PONTIAC, Mich. -- The first parents convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison Tuesday as a Michigan judge lamented missed opportunities that could have prevented their teenage son from possessing a gun and killing four students in 2021.
"These convictions are not about poor parenting," Oakland County Judge Cheryl Matthews said. "These convictions confirm repeated acts, or lack of acts, that could have halted an oncoming runaway train."
"Opportunity knocked over and over again and was ignored," Matthews said.
The hearing in a crowded, tense courtroom was the climax of an extraordinary effort to make others besides the 15-year-old attacker criminally responsible for a school shooting.
Jennifer and James Crumbley did not know Ethan Crumbley had a handgun -- he called it his "beauty" -- in a backpack when he was dropped off at Oxford High School. But prosecutors convinced jurors the parents still played a disastrous role in the violence.
The Crumbleys were accused of not securing the newly purchased gun at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son's deteriorating mental health, especially when confronted with a chilling classroom drawing earlier that same day.
The Crumbleys earlier this year were convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
"The blood of our children is on your hands, too," Craig Shilling told the couple, wearing a hoodie with the image of son Justin Shilling on his chest.
"You have failed your son and failed us all," said Jill Soave, Justin's mother.
Nicole Beausoleil, the mother of shooting victim Madisyn Baldwin, said the Crumbleys had failed at parenting.
"While you were purchasing a gun for your son and leaving it unlocked," said Beausoleil, "I was helping her finish her college essays."
"Hana, Tate, Madisyn and Justin are the ones who have lost everything," said Steve St. Juliana, father of shooting victim Hana St. Juliana. "Not the defendants."
Prosecutor Karen McDonald asked the judge to stretch beyond the sentencing guidelines and order a minimum 10-year prison sentence.
Prosecutors also argued the Crumbleys bear responsibility for the shooting because they did not secure the family's guns.
Jennifer Crumbley's attorney sought house arrest for her client, while James Crumbley asked for time served.
But prosecutors had asked for 10-15 years for each parent. They claimed in sentencing memos that both Crumbleys showed a lack of remorse.
They also brought up statements Jennifer made during testimony she gave in her own defense, and during an earlier jail call in 2022, when she said she would not have done anything differently. The jury foreperson for Jennifer's trial said in a TV interview after finding her guilty the jurors were influenced by her statement on the stand, which she gave in response to a question by her attorney.
But Jennifer tried to clarify that statement in her pre-sentence investigation report, saying she meant she would not have made any choices differently without the benefit of hindsight.
"With the information I have now, of course my answer would be hugely different. There are so many things that I would change if I could go back in time," she wrote.
Defense attorneys sought to keep the Crumbleys out of prison, noting they have already spent nearly 2½ years in jail, unable to afford a $500,000 bond after their arrest.
They will get credit for that jail time and become eligible for parole after serving 10 years in custody. If release from prison is denied, they could be held for up to 15 years.
Five deputies in the suburban Detroit courtroom stood closely over the couple and more lined the walls. James Crumbley, 47, had been recorded in jail making threats toward McDonald.
Before being sentenced, he stood and insisted he did not know his son was deeply troubled.
"My heart is really broken for everybody involved. ... I have cried for you and the loss of your children more times than I can count," he said.
James also apologized to the victims, saying he had no idea what his son was planning.
"I can't express how much I wish that I had known what was going on with him (the shooter) or what was going to happen," he said. "I absolutely would have done a lot of things differently."
James also used his pre-sentence investigation to counter prosecutors' characterization that he is remorseless, writing he believes he did what any parent would have in his circumstances. He said he talked with his son every day, asking him about school and how he was coping without his only friend, who had abruptly moved out of state recently.
"Ethan was a great kid. He never got in trouble at school, had decent grades, and very rarely got in trouble at home," James wrote. "Ethan always appeared to be a very stable individual. Never did he voice anything to me that anything was bothering him."
EVIDENCE AT TRIAL
The couple had separate trials in Oakland County court, 40 miles north of Detroit. Jurors saw the teen's violent drawing on his school assignment and heard testimony about the crucial hours before the attack.
Ethan Crumbley sketched images of a gun, a bullet and a wounded man on a math paper, accompanied by despondent phrases: "The thoughts won't stop. Help me. Blood everywhere. My life is useless."
Ethan Crumbley had told a counselor he was sad -- a grandmother had died and his only friend suddenly had moved away -- but said the drawing only reflected his interest in creating video games.
His parents were called to a hasty meeting at school that lasted less than 15 minutes. They did not mention that the gun resembled one James Crumbley had purchased just four days earlier, a Sig Sauer 9mm.
School staff did not demand that the teen go home but were surprised when the Crumbleys did not volunteer it. Instead, they left with a list of mental health providers and said they were returning to work.
Later that day, Nov. 30, 2021, their son pulled a handgun from his backpack and began shooting, killing Justin, Madisyn, Tate Myre and Hana St. Juliana, and wounding seven other people. No one had checked the bag.
Ethan Crumbley, now 17, is serving a life sentence for murder and other crimes.
The parents ignored "things that would make a reasonable person feel the hair on the back of their neck stand up," the judge said. "Opportunity knocked over and over again -- louder and louder -- and was ignored. No one answered."
