James Crumbley trial heads to closing arguments after sister testifies in his defense

Closing arguments in the criminal trial of James Crumbley are set to begin Wednesday afternoon after the prosecution rested its case and his defense called only one witness following five days of testimony examining whether the Michigan father was partially responsible for his teenage son's 2021 school shooting.

The race toward the trial's end came as Crumbley told Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Matthews that "it is my decision to remain silent."

The jury, however, heard from his sister, Karen Crumbley, who testified Wednesday morning that she had seen her brother and his son, Ethan, when the siblings' mother passed away in early 2021, several months before the shooting. She said she had not noticed anything "concerning" about Ethan's behavior, nor when she visited her brother in Michigan about four months before the shooting.

Karen Crumbley, who lives in Florida, said she communicated with her brother often, although they reside in different states, and testified that it would be wrong to get a gun for a child to "use at his leisure," but with adult supervision, "I don't see any problem with it."

During cross-examination, however, Oakland County prosecutor Marc Keast confirmed with her that the siblings only spoke with each other three times by phone in 2021 and shared 22 instant messages, suggesting they were not close.

On Tuesday, Crumbley appeared emotional when video from the shooting at Oxford High School committed by Ethan, then 15, was played for jurors.

The father averted his eyes from the video, which did not include audio, and also wiped away tears when Oakland County Sheriff's Office Detective Lt. Tim Willis testified how Ethan fatally shot four students days after Thanksgiving with a semi-automatic handgun purchased by his father as an early Christmas gift.

"We had no idea what we were responding to. My police radio was blowing up with calls," Willis said of the day of the shooting in suburban Detroit. "It was chaos," he added.

Crumbley, 47, is on trial for four counts of involuntary manslaughter, one for each of the students killed by his son, who pleaded guilty as an adult in the deaths and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Oakland County prosecutors called 15 witnesses in Crumbley's trial, fewer than the 21 witnesses called in the trial of his wife, Jennifer, who was convicted by a jury last month on the same four counts of involuntary manslaughter.

Her landmark trial was the first time a parent in the U.S. was found at fault for a mass school shooting committed by their child. She will be sentenced in April and faces up to 15 years in prison per count.

James Crumbley's trial hinges on a similar accusation that, as Ethan's parent, he knew of his son's mental state and that he had access to firearms. Prosecutors allege he was still "grossly negligent" by failing to prevent the shooting deaths. He is not accused of knowing about the attack beforehand, which his son had warned about in journals.

Willis shared messages the shooter wrote over the months and days leading up to the massacre, including, "My parents won't listen to me about help or a therapist"; "I will have to find where my dad hid my 9 mm before I can shoot the school"; and "I have access to the gun and the ammo. I am fully committed this to now."

James Crumbley had told investigators he hid the handgun in an armoire and placed the ammunition underneath jeans in another drawer.

Much of the evidence presented and the witnesses called by the prosecution paralleled the case against Jennifer Crumbley.

But James Crumbley's trial has moved at a faster clip and with stark differences.

On the same day as opening statements last Thursday, Matthews signed a court order revoking Crumbley's jail phone and electronic messages — except for his lawyer or legitimate clergy or for using his tablet for research — after he allegedly made "threatening statements" of an undisclosed nature.

During her trial, Jennifer Crumbley did choose to testify, telling jurors that she regretted her son's actions, but that ultimately she "wouldn't have" done anything differently in how she parented him — testimony that was analyzed by her jury during its deliberations.

Jennifer Crumbley's personal life also became a central factor in how the prosecution chose to pick apart her parenting, calling on the man with whom she was having an extramarital affair to testify and focusing on how she paid attention to her hobbies over responding to her son's text messages. Prosecutors also called co-workers of Jennifer Crumbley, who was a marketing director for a real estate company.

Jennifer Crumbley testified that she entrusted her husband with securing the family's firearms, including the gun used by her son, but not with other duties, such as holding down a job, handling money or even getting out of bed on time.

Jurors learned that James Crumbley had been working as a DoorDash driver around the time of the shooting and would take his son to the shooting range. In text messages with a friend several months before the shooting, Ethan wrote that he was experiencing "bad insomnia" and paranoia and suggested that he had reached out to his parents and specifically asked his father to take him to the doctor.

"He just gave me some pills and told me to 'Suck it up,'" Ethan texted.

He also sent his friend a video of him holding a gun about three months before the shooting. "My dad left it out so I thought, 'Why not' lol," Ethan wrote.

Similar to his wife's trial, Crumbley's actions on the day of the shooting were widely discussed in testimony. That morning, the Crumbleys were summoned to Ethan's school after a teacher found his math homework with a drawing of a gun, a person shot and messages, including: "The thoughts won't stop. Help me."

Nicholas Ejak, Oxford High School's dean of students at the time of the shooting, testified this week that James Crumbley told his son at the meeting that he had people he could talk to and that he could write in his journal.

"He expressed concern for his son," Ejak said.

But both parents declined to take Ethan home and neither warned the school he had access to a gun; the teen would go on to commit the shooting later that day.

On cross-examination, defense lawyer Mariell Lehman got Ejak to confirm that he did not think Ethan was an immediate threat nor initially believe that he was the shooter despite the disturbing drawing that was found and knowledge that a teacher had also caught Ethan looking at bullets on his phone in class a day earlier.

"In no way did you feel that Mr. Crumbley was being neglectful of his son?" Lehman asked Ejak, who also testified at Jennifer Crumbley's trial.

"No, I did not," Ejak said.

Lehman also pushed back at Willis, the investigating detective, who testified about what Ethan wrote in his journal about getting access to the gun.

"You don't recall reading anything that says, 'My dad told me where the gun and ammo were'?" Lehman asked. Willis agreed he hadn't.