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Crime Story Episode 53: Jessica Lowther

Host: Kathleen Goldhar

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: On November 30th, 2021, the small town of Oxford, Michigan, became the scene of a uniquely American nightmare.

SOUNDCLIP

REPORTER: Today, at yet another school, students, teachers and parents terrified and scrambling after shots fired on campus.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Midway through the day, a 15-year-old boy named Ethan Crumbley, went into the bathroom of his high school, took a pistol out of his backpack, and murdered four of his schoolmates.

SOUNDCLIP

NEWS PRESENTER: The story’s coming in at this hour of students barricading themselves inside, teachers putting paper up to cover the windows of classroom doors, then barricading the doors with tables. Some students climbing through a window, running for their lives across the snow. Others carried out on stretchers to the ambulances waiting outside.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Oxford joined the growing list of American cities that are now synonymous with school shootings: Sandy Hook, Parkland, Columbine. Sadly, the list continues to go on. This shooting was similar to the ones that came before it. A lonely young man with access to guns. A number of warning signs that seemed obvious in hindsight. But then prosecutors did something that had never been done before: they charged the shooter's parents. In her podcast Sins of the Child, executive producer Jessica Lowther recounts this horrific story and wrestles with the complicated question: should parents be held responsible for the crimes of their children? I'm Kathleen Goldhar, and welcome to Crime Story.

[Music: Theme]

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Jessica, welcome to Crime Story.

JESSICA LOWTHER: Thank you for having me.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So before we get into the story, I want to have a little sense of where this happened. Can you tell me about Oxford? Like, have you been there before this happened? What was-- what is that town like?

JESSICA LOWTHER: I have never been to Oxford myself, but I'm actually from a small town about 35 miles outside of Oxford. Oxford is in the county of Oakland. Its population is less than 4,000. Thirty miles north of Detroit, if you want to, you know, get a sense of where it is in the state. It's a very country feel. Tree-lined streets, manicured lawns. Their colonial-style downtown is a registered U.S. historical place and it really emanates this palpable small-town pride. Majority of the people that live there are white, conservative, upper middle class. And, you know, Oakland County is the 71st most affluent counties in the United States. Football culture's huge there. Friday nights, football team. You know, that's what this, this town was known for before this shooting happened. And gun culture is also a big part of this town. You know, almost everyone owns a gun. Kids are often posing with their rifles, their hunting rifles, at prom. Everybody's very proud to be a gun owner, and it's just a big part of the culture in this, in this small town.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And Ethan was a byproduct of that culture. So tell me about him.

JESSICA LOWTHER: So his parents, you know, kind of are a little different than the typical people that lived in Oxford. They, they did not have one of these, like, fancy McMansion style houses that a lot of the people in town are known to live in. They were a little bit just more middle class. You know, Jennifer worked an office job and James worked various jobs. When this happened, he was working as a delivery driver for DoorDash. Ethan was their 15-year-old son, and from all accounts, we can see that he was a very lonely child. He was an only child. Jennifer and James have called him an "oopsie-baby.”

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: The morning of the shooting, his parents were actually called to the school. Because the school was starting to get worried about Ethan. Can you tell me about that interaction and what was it the school was worried about?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Yeah. So Jennifer and James had been on campus the very same day. It was actually just one hour before the first shot rang out. He had two days in a row of red flag behaviour, but these weren't the first accounts of the red flag behaviour exhibited by Ethan. He had been searching bullets online during class. He was watching violent videos on his cell phone, in class. He was drawing disturbing images on his math assignments. He had been called to the office multiple times. Teachers had written concerned emails about him multiple times. This was, I would say, a pattern of behaviour that was being talked about, but nothing was really being done about. And so the day that Jennifer and James were on campus, in the office is the counsellor and the dean of students. Ethan's taken out of his class. They show the parents this drawing. He's drawing bullets, he's drawing guns, he's drawing bloody bodies on his math assignment. And the school's worried. They ask his parents to get him counselling, but they did not ask the parents to remove him from the school. And the parents didn't offer. This meeting lasts all of 11 minutes, and Ethan's sent back to his classroom. His backpack is never checked. And apparently, if you would have opened it, you would have seen the gun right away, which was a 9-mm Sig Sauer small handgun. It kind of looks like a cop's gun, for those unfamiliar with guns.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And how did he get access to that gun?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Four days before the shooting took place on November 30th, 2021, it was Black Friday, the day after American Thanksgiving. Ethan really wanted a gun for Christmas. He saved his money. He gave his dad money to buy him the gun because a minor can't buy guns in Michigan. They go to the ACME Shooting Goods in Oxford, Michigan. He had already had the gun picked out. His dad purchases the gun. He has to sign a statement that he's reviewed the safety pamphlet.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: The dad signs the agreement.

JESSICA LOWTHER: Right. The dad has to sign everything. The kid's just there. [KATHLEEN: Yeah.] So it's just James Crumbley and Ethan at this store. The next day, Jennifer Crumbley, Ethan's mother, takes him to the shooting range to practice with the gun. And then three days after that, he shoots and kills four of his classmates.

