Day 1 of testimony in James Crumbley’s trial was almost an instant replay of his wife’s case, but it ended on a dramatic note, with the jury being sent home early and a visibly irritated Crumbley mouthing “no” emphatically to his lawyer.
Turned out, Crumbley was caught making threatening statements on a jailhouse telephone and in electronic messages, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to the Free Press late Thursday, noting “his access to a phone or electronic messaging is now limited to communication with his lawyer.” Authorities did not disclose the nature of the threats or toward whom they were made.
This new information surfaced late in the day Thursday during Crumbley’s trial, in which prosecutors are seeking to hold him responsible for the 2021 school shooting carried out by his son.
The prosecution raised the issue in open court, though Crumbley’s lawyer immediately objected to the issue being made public, and the judge also warned that the media would be writing about it — suggesting something embarrassing or incriminating was about to be exposed, potentially involving his jailhouse calls. The two sides, however, came to an agreement that the prosecutor explained like this: Crumbley’s communications privileges will be revoked, but not his ability to talk to his lawyer or research information to help his defense.
Other than that, the start of Crumbley’s involuntary manslaughter trial was a rehashing of his wife’s case, which ended with Jennifer Crumbley being convicted of involuntary manslaughter over her role in the 2021 Oxford High School massacre that left four students dead and six other students and a teacher injured. She will be sentenced next month. Their son, Ethan Crumbley, pleaded guilty to all his crimes and is serving life without parole.
Key difference: Jury will not see son’s texts about demons
Thursday started on a positive note for James Crumbley, who got some good news from the judge. Before the jury came in, Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Matthews ruled that the prosecution will not be allowed to show the jury text messages that the shooter sent his mom months before the massacre. In a handful of texts, which were shown during the mom’s trial, the teenager told his mom he was seeing a demon throw bowls around the house, hearing toilets flush and seeing doors open.
Jennifer Crumbley testified that her son was messing around and had an ongoing joke with his dad that the house was haunted, and that ghosts nicknamed Veronica and Boris lived there.
The prosecution has argued the texts show the son was hallucinating and mentally struggling, though the mom testified that no such thing was happening.
Either way, the judge has concluded that James Crumbley’s jury will not see those texts because there’s no evidence the dad knew about them or saw them.
Matthews also excluded from the dad’s trial a text the shooter sent his friend at 8:21 a.m. on the day of the shooting.
“Hey man, times have gotten rough ever since you left. I don’t know if you died or you moved away but I hope you’re doing well. I’m about to do something really bad and there is no turning back so I’ll probably never be able to see you again. I hope the best for you and I’m sorry for anything I’ve ever done.”
Prosecution sets out to show James Crumbley’s carelessness
During jury selection, the prosecutor and judge told prospective jurors repeatedly that this case is not the same as the one involving his wife, and that there would be different witnesses and different evidence.
Day 1 of testimony in the dad’s case, however, included the same allegations, the same journal entries, gun photos, videos and social media posts used in the mom’s case and two of the same witnesses who helped convict Jennifer Crumbley. The first witness to testify in both cases was the same: a teacher who was shot by the couple’s son, and came eye-to-eye with the gunman.
Opening statements also featured the same themes in both trials, from both sides.
The prosecution portrayed James Crumbley as a careless and neglectful father who bought a troubled son a gun and failed to secure it, while the defense maintained the father never saw any signs that his son was dangerous or mentally ill, and that he did not know of his son’s plans to shoot up his school or that he had access to the gun.
Assistant Prosecutor Marc Keast was the first to address the jury, an all-white panel of nine women and six men, most of them parents, including six who have guns in their homes.
“On November the 30th, 2021, James Crumbley’s 15-year-old son walked out of a boy’s bathroom holding a 9mm handgun,” Keast began. “… he pointed. He aimed … and fired that weapon at students and teachers. Killed four. Wounded seven.”
