Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of the 15-year-old who killed four students at a Michigan high school in 2021, is seeking a new trial, claiming that the original trial — which found her guilty of involuntary manslaughter — was affected by the prosecutor not disclosing details about two witnesses in the case.
The new case update, per the Associated Press, comes roughly one year after a jury unanimously convicted Crumbley of four manslaughter counts against her, one for each of the four people her son, Ethan, killed at Oxford High School.
Attorneys for Crumbley claim that two Oxford High employees Nick Ejak and Shawn Hopkins weren’t given immunity related to the fatal 2021 shooting but agreed to speak to prosecutors when they were assured their words wouldn’t be used against them. Crumbley’s attorney says it was not given the immunity agreement, and that was a violation of the prosecutor in the case.
Crumbley’s team claims that if the defense knew about the agreement, her trial lawyer could have questioned the two school employees in cross-examination. “They dangled that carrot over those witnesses to get them to cooperate,” Crumbley’s attorney Michael Dezsi told AP of the prosecution.
Crumbley is serving a 10-year sentence for her son’s mass shooting, marking the first time a parent has stood trial for their alleged role in a school shooting. Crumbley’s husband, James, was also sentenced to 10 years in prison last year.
“These convictions are not about poor parenting,” Oakland County Judge Cheryl Matthews said at the April 2024 sentencing, per the AP. “These convictions confirm repeated acts, or lack of acts, that could have halted an oncoming runaway train.”
The Crumbleys were accused of purchasing the handgun Ethan used during the shooting, ignoring his mental health needs, and failing to tell the school they’d purchased a gun for their son during a meeting about his behavior hours before the shooting. Ethan previously pleaded guilty to all of the charges against him, including murder and terrorism. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole in December 2023.