Jennifer Crumbley, 46, began her remarks by expressing "deepest sorrow" about the shooting. She also said her comment at her trial about looking back and not doing anything differently was "completely misunderstood."
"My son did seem so normal. I didn't have a reason to do anything different," Jennifer Crumbley said.
She blamed the school for not giving her the "bigger picture" about Ethan: sleeping in class, watching a video of a mass shooting, writing negative thoughts about his family.
"The prosecution has tried to mold us into the type of parents society wants to believe are so horrible only a school or mass shooter could be bred from," Jennifer Crumbley said. "We were good parents. We were the average family."
During the trials, there was no testimony from specialists about Ethan Crumbley's mental health. But the judge, over defense objections, allowed the jury to see excerpts from his journal.
"I have zero help for my mental problems and it's causing me to shoot up the ... school," he wrote. "I want help but my parents don't listen to me so I can't get any help."
Relatives of the victims were not impressed by the Crumbleys' courtroom comments. Beausoleil said they were portraying themselves as victims.
"The remorse that they were showing has nothing to do with taking accountability for their actions," St. Juliana said outside court. "I'm sure they were sad people lost their lives. I'm sure they're sad their son is in jail, sad they're in jail. ... What's important is for them to recognize that they made mistakes."
After attending both trials almost every day, St. Juliana said he came away focused solely on the guilty verdict, but that changed as more information came out. He said his daughter Reina, Hana's older sister, is "very much in favor of throwing the book at them."
After the sentence, Beausoleil suggested the victims' families, many of whom have also filed civil lawsuits against the Oxford schools related to the shooting, will continue to call for accountability from school officials.
"We're not four families to back down," she said.
During the two trials, school officials testified that they did not view Ethan as a threat on the day of the shooting but were more concerned about his mental health.
Buck Myre, the father of Tate Myre, who died in the shooting, said it was time to turn the focus to Oxford schools, who played a role in the tragedy.
"It's time to drive real change from this tragedy," he said during his Tuesday statement to the court.
James Crumbley responded to Myre's statement, saying he also wanted the "truth" to emerge from school officials. But after the sentencing, Beausoleil and St. Juliana slammed James' attempt to align himself with Myre. Beausoleil called it far-fetched.
"This was still just yet another attempt to shove the responsibility onto somebody else," St. Juliana said.
The judge will decide later whether the Crumbleys will be allowed to have contact with their son while the three are in separate state prisons, though McDonald, the prosecutor, said the Corrections Department typically prohibits communication between co-defendants.
Defense lawyers said the Crumbleys have a constitutional right to be a family. But McDonald wondered about the parents of the victims.
"The parents in that courtroom have been deprived of their constitutional right to be parents, and that matters," she told reporters.
Information for this article was contributed by Ed White, Corey Williams and Mike Householder of The Associated Press and by Kara Berg and Julia Cardi of The Detroit News (TNS).
James Crumbley addresses the court during his sentencing, Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Pontiac, Mich. Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of a Michigan school shooter, were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison Tuesday for failing to take steps that could have prevented the killing of four students in 2021. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
James Crumbley listens to a victim impact statement during his sentencing, Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Pontiac, Mich. Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of a Michigan school shooter, were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison Tuesday for failing to take steps that could have prevented the killing of four students in 2021. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Jennifer Crumbley, walks by her husband James Crumbley, seated, as she is escorted out of court after their sentencing, Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Pontiac, Mich. The Crumbleys, the parents of a Michigan school shooter, were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison Tuesday for failing to take steps that could have prevented the killing of four students in 2021. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
FILE - Jennifer Crumbley, left, looks to attorney Shanon Smith, Feb. 5, 2024, in Pontiac, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, Pool, File)
FILE - James Crumbley enters the Oakland County Courtroom of Cheryl Matthews during his trial, March 13, 2024, in Pontiac, Mich. (Mandi Wright/Detroit Free Press via AP, Pool, File)
Jennifer Crumbley stares at her husband James Crumbley during sentencing at Oakland County Circuit Court, Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Pontiac, Mich. Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of Ethan Crumbley, are asking a judge to keep them out of prison as they face sentencing for their role in an attack that killed four students in 2021. (Clarence Tabb Jr./Detroit News via AP)
From left, James Crumbley, defense lawyer Mariell Lehman, Jennifer Crumbley, and defense lawyer Shannon Smith await sentencing in Oakland County, Mich., court on Tuesday, April 9, 2024. The Crumbleys were convicted of involuntary manslaughter for a school shooting committed by their son in 2021. (AP Photo/Ed White)
Defendant James Crumbley speaks before his sentencing for involuntary manslaughter in a school shooting committed by his son, Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Pontiac, Mich. His wife, Jennifer Crumbley, center, listens. The Crumbleys were each sentenced to at least 10 years in prison Tuesday for failing to take steps that could have prevented the killing of four students in 2021. (AP Photo/Ed White)
Jennifer Crumbley stares at her husband James Crumbley during sentencing at Oakland County Circuit Court, Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Pontiac, Mich. The Crumbley's were each sentenced to at least 10 years in prison Tuesday for failing to take steps that could have prevented the killing of four students in 2021. (Clarence Tabb Jr./Detroit News via AP)