[music]

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I don't want to spend too much time in that because it's been reported. Um, but from the way that you presented it in the podcast, it seemed kind of, like, methodical and slow. And it was like he was sort of, um, trying to live in that moment, especially with the two boys in the bathroom. Can you tell me a little bit about sort of what did happen?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Ethan walks into the boys bathroom, around 12:50 p.m., at the south end of the high school's main hallway. He takes his gun out of his backpack. He walks out to the hallway and begins shooting. He strikes a female student first. He strikes another male student and another female student in the hallway. And he then goes back into the bathroom where there is a freshman and a senior cowering in fear in one of the bathroom stalls. The senior, whose name is Justin Schilling, he protects the freshman. He tells the freshman, stand on top of the toilet so that the shooter can't see you when he tries to look under the stall. But Ethan knows exactly where they are. He orders them out of the stall and orders the two boys up against the wall. We know all of this because the freshman, he survived. But the senior, Justin Schilling, did not. He witnessed Ethan Crumbley shoot Justin Schilling in the head. And he ran for it, the freshman. And then Ethan follows him out into the hallway where he actually ends up encountering two sheriff's office deputies and surrenders and is arrested. But what's so vile about all of this is, it was scripted. He wrote all of this down in his journal. He planned it this way. He wanted to survive. He knew he had no plans to end his own life. He had a plan to murder as many people as he possibly could. And he knew that he would surrender when the cops eventually showed up, which they did, five minutes after the first gunshot rang out. And he's arrested without incident, taken into custody. And then the ATF moves in to analyze the gun and the ammo, and this is when they find the shooter's backpack and his journal in the bathroom where Justin Schilling is dying fighting for his life.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And who else dies that day?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Madisyn Baldwin was 17 years old. Tate Myre was 16 years old. Hana St. Juliana was 14 years old, and the three of them were pronounced dead on the scene. But Justin Schilling, he actually died the next day on December 1st.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And we know now that the parents obviously we've heard other stories of this, that what starts to happen is that this community starts to hear about that parents start to rush to the school. And two of the people we know that heard about this were his parents. And how did they react to hearing that there was a shooting going on at their son's school?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Yeah. Word, word trickles out pretty fast in a small town like this. Everybody knows each other. They're all texting each other. So everybody hears about this shooting pretty, pretty quickly. Parents are rushing to the school. And, um, the, the reaction that James and Jennifer have to the news is interesting. And I think their immediate actions speak-- their immediate reaction speak louder than words, because Jennifer texts her son "Ethan don't do it." And James rushes home to see if the gun he had just purchased his son was still there. And it wasn't. So he calls 9-1-1.

SOUNDCLIP

9-1-1 DISPATCHER: What's the location of your emergency?

JESSICA LOWTHER: He's in a panic.

SOUNDCLIP

JAMES CRUMBLEY: I'm not really sure. I'm at my house. There's an active shooter situation going on at the high school. My son goes to the high school. I have a missing gun at my house.

JESSICA LOWTHER: The 9-1-1 call's hard to listen to as, as a parent, as a human being, as an American. It's hard. But he's not worried his son has been shot. He's worried his son is the gunman. He knows immediately.

SOUNDCLIP

JAMES CRUMBLEY: We had to go meet with the counsellor this morning because of something that he wrote on a test paper.

9-1-1 DISPATCHER: Okay.

JAMES CRUMBLEY: And I think my son took the gun. I don't know if it's him, I don't know what's going on.

9-1-1 DISPATCHER: What's your son's name?

JAMES CRUMBLEY: I'm [indistinct] really freaking out.

