Jennifer Crumbley is the first US parent ever convicted of manslaughter over a mass shooting by their child.
Image source, Getty ImagesA jury has found a Michigan mother guilty of involuntary manslaughter for failing to stop her son from carrying out a deadly school shooting.
Jennifer Crumbley, 45, is the first US parent convicted of manslaughter over a mass shooting carried out by their child.
Prosecutors accused her of being negligent in allowing her son to have a gun, and ignoring warnings signs.
Her husband, James, is facing a separate trial on the same charges.
Their son, now 17, is serving life in prison for killing four classmates at Oxford High School in Michigan on 30 November 2021.
Seven people were also injured in the shooting.
The judge, speaking to jurors, said this was likely “the hardest thing you’ve ever done”.
Ms Crumbley appeared emotionless and stared straight down as the verdict was read in Oakland County court on Tuesday.
She was charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, each carrying a maximum sentence of 15 years.
Some relatives of those killed in the shooting expressed relief over the verdict.
“The People spoke!” Buck Myre, the father of Tate Myre, a 16-year-old killed in the shooting, told the BBC in a statement.
“You can agree or disagree with the people, but this is how the system is supposed to work.”
The question at the heart of the trial was whether the mother could have foreseen and prevented the deadly crime.
Ms Crumbley and her husband James bought the gun their son used just days before the shooting.
They were charged by police within days of the killings. Police had to search for the pair and found them in an industrial building in Detroit. For more than two years they have been kept in a county jail, unable to make bail.
At trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Ethan Crumbley had wanted mental health help and complained of hallucinations, but said his parents did not get him treatment. Mrs Crumbley said on the stand that she did not think her son had mental health problems.
The morning of the shooting, the parents cut short a school meeting about a disturbing drawing their son had made to go to work and declined to take the then 15-year-old home. He returned to class with his gun in his backpack.
Just hours later, he killed Hana St Juliana, 14, Myre, 16, and Madisyn Baldwin and Justin Shilling, both 17,