Jennifer Crumbley’s lawyer has asked a judge to allow the mother of the Oxford High School shooter to serve her involuntary manslaughter sentence under house arrest instead of going to prison, reiterating that Crumbley’s criminal prosecution has painted a misleading narrative.
Crumbley and her husband, James, are the first parents in America to be held criminally responsible for a school shooting by their child. They are to be sentenced Tuesday for their separate convictions on four counts of involuntary manslaughter — one for each classmate their son murdered.
In a rare and unconventional request, defense attorney Shannon Smith has offered to let her client live in her guest house — on a tether — to spare her from going to prison.
Jennifer Crumbley is not the woman the prosecution has portrayed her to be, Smith argued, and has suffered enough already: She has been locked up for 23 hours a day for more than two years, with no contact with her son or husband.
“The victims and their families have suffered beyond what words can explain,” Smith said in her sentencing memo but added: “Mrs. Crumbley has also suffered significantly.”
Her son, Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 when he carried out his massacre, pleaded guilty to his crimes and is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. “She in reality has lost everything,” Smith said. “And she is saddled with extra baggage knowing the horrific acts her son did to others and always second guessing every choice she made as a parent.”
