Days after the killings at the school in Oxford, Mich., McDonald made the unprecedented decision to criminally charge parents for a mass school shooting committed by their child. Ethan Crumbley is serving life without parole for murdering Hana St. Juliana, 14; Tate Myre, 16; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; and Justin Shilling, 17, and wounding seven others.
McDonald called the requested sentence deserved and blasted James Crumbley, 47, and his wife, Jennifer Crumbley, 45, in separate sentencing memos, describing them as not only negligent but remorseless.
The sentencing memos also revealed unusual requests and new information that was referenced in court away from the jury during James Crumbley’s trial.
Shannon Smith, Jennifer Crumbley’s attorney, requested her client be sentenced to home confinement on electronic monitoring — where she would live in Smith’s guesthouse. McDonald wrote that such a sentence would be a “slap in the face to the severity of the tragedy.”
But it was James Crumbley whom McDonald described as particularly egregious as she revealed the details of the “electronic threats” he made from jail that resulted in him losing most of his jail communication privileges midway through his March trial.
“Defendant’s jail calls showed he blamed everyone but himself for what happened and that he repeatedly referred to himself as being a ‘martyr,’” McDonald wrote. She revealed that in calls made throughout 2022 and 2023, James Crumbley referred to McDonald as “that f—ing stupid whore b—-” while addressing McDonald by name and saying he hoped she was listening.
“There will be retribution, believe me,” James Crumbley said in a December 2023 jail message. In a phone call placed a month later, he said he was on a “rampage” and said McDonald “better be scared.”
“His jail calls show a total lack of remorse, he blames everyone but himself and he threatened the elected Prosecutor,” McDonald wrote.
Attorneys for the Crumbleys sought to paint a different picture of their clients and said prosecutors have relied on public outrage over the shooting.
Jennifer Crumbley was “damned no matter what she did or did not do,” Smith wrote. She noted that during her client’s trial, prosecutors objected to Crumbley growing emotional as silent video of the shooting was played in court, but in arguments they depicted her as a cold, uncaring mother.
Both defendants have been in jail for 27 months and spend all but one hour a day in their cell, their lawyers said.
