OXFORD, Mich. – A jury could decide on Monday whether to convict the Oxford High School shooter’s mother of four counts of involuntary manslaughter for her alleged role in the 2021 shooting.
After closing arguments concluded Jennifer Crumbley’s trial on Friday, Feb. 2, jurors were scheduled to begin deliberating at 9 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 5. A conviction decision is possible Monday, depending how long the 12 jurors discuss the case.
The jury was left with significant evidence and testimony to consider after hearing from 22 witnesses, including Crumbley herself. For seven days, jurors heard details about events leading up to the fatal Nov. 30, 2021, shooting, how the shooting took place, and how the shooter’s parents reacted in response to the shooting.
A few days after the shooting, the shooter’s parents were each charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter for the four children murdered by their son. The parents are standing trial separately this year, with the father’s trial scheduled to begin in March.
As we await the jury’s decision, here’s a look back at how Jennifer Crumbley’s trial ended.
---> Big moments from trial of Oxford shooter’s mother
Involuntary manslaughter theories
Over the past two weeks, prosecutors have introduced testimony and evidence in court in an effort to prove Jennifer Crumbley’s alleged gross negligence played a role in the Oxford High School shooting carried out by her son. Since being charged with involuntary manslaughter more than two years ago, prosecutors have maintained that Crumbley failed to take steps that could have prevented the murder of four students on Nov. 30, 2021.
Crumbley’s trial came to an end Friday afternoon on its seventh day, leaving the jury with much to consider before deliberations begin on Monday, Feb. 5.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors introduced 21 witnesses, while the defense introduced only one: Jennifer Crumbley herself. Both sides ended the trial Friday with long, and at times emotional, pleas to the jury to consider the evidence -- or, in the defense’s opinion, lack thereof -- and make a “just” decision when they return to the court.
Ultimately, the jury will have to decide if the Oakland County prosecutors proved their case: that Crumbley is guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter. During her closing argument, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald shared two theories related to involuntary manslaughter, telling the jury that they must find the prosecution proved at least one of those theories to find Crumbley guilty.
Here are the two manslaughter theories, as listed by the prosecutor’s office on Friday:
Gross negligence in the performance of lawful act
- Defendant caused death.
- In doing the act that caused death, defendant acted in a grossly negligent manner.
Gross negligence in failing to perform a legal duty
- Defendant had a legal duty to the victim.
- Defendant knew of the facts that gave rise to the duty.
- Defendant willfully neglected or refused to perform that duty, and her failure to perform it was grossly negligent to human life.
- The death of the victim was directly caused by defendant’s failure to perform this duty.
What Jennifer Crumbley ‘didn’t say’
Prosecutor McDonald began her closing argument by telling the jury it’s not her job, “nor is it right to sanitize what happened in the school that day.” Instead, she said her job is to present evidence, facts, and the truth. She then went through an overview of the witnesses called throughout the trial, and the testimonies they each shared.
One of the key points McDonald alleged in her hour and 15 minute closing statement was that Crumbley knew her son was troubled and needed help, and could have told someone or intervened, but didn’t. McDonald said there was information Crumbley knew that could’ve been shared with the school that might’ve changed everything.
McDonald focused in part on disturbing, mostly unanswered, text messages sent from the shooter to his mother, in which he said the house was haunted, he was seeing demons, he was hallucinating, clothes were flying around the room, and the like. When she took the stand in her own defense this week, Crumbley said that her son was just “messing around” when he would send texts like that -- but there was at least one instance when the shooter sent those messages, and subsequently asked if his mother could please just respond, but she did not.
Prosecutors allege Crumbley failed to take her son and his apparent struggles seriously.
McDonald also said Crumbley was well aware that her son had an insistent interest in weapons. The prosecutor said that when the mother attended a meeting with her son and a school counselor the morning of the shooting, she could have told school officials that she had just recently purchased a 9mm handgun for her son, who had allegedly insisted on getting that gun. But no such discussion of a gun was had, though the parents did say they took the shooter to the gun range the weekend before.
“Jennifer Crumbley wants you to believe that if only the school had done something different, we wouldn’t be here,” McDonald said. She reiterated that school officials had no idea about the believed mental health issues or the gun.