Keast then told the jury that Crumbley gifted his son that gun, “even though he knew” his son was in distress “and had been in a downward spiral,” and that he failed to secure the weapon.
He then introduced the victims murdered by Crumbley’s son: Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and Justin Shilling, 17.
“These are the four students who never made it home that day. What happened inside that school was truly a nightmare come to life but … that nightmare was preventable,” Keast said, stressing that three people are responsible: the shooter, his mom and his dad — especially the dad.
‘The adult out of anyone in the world’ who could have prevented deaths
“He was the adult out of anyone in the world to prevent these kids’ deaths,” said Keast, maintaining the students would still be alive today if James Crumbley “seized on any small opportunities” to prevent the shooting.
“The shooter didn’t snap. The shooting was foreseeable, especially to his father.”
Keast also introduced to the jury perhaps the most damning evidence against the father: the troubling drawing Ethan Crumbley drew on a math worksheet on the morning of the shooting. It featured a gun, a human body bleeding and the words: ‘The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.’
“It took that counselor all but 20 minutes that parental involvement was required,” Keast told the jury before explaining what happened when the shooter’s parents arrived at school.
James Crumbley never mentioned the gun they had purchased four days earlier or that their son’s best friend had just moved away, Keast told the jury.
Rather, the parents left their son at school and went back to their jobs.
James Crumbley went on a DoorDash run.
Two hours later, their son fired his first shot. An active shooter alert went out to all school parents, Keast said, noting James Crumbley went home to check for the gun.
“You will never hear any allegation that James Crumbley knew what his son was going to do … there is no claim that James Crumbley gave him that gun hoping he would kill four students.”
Rather, Keast said, James Crumbley is accused of engaging in gross negligence, for failing to use “ordinary care” when he was the one who knew the background of the drawing.
“Him sitting in the counselor’s office, looking at this drawing … his failure to act, right there, is his willful disregard of danger,” Keast said, stressing “no one is suggesting” that every parent should be held responsible for their child’s misdeeds.
But in this situation, he said, James Crumbley bought a deadly weapon that his son had begged for, and reasonably knew what his son was going to do with it.
“This case is not about guns … this case is about this gun, for this kid, with these issues … why we’re here.”
Defense: If jurors follow the law, the father will be acquitted
Defense attorney Mariell Lehman acknowledged to jurors that the shooting undeniably changed people’s lives and wrecked families.
“But this case is not about what happened inside of Oxford High School,” she said in her opening statement. “This case is about what happened outside of Oxford High School.”
She refuted the prosecution’s claims that James Crumbley knew that his son was a danger to others, yet failed to take steps to protect others from him.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Lehman said, “that simply is not true.”
She told jurors they will hear about James Crumbley’s relationship with his son, the troubling drawing his son made in school, the gun he bought, how it was stored, and whether the shooter knew where it was located.
“Pay attention also to what you don’t hear,” Lehman said.
She stressed James Crumbley “was not aware” that his son had access to the gun, or knew what he was going to do, or suspected he was a danger.
“He didn’t know,” she said, arguing James Crumbley did not buy a gun thinking his son would use it to harm people.
She also brought up Crumbley’s job.
“Yes, James Crumbley was a DoorDash driver … being a DoorDash driver doesn’t mean that your job isn’t important,” she said as she sought to explain why her client went DoorDashing after meeting the school counselor on the morning of the shooting. “When you’re not aware of an imminent, immediate danger why would you do anything different than you normally do?”
In closing, she implored jurors to follow the law, stating: “If you follow the law, you will find James Crumbley not guilty.”
Wounded teacher: ‘He was aiming to kill me’
The first witness to testify Thursday was Molly Darnell, a teacher at Oxford High School who was shot in the arm by Crumbley’s son and came eye-to-eye with the gunman during his rampage.
Through tears, her voice shaking, she detailed the horror as it started to unfold. According to her testimony:
Darnell was in her room when she saw a rush of students go past her door. She was confused. It was quiet. Then she heard three sounds.
