The parents of the Oxford teen who shot and killed four classmates in November 2021 as well as injured seven others say their son never asked them for mental health treatment, contrary to his claims.
James and Jennifer Crumbley said they had no reason to believe their son, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, was suffering from mental health concerns that would require him to get treatment, according to a request for evidence filed by the couple’s attorneys.
“Evidence claiming that the shooter was asking his parents to get him to a doctor or get him help was sent in text messages to the shooter’s friend — this was not information that either parent knew he was claiming, and the parents deny that he ever asked them to seek treatment for him,” attorneys Mariell Lehman and Shannon Smith wrote in their request Monday.
The Crumbleys are charged with four counts each of involuntary manslaughter connected to the four students their son killed. Prosecutors have argued they were grossly negligent and failed to address their son’s mental health needs. They said the Crumbleys should have foreseen what would happen when they bought their mentally ill son a gun and did not seek treatment when he supposedly asked for it.
Smith and Lehman asked for the shooter’s forensic evaluation done when he put a notice in to the court last year that he was considering pleading insanity. They also asked for all records from the shooter’s Miller hearing, where an Oakland County judge heard four days of evidence to decide if a life without parole sentence was proportional.
They argued prosecutors clearly have exculpatory evidence because some of their arguments during the Miller hearing were consistent with “many of the points that the Crumbleys have asserted all along about the shooter’s mental health.”
Prosecutors have the benefit of having all the information from the shooter’s case and it deprives the Crumbleys of their constitutional right to a fair trial and due process if they cannot get them as well, especially because much of the material is exculpatory.
“There is no way for the prosecutors to un-know certain information and proceed forward with the parents’ trial ignoring that information,” they wrote. “The Crumbleys are at a serious disadvantage if they are not given access to these materials.”
Lehman and Smith noted the Crumbleys remain the shooter’s parents; their rights have not been terminated. They have been involved in decisions about his mental health and have signed off on medication requests and have met with a jail caseworker to tell them about his medications, well-being, behavior issues and to ask any other health related questions.
Attorneys: Prosecutors can’t have it both ways
The shooter’s mental health will be a “paramount issue” in the parents’ trial, Lehman and Smith wrote, just as it was during his Miller hearing.
During the Miller hearing, prosecutors argued the shooter doesn’t have a mental illness, which the shooter’s attorneys said was disingenuous. Prosecution witness psychiatrist Dr. Lisa Anacker said the shooter did not meet the statutory definition of being mentally ill.
In the parents’ case, prosecutors have repeatedly said they bought their mentally ill son a gun and failed to get him treatment, Smith and Lehman wrote. But during his Miller hearing, they argued he was not mentally ill.
“Put plain and simply, the prosecution cannot have it one way in one case and another way in another,” Smith and Lehman wrote. “It is noteworthy that many of the positions the parents have taken in this case are consistent with the prosecution’s argument against the shooter at his Miller hearing. For example, as the parents have argued all along, the shooter was not suffering from mental illness and obviously, based on that conclusion, Mr. and Mrs. Crumbley had no reason to suspect their son was mentally ill or seek mental health treatment (prior to the conversation in the counselor’s office on November 30, 2021).”
The shooter’s attorney, Paulette Loftin, argued the same thing during closing arguments at the teen’s Miller hearing.
“We have one set of facts here. You can’t stand in two different courtrooms and argue two different things when it’s one set of facts,” Loftin said.
During her rebuttal at the Miller hearing, Prosecutor Karen McDonald called Loftin’s statements “offensive and unconscionable.” She denied that her statements during the Miller hearing and the shooters’ parents’ case were contradictory.
McDonald said there was no doubt the shooter was in mental distress and in crisis, but that he does not meet the statutory requirement for mental illness.
Michigan law defines mental illness as a “substantial disorder of thought or mood that significantly impairs judgment, behavior, capacity to recognize reality, or ability to cope with the ordinary demands of life.”
Judge Kwame Rowe acknowledged the teen may have had a mental illness, but he said it was not severe enough to be a mitigating factor in abstaining from giving the teen a life without parole sentence.
Some evidence at Miller hearing was inaccurate
But some of the information testified to in the Miller hearing was inaccurate, Smith and Lehman wrote. They said the shooter did not have to take his dog’s body out to the backyard shed and bury him, as he had claimed. Jennifer Crumbley posted on Facebook near the end of the dog’s life to find a vet who could come to their home to put the dog down. When the dog did die, they had him cremated, Smith and Lehman wrote.
They also disputed defense expert psychiatrist Colin King’s assertion the shooter was a “feral child.” They said King’s testimony with filled with erroneous information, either because he used unreliable materials or because the shooter lied to him.
“The Crumbleys do assert that much of the information presented about the shooter’s childhood was accurate, however, some of it was very inaccurate — and clearly, some of the experts, doctors, and witnesses drew conclusions from erroneous information that the Crumbleys will need to fight in their own trial.”
The Michigan Supreme Court declined to hear the Crumbleys’ appeal on the strength of their case and sent it back to the Oakland County Circuit Court. Their trial is set for Jan. 23..
The shooter will be sentenced Dec. 8 after pleading guilty to one count of terrorism causing death, four counts of first-degree murder, seven counts of attempted murder and 12 counts of using a gun during a felony. He can be sentenced to either life in prison without parole or a term of years.
Judge Cheryl Matthews denied the Crumbleys’ request to attend their son’s sentencing hearing Dec. 8.