counseling,” Smith testified, recalling his conversation with Jennifer Crumbley after she arrived at work after the school meeting. “I think she mentioned a family pet had passed away and a grandparent had passed away. She felt as if she was failing him, or a failure.”
School officials have said they allowed Ethan to stay in school that day, but that they told the parents to get him help.
Smith said he later heard Jennifer Crumbley “screaming down the hallway” after she learned of the shooting.
She left work and subsequently texted Smith to say, “Andy, he’s going to kill himself. He must be the shooter.”
By late afternoon, Jennifer Crumbley expressed concern about losing her job, Smith said.
“’Please don’t judge me for what my son did.’ I was surprised by that text,” Smith told the court. “I was surprised she was worried about her job at that time.”
It’s rare that authorities seek to prosecute the parents of suspected school shooters, and the Crumbleys’ attorneys insist that the couple didn’t know that a shooting was in the works and didn’t make the gun easy to find at home.
The day’s first witness was Kira Pennock, who owns stables where the Crumbleys kept two horses. She said Jennifer Crumbley didn’t talk much about Ethan.
“She said that he did not have any friends, he only had one friend and how he spent a lot of time online playing games,” Pennock testified. “He just seemed to keep to himself. She thought it was weird he wasn’t out doing things like normal kids.”
Prosecutor Karen McDonald asked if Jennifer Crumbley said her son was “weird.”
“Yes,” Pennock replied.
Ethan Crumbley is charged as an adult with murder and other crimes. His lawyers filed a notice of an insanity defense, which will likely freeze his case while experts examine him.
The parents have been in jail on $500,000 bond since their arrest on Dec. 3.
The high school, roughly 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Detroit, reopened on Jan. 24, nearly two months after the shooting.
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White reported from Detroit.