An announcement over the PA stating “We’re headed into lockdown. This is not a drill.”
Then a “pop pop pop.”
Then doors slammed — so she closed her door as well and grabbed a “night lock” to secure the door when through a window she saw someone in a hoodie, mask and skull cap. She saw his eyes.
“I realize that he’s raising a gun to me. I remember thinking in my head, ‘There’s no orange tip on that gun,’ “ she said, explaining she realized it wasn’t a BB gun, which she remembered being told have orange tips.
She jumped and then felt as if she had been stung by hot water. She had been shot in the arm — though she was focused on barricading the door. She couldn’t move a filing cabinet, so she got on her hands and knees and crawled to the door and put the night lock in place.
She then pushed a rolling cart in front of the door. She felt blood going down her arm and used her cardigan as a tourniquet.
“I texted my husband, ‘I love you. Active shooter.’ “
She also texted with her daughter, but did not tell her that she had been shot, only that she was barricaded and safe.
Police eventually showed up. On her hands and knees, she opened the door, was pulled to safety and taken to a hospital, where she saw nurses and doctors lining the hallways.
“They were prepared for a disaster,” she said through tears, adding: “He was aiming to kill me.”
‘I have a missing gun and my son was at the school’
Prosecutors played the 911 call James Crumbley made at 1:34 p.m. on the day of the shooting. He told the dispatcher that he heard of an active shooter situation at the high school, that his son was at the school and that a gun was missing at his house.
“I have a missing gun and my son was at the school and we had to go meet with the counselor this morning because of something that he wrote on a test paper,” Crumbley said, adding that he was in town and saw numerous emergency vehicles going somewhere and then learned of the active shooter situation.
He said: “I raced home just to find out, and I think my son took the gun, I don’t know.”
Earlier that day, the parents had been summoned to the school by officials to discuss troubling drawings and messages their son had made on a math worksheet. The school had emailed Jennifer Crumbley about it that morning and she sent her husband messages: “Call NOW. Emergency” and again: “Emergency.” She then sent him pictures of the worksheet.
James Crumbley responded: “My god, WTF.”
The parents arrived at the school at 10:39 a.m. that day. They left 14 minutes later, without their son, and returned to their jobs.
James Crumbley made a DoorDash delivery.
Two hours after that school meeting, his son fired the first shot.
Shooter’s text messages recounted for jurors
Edward Wagrowski, who worked in the computer crimes unit of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office at the time of the shooting, testified about messages the shooter sent to his friend in the months before the shooting, about hearing voices and having insomnia and paranoia.
In April 2021, the shooter wrote to his friend that he had asked his father to take him to the doctor “but he just gave me some pills and told me to ‘suck it up’ ” and that his mother “laughed when I told her.”
In other messages, he wrote to his friend that he needed help, thought about calling 911 so he could go to the hospital and planned to ask his parents again about going to the doctor, “but this time I am going to tell them about the voices.”
He wrote that he was “mentally and physically dying.”
Defense attorneys sought to admit evidence that Ethan Crumbley told a psychiatrist that he lied about having asked his parents for help, but Matthews ruled that the comment was contained in confidential medical records and disallowed them.
Prosecutors also showed two videos the shooter sent to his friend in August 2021 of him holding a handgun. The gun in one video had a round in the chamber, Wagrowski said.
“My dad left it out so I thought, ‘Why not’ lol,” the shooter wrote to his friend.
According to Wagrowski, the shooter’s friend abruptly left Michigan in October 2021, one month before the massacre.
More than two years later, the tragedy still haunts Wagrowski, who was overcome with emotion Thursday as he described for jurors the horrifying images he saw hundreds of times while reviewing surveillance footage of the massacre.
“The shooter came out of the bathroom, I’ll never forget it,” Wagrowski said, choking up. “His shoulders were back.”
And then he started firing. The terror would last nine minutes before the gunman surrendered on his belly to police.
Testimony resumes Friday morning.
Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com
