Jennifer Crumbley, on trial in son's school shooting, sobs at 'horrific' footage of rampage

The historic trial of Jennifer Crumbley, the first parent in America to be charged and tried in a mass school shooting, began in earnest Thursday with opening statements and testimony from witnesses that at times prompted emotional moments in the Michigan courtroom.

Crumbley and her husband, James Crumbley, who goes on trial in March, are both charged with involuntary manslaughter in their son Ethan's rampage at Oxford High on Nov. 30, 2021. Ethan Crubley pleaded guilty to killing four students and injuring seven other people, and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The case brings a spotlight to the question of who can be held responsible when a minor accesses a gun and inflicts horror in a school shooting.

The trial got off to a dramatic start when the shooter's mother broke down crying in the courtroom, and later when sparks flew between the prosecutor and defense attorney.

Jennifer Crumbley started weeping loudly when Oxford High Assistant Principal Kristy Gibson-Marshall mentioned the shooter's name during her testimony, when she said she encountered him in the hallway and asked him if he was OK. Gibson-Marshall added that she couldn't believe that Ethan Crumbley was the shooter, given what she knew of the boy over many years.

Jennifer Crumbley's cries turned to sobs when video footage was played of the shooting scene. She had never seen it before. It showed Gibson-Marshall standing in a hallway, kids running past her to flee the building, and then the assistant principal venturing down a hallway, where she encountered shooting victim Tate Myre.

Then it showed Ethan Crumbley coming down the hallway with his gun.

Jennifer Crumbley sat at the defense table, her face in her hands, crying inconsolably as her lawyer rubbed her back.

Watch live:Lawyers give opening statements in Jennifer Crumbley Oxford shooting trial

Confrontation between attorneys

Jennifer Crumbley's lawyer, Shannon Smith, asked for a break so her client could regain her composure. The judge excused the jury, and then Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald raised an objection.

McDonald maintained that it was unfair to ask the prosecution not to show emotion, but to let the defense attorney and her client "sob" in the courtroom. Oakland County Circuit Judge Cheryl Matthews said she never instructed the prosecution not to show emotion.

Smith said neither she nor her client had seen the video before. "It's horrific," Smith yelled. "We're doing our best."

"It is horrific," Matthews agreed, later adding: "Everyone needs to take a deep breath."

The judge ordered a 10-minute recess. 

Prosecutors lay out their case: Mother could have prevented shooting

Assistant Prosecutor Marc Keast began his opening statement by introducing the jury to the victims, Hana St. Juliana, 14; Tate Myre, 16; Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and Justin Shilling, 17.

"They weren’t in a car crash. They weren’t sick. They were murdered in an act of terror" by the defendant's son, Keast said. "Jennifer Crumbley didn't pull the trigger that day, but she is responsible for their deaths."

Keast told jurors how the day after her son walked out of the store with his new gun, Jennifer Crumbley made a social media post about how she went to the shooting range with her son, and that the gun was her son's early Christmas present. 

Keast said the evidence will prove that on the day of the shooting, she was “given the opportunity to prevent these murders from ever happening. Instead, she chose to do nothing.” He said the Crumbley parents were called into school the morning of the shooting because a counselor was concerned about a drawing of a gun their son had made on a math sheet.

Jennifer Crumbley wrote to her husband in messages, “He said he was distraught about last night” and “I’m very concerned headed to his school.” Keast said Jennifer Crumbley abruptly ended the school meeting and didn't take her son home.

“They did nothing.”

That's gross negligence, he said. 

He said the prosecution will show how senseless the tragedy was, all because Jennifer Crumbley didn't take "small, easy" steps that could have prevented it.

"It's not illegal to be a bad parent," Keast stressed. "We're not here to put a restriction on gun owners ... we're here because when Jennifer looked at this drawing ... she looked at it with context and origin."

That's why she's responsible for these deaths, he said, stressing mutliple times: "She did nothing."

Defense says Jennifer Crumbley couldn't have known son would commit shooting

Perhaps the most surprising development in opening statements was when Jennifer Crumbley's defense attorney said the mother will testify in her own defense later in the trial.

Smith began her opening statement by quoting a line in a song by Taylor Swift: "Band-aids don't fix bullet holes."

"That's what this case is about," she said. "It's about the prosecution trying to put a Band-Aid on a problem ... it's an  effort to make the community feel better ... it's  an effort to send a message to gun owners."

She urged the jury to be mindful that the prosecution's evidence will frighten and alarm, but it's about the shooter, not the mother. Smith said Jennifer Crumbley met with the counselors, who told her the shooter was of no risk to anyone.

"She didn't have it on her radar in any way that her son would ever take a gun into a school, that her son would shoot people," Smith said. "Jennifer Crumbley did the best she could as a mother to a child who grew up as a teenager, and had no way to know what would happen."

A panel of 12 jurors and five alternates includes 10 women and seven men, most of them parents, including multiple gun owners and hunters. The jurors will be tasked with determining whether Crumbley is responsible for the deaths of four students killed by her son.

Contributing: Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY