Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley’s mom shifted the blame onto her husband for giving their son access to the gun used in the massacre — and said she wished “he would have killed us instead.”
Jennifer Crumbley testified in her unprecedented involuntary manslaughter trial Thursday that she had nothing to do with buying or storing the 9mm handgun, and that it was her husband, James — whom she had cheated on with a fire captain — who was in charge of gun safety and maintenance in their home.
“I just didn’t feel comfortable being in charge of that. It was his thing,” she told the jurors. “I didn’t feel comfortable putting the lock thing on it.”
Crumbley said James and Ethan bought the firearm together on Black Friday while she was out shopping on her own. Their son was only 15 at the time.
Asked if she objected to the purchase, Crumbley said, “No.”
“I was more angry that they cut into our Christmas tree time,” she explained. “I usually cut my Christmas tree down right after I get back from shopping, but I had to wait for them, so I was irritated.”
Ethan later invited his mom to go to a shooting range with him — and Jennifer posted photos about the outing on social media.
In court, she described her mother-son excursion as a “fun day” — and said she was flattered that Ethan had asked her to go with him, and not his dad, who was busy making DoorDash deliveries.
But she otherwise denied having any connection to the gun, which was stored in a locked box with a key kept in a beer stein.
“I have asked myself if I would have done anything differently. I wouldn’t have. I wish he would have killed us instead,” Jennifer said, referring to her son gunning down four students.
Jennifer, who is facing 60 years in prison if convicted, stopped short of calling herself a victim, saying she did not “want to disrespect those families that truly are the victims on this.”
But she lamented that she and her family “did lose a lot.”
“You lost everything,” defense attorney Shannon Smith said.
But she lamented that she and her family “did lose a lot.”
“We did,” Jennifer agreed.
Jennifer, 45, and husband James, 47, are accused of making the gun accessible at home and not addressing their son’s mental health struggles.
They are the first parents in the US to be charged in a mass school shooting committed by their child.
Ethan Crumbley, now 17, was sentenced in December to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing four students and injuring six others and a teacher at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021.
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