The shooter was allowed to return to class after the meeting ended, and would go on to carry out the school shooting soon after. The recently purchased gun was in his backpack.
“This is not an argument that the school did everything they should’ve done. I’m not going to say that to you,” McDonald told the jury Friday. “I’m not gonna tell you that I think it was OK they didn’t look in the backpack -- I don’t think it was. But this is about Jennifer Crumbley’s actions, and any attempt to make it about what [two school officials] did or didn’t do -- like it or not -- who did not have any of the information that was so jarring ... it’s about what she knew and what she didn’t say.”
---> What we learned about Oxford counselor’s meeting with parents, shooter amid mother’s trial
Crumbley testified this week that she didn’t have any reason to believe her son had mental health issues or required a mental health professional. The shooter did write in his journal and in texts to a friend, however, that he was struggling and needed help, and that his parents ignored his requests to see a therapist or a doctor.
While on the stand, Crumbley said she believed her son was just joking in his texts about ghosts and hallucinations, which he reportedly did often, and that she wouldn’t handle the situation any differently today given the information she knows now. McDonald reiterated that point repeatedly during her closing arguments: that Crumbley wouldn’t do anything differently.
---> Mother: Oxford shooter’s texts about ghosts, hallucinations just jokes
Prosecutors have also alleged that Crumbley’s time spent on extramarital affairs and with her horses at the horse barn took her attention away from her son, who allegedly needed help. But the defense continued to assert that Crumbley isn’t on trial for an affair, or for having a hobby.
Instead, defense attorney Shannon Smith asked the jury to find Crumbley not guilty, saying the mother should not be held responsible for her child’s actions.
“This is not justice. This is not how justice works. This case does nothing for the people who have already lost everything,” Smith said in her closing argument. “A not guilty verdict is the only fair and just result in this case.”
In her rebuttal statement following Smith’s closing argument, McDonald agreed that a guilty verdict wouldn’t appease any of the victims of the Oxford High School shooting and that nothing would. But she maintained that Crumbley’s actions, or failure to act, could have prevented the deaths of the four students murdered, and that the distress Crumbley has experienced pales in comparison to that of the victims’ families.
“When [Crumbley] took the stand, and she testified about her own loss, and she was asked the question, ‘You lost everything?’ She said ‘yes,’” McDonald said in her rebuttal. “She hasn’t lost everything, ladies and gentlemen. Her son is still alive. Find her guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter.”
---> Watch: Closing arguments in trial of Oxford shooter’s mother
Prosecution accuses Crumbley of lying
In a major courtroom twist Friday, a judge allowed privileged texts between Crumbley and her attorney to be admitted into evidence at the mother’s trial.
Oakland County prosecutors argued that Crumbley waived her attorney-client privilege while taking the stand in her own defense. Crumbley was testifying about when she and her husband were arrested in Detroit in 2021 following a statewide manhunt that ensued a few days after the the shooting.
Prosecutors have long alleged that Crumbley and her husband were attempting to flee from the four involuntary manslaughter charges brought against them midday on Dec. 3, 2021. The couple were found lying on a mattress in an art studio in Detroit after a business owner, who has an office in the same building, identified their car and called 911.
Video shown at Crumbley’s trial last week showed a SWAT team using a steel ram to break into the suite, and subsequently arresting the parents. While on the stand, Crumbley testified that she and her husband had taken multiple Xanax pills to help them sleep, and went to sleep around 11 p.m. on Dec. 3, 2021. She said they were asleep when police arrived at the building, and had no idea what was going on until they were arrested.
efore discussing the newly-admitted text messages, Assistant Oakland County Prosecutor Marc Keast asked Crumbley Friday if she knew what a lie was, and if she understood the oath she had taken in court. Crumbley said “yes” to both questions.
Keast went on to imply that the texts show Crumbley was hiding from law enforcement, who had began surrounding the building at around 11 p.m. on Dec. 3, 2021. Despite evidence showing Crumbley had set her alarm for 6:30 a.m. the next morning, her cellphone was found turned off and stored in a bin some distance from the bed she was found on.
Keast read texts sent from Crumbley to her attorney, in which the shooter’s mother says she thinks she’s been found.
Click here to read the texts, and more about this part of the trial.
Click here for full coverage on the Jennifer Crumbley trial.