The
first parents to ever be charged, then convicted, in their child’s mass shooting at a U.S. school were both sentenced Tuesday to 10 to 15 years in prison after facing the victims during a sentencing hearing in a Michigan courtroom.
James Crumbley, 47, and wife Jennifer, 46, were sentenced one after another by Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Matthews as they appeared together for the first time since they attended joint hearings before their landmark trials were separated last fall. Their son, Ethan, now 17, pleaded guilty as an adult to the
2021 shooting at Oxford High School in suburban Detroit and was sentenced to life in prison.
Matthews' sentencing decision was in line with what Oakland County prosecutors had asked for after both parents were found guilty on four counts of involuntary manslaughter, one for each of the students their son killed.
Matthews told the Crumbleys that the convictions reached by jurors were "not about poor parenting," but how they repeatedly ignored warning signs that a "reasonable person" would have seen.
"These convictions confirm repeated acts that could have halted an oncoming runaway train," she said.
The couple will get credit for time served in an Oakland County jail since their arrests in the wake of the Nov. 30, 2021, shooting. The pair sat apart at the defense table with their lawyers beside them as the families of the four students who were killed had earlier asked for the maximum sentence to be imposed.
"When
you texted, 'Ethan don't do it,' I was texting, 'Madisyn I love you, please call mom,'" Nicole Beausoleil, the mother of shooting victim Madisyn Baldwin, 17, told the Crumbleys. "When you found out about the lives your son took that day, I was still waiting for my daughter in the parking lot."
"The lack of compassion you've shown is outright disgusting," she added through tears.
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