Emotions charged as wounded teacher, asst. principal testify in Jennifer Crumbley trial

Pontiac — Emotions were high in Oakland County Circuit Court on Thursday where prosecutors portrayed the mother of the Oxford High School shooter as doing nothing to prevent the 2021 shooting, while her attorney said she was a caring mother who didn't know about the family's guns or how they were stored.

Charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter in an unprecedented trial that marks the first time a parent has been charged with manslaughter in connection with a mass shooting, Jennifer Crumbley, 45, cried and touched her hand to her face several times during Thursday's testimony as the trial got underway. She was especially emotional while watching video of an assistant principal at Oxford High School, who saw Crumbley's son, Ethan, and one of the students he shot and killed. She faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Crumbley will testify at the trial, attorney Shannon Smith said during her opening statement. Smith described Crumbley as a loving parent, even calling her “hyper-vigilant” at one point. She said her client would show how the shooter wasn’t her son in the months before the shooting, and she’d been manipulated.

"The prosecution has grossly misconstrued facts in this case, and I ask that you wait to make judgment until all the facts are presented," said Smith, who started her opening statement by quoting a line from a Taylor Swift song about Band-Aids not fixing bullet holes.

The Oakland County Prosecutor's Office countered that Crumbley might not have pulled the trigger in the 2021 shooting that killed four students and injured six more, along with a teacher, but said the 45-year-old is "responsible."

During a meeting with school officials just hours before the shooting on Nov. 30, 2021, Jennifer Crumbley was "given the opportunity to prevent these murders from ever happening. Instead, she chose to do nothing," said Assistant Prosecutor Marc Keast.

Several times during questioning Thursday, Smith pointed out that the trial was not about James Crumbley, Jennifer's husband, or the shooter. It was about Jennifer, she said. James Crumbley is scheduled to be tried on the same charges in early March.

Oxford witnesses

Four witnesses took the stand Thursday, including Molly Darnell, the Oxford High School teacher who was shot, and Kristy Gibson-Marshall, an assistant principal at Oxford High School. Both described students running out of the building the day of the shooting and not being sure what was happening.

Darnell said she heard a commotion in the hallway, then three loud pops, the sound of slamming doors and the principal’s voice over the public announcement system, announcing a lockdown.

Darnell said she locked eyes with the shooter through her office window.

“I looked down, and I realized he’s raising a gun to me,” Darnell said. “He didn’t hesitate.”

She felt a burn below her left shoulder, like hot water had been thrown over her. She turned and saw a bullet hole leading outside into the courtyard.

Darnell used her cardigan to tie a tourniquet around her arm once she realized she was bleeding. She described barricading herself behind a filing cabinet, thinking the shooter would come back and "finish what he wanted to do."

As she was bleeding, her daughter, who attended another school and heard there was a shooting at Oxford, texted her and asked if she was OK. Darnell told her she was sheltering in place, loved her and was OK.

"Everything that I knew to be reality wasn't," Darnell testified.

Gibson-Marshall, an assistant principal at Oxford High School for six years, spoke about hearing shots on Nov. 30, 2021, and instead of running away, moving toward them. She went to check the hallways to make sure everyone was OK.

She found a student lying on the ground and saw another student walking in her direction. She nudged the student — Tate Myre — with her foot and told him to stay there. He was one of the four students who died. That’s when she realized who the shooter was.

“It was when I realized it was Ethan that I didn’t think he could possibly be the shooter,” Gibson-Marshall said. “It seemed so odd it was him, so I said, ‘Buddy, are you OK? What’s going on?’”

When Gibson-Marshall identified Crumbley’s son as the shooter, Jennifer Crumbley began crying, moving aside her glasses to wipe her eyes with a tissue. Smith put a hand on her back.

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'This is horrific'

Several jurors wiped away tears during Gibson-Marshall’s testimony, and people in the gallery sniffled. Crumbley began crying harder and sniffling when prosecutors showed surveillance video of Gibson-Marshall walking through the halls and encountering her son. 

After Gibson-Marshall's testimony, McDonald asked Judge Cheryl Matthews to address people being overly emotional in the courtroom, especially Smith, Crumbley's attorney. McDonald said Matthews had instructed prosecutors and witnesses not to be emotional and Smith was "sobbing." Smith denied she was sobbing.

Matthews said she did not instruct anyone not to show emotion but asked that people leave the courtroom if they were being disruptive. 

"This is a very emotional situation for everyone here," Matthews said. "If someone was audibly sobbing in the audience, I would hope that they exit."

Smith said she was not sobbing but used a tissue to fix her eye makeup after the surveillance video ended.

“This is horrific,” said Smith, noting she had not seen the video before because it wasn’t relevant to her client, though Matthews said the attorney could've. “That’s why we asked the court not to play it. … We were not sobbing or making a scene.”

Unregistered guns

Much of Thursday's testimony came from U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Special Agent Brett Brandon, who was on the stand for at least two hours. Brandon went to Oxford High School right after the shooting and helped execute a search warrant at the Crumbleys' home.

Brandon testified that James Crumbley had three guns, including the Sig Sauer purchased for the shooter days before the Oxford shooting. He said research later found that none of the three guns was registered.

A cable lock found in the Crumbley home in one of the gun cases “looks almost new,” like it had not been used many times, he testified.

And the gun safe where two of the guns — the two not used in the shooting — were found in the Crumbley home had the combination of 000, which is often the factory default, Brandon said.

Several videos, taken by James or shared between Jennifer and James, showed the shooter firing guns at a range before the shooting.

Smith asked if it was illegal under state or federal law for a parent to take a minor to a shooting range or let a minor touch a gun. Brandon said it isn't illegal. She also asked if there were any state or federal laws in 2021 that required guns to be stored safely in a home. Michigan's new safe storage law goes into effect in February.

Brandon said there are "no federal laws that force anyone to store their firearms in any way."

One lengthy video played in court Thursday showed the shooter at a range with Jennifer on Nov. 27, 2021, three days before the shooting. Both practiced firing the gun that her son later used to kill his classmates, and Jennifer Crumbley posted about their "mother and son" day on social media.

"There's no doubt the shooter has a lot more knowledge about this gun than" Crumbley does, said Smith. Brandon agreed.

The trial is scheduled to resume at 8:30 a.m. Friday.

kberg@detroitnews.com