Each of the parents of the teen in Michigan who killed four peers was given 10 to 15 years in prison. However, officials asked for a longer sentence than seven years. At Tuesday’s sentence hearing, James and Jennifer Crumbley, the first parents of a US school shooter to be found guilty, were seen together for the first time in months.
Both of them said they were sorry for their son’s attack as their lawyers tried to get them a shorter jail sentence. In a case that changed the course of history, each parent of shooter Ethan Crumbley was found guilty of involuntary killing earlier this year.
Judge Cheryl Matthews said the longer term of 10 to 15 years was “to act as a deterrent” and showed that the parents did not do anything to stop the attack. It’s not expected of them [parents] to be psychic. In spite of that, these beliefs are not about bad parenting. “They involve actions that might have stopped a train in its tracks,” she told the court. “Opportunity knocked over and over again, louder and louder, and it was ignored.”
Once the Crumbleys have served 10 years in prison, they can be released on parole. If parole is refused, they cannot be held for more than 15 years. The prosecutors said that the parents ignored clear signs that their son’s mental health was getting worse. They also said that Ethan Crumbley’s parents bought him the gun he used in the 2021 attack.
Their son killed four kids at Oxford High School with a semiautomatic handgun when he was 15 years old. Seven more people were hurt in the shooting. He is now locked up for life without the chance to get out. All of the kids who died were under 17 years old. On Tuesday, their parents gave very emotional victim impact statements in court. Nicole Beausoleil, who is the mother of victim Madisyn Baldwin, 17, talked to Ethan Crumbley’s parents directly.