9-1-1 DISPATCHER: All right, I understand--

JAMES CRUMBLEY: My son's name is Ethan Crumbley.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It is really hard to listen to. And that went into the prosecutor's decision to charge them. Which really was-- I mean, we have heard about parents. They should be responsible, with all the conversation that goes on in the States because of these mass shootings that-- we've heard that. But this was the first time that happened. [JESSICA: Yeah.] So, what do you know about what went into that decision?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Well, so, the shooter himself was charged as an adult with one count of terrorism causing death. And that terrorism charge was itself a precedent, right. Because those whose lives were spared were still considered victims because they are going to have to endure this trauma for the rest of their lives. He was also charged with four counts of first-degree murder and 19 other miscellaneous charges. But because he's a minor, life without parole does not automatically apply to a minor. So they have to have this whole hearing. But once these charges are laid against the 15-year-old, they start to look at this kid's journal, and they go to the Crumbley's house and they look at his bedroom. He had two bedrooms -- which I always thought was a very weird detail -- um, very much in disarray. Gun shooting range posters on the wall. Used shooting range posters. Um, targets, I should say. And in the parents' bedroom they find the gun case that was used to store the 9-mm Sig Sauer that was purchased for their son, empty on the bed. Ammo missing. And this, paired along with the journal entries written by Ethan Crumbley, where he is talking about his mental illness, his longing for attention, feeling ignored by his parents. Having paranormal experiences. Seeing demons. Worshiping the Parkland shooter. Cries for help. Feelings of isolation. They decided to lay charges against the parents. And the parents were charged on December 3rd with four counts of involuntary manslaughter each. And this was the first time in America this has ever happened. And that's why I wanted to talk about this story on this podcast. Not only was it a huge precedent, but it makes you think: what if I was blamed for the actions of my child? What if I did nothing wrong, but I-- this is my minor child? And so that's your first instinct, but when you start looking into the details of this case, you really start to realize how culpable they really were.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah, because as you're telling us about what's in the journal, my question to you is, how did they prove that he wasn't just keeping all of this to himself? I mean, it's one thing that he's writing about seeing these things and feeling this way, but they showed that the parents were either aware of and ignored or whatever that this was happening to their son. Can we talk about what they proved was happening sort of in the house and in their relationship?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Well, so obviously, there was a lot of testimony from friends and family. They were interviewed. They testified in the trials. Their phones were confiscated, their text message chains were read. It is found that the mother is having an affair and that she's not paying attention to her husband, let alone her son. And she also is very enamored with her horses. She basically goes to work and then goes to her stable where she tends to her horses. And there is testimony from someone in her trial that she often talked poorly about her son -- thought he was weird, knew he had problems, and once again called him an "oopsie-baby.” And just generally felt that they were ashamed of him. And James, he actually did display a little bit more concern for his son. The dean of students testified in his trial that he did seem concerned in the meeting, the 11-minute meeting, on the day of the shooting. But there were no efforts being made to get this child help. The reason why Ethan was allowed to walk out of that office that day was because the parents promised to get him counselling sometime over the next 48 hours. And the gun was purchased four days before this. And they had known for years that their son was having mental health issues. And so this, all of this adds up to negligence -- criminal negligence in the eyes of the prosecution.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And how did they react when they got charged?

JESSICA LOWTHER: They went on the run. Their lawyers said that they intended to come back home and that they were just getting their affairs in order. But they drained their son's bank account. They drained their bank accounts. And they were found hiding out in an art studio in Detroit in the middle of the night, and were apprehended on December 4th. So they weren't on the run for very long, but they certainly had no plans of returning to Oxford. But they argue that they did.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I mean, one of the things that struck me was just, like, even if you're charged, your kid is sitting in prison.

JESSICA LOWTHER: I know.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And you leave. Like, their kid is charged with murder. It just felt so cold.

JESSICA LOWTHER: That was my first instinct. Their 15-year-old son was just thrown in prison, and they don't even go visit him. They haven't even spoken to-- I mean, they're probably not allowed to, but at the same time, they're not even trying. And draining his bank account, I mean, come on.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah. And I just want to quickly mention that... and we're going to talk mostly about them and their trial because it is so unprecedented. But can we quickly just say what happens to Ethan?

JESSICA LOWTHER: So Ethan goes through this Miller hearing to really assess his mental health and whether there was a sense of premeditation, in order to give him this life without parole sentence. Because that does not automatically apply to minors in the United States. The thing about the journal entries is that, you know, obviously there were cries for help, there was mental illness, there was isolation. He has one friend. He texts with his friend a lot about his plan to enact violence. He also writes journal entries. He records videos on his phone where he scripts out this entire shooting.

SOUNDCLIP

ETHAN CRUMBLEY: [on video recording] Just want to shoot it up [indistinct] Oxford high school. I'm in 10th Grade there. I've always been fascinated by guns when I was a kid. When the bell rings to end fifth hour, tomorrow, November 30th, 2021, I'm going to walk to the dividend between the boys' and girls' bathroom. I will have my black jacket on, and I will walk behind someone and I will shoot a bullet in their skull.

JESSICA LOWTHER: The level of premeditation that went into this shooting, even the manipulation he claims he laid against his parents to get him to buy the gun, showed the judge that he should face life without parole as a minor. So Ethan, at first, pleads not guilty, but eventually changes his plea. And he is, uh... There was no trial for Ethan. He was sentenced to life without parole and is in prison for the rest of his life.

[music fades]

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And so let's move on to his parents. They actually end up having separate trials. Who goes first?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Jennifer goes first. Her trial begins on January 25th, 2024. The reason why they have two separate trials is their culpability is different, right. And if you would have tried them together, you would be lumping them in together when perhaps they took different actions and perhaps one was more guilty than the other. So they ultimately decided to do two trials. Jennifer goes first, and her attorney takes, um, a curious stance at the beginning, which really riled up the public. She comes out reciting Taylor Swift lyrics. That "Band-aids don't fix bullet holes." And basically what she means by that is, trying Jennifer Crumbley for the crimes of her son is putting a Band-aid on the situation. And that nothing, no justice will be done by holding her accountable for her son's crimes. A lot of witnesses testify to a lot of the things that I've said before about her general lackadaisical parenting style, thinking her son was weird. Really just generally not liking being around him, let alone her own husband. And it doesn't look good for her. Well, she takes the stand, which was a very questionable decision for a person who has shown no remorse this entire time. And she gets on the stand, and she blames her husband.

SOUNDCLIP

ATTORNEY: Okay. Who is responsible for storing the gun?

JENNIFER CRUMBLEY: My husband is.

ATTORNEY: Okay, explain why you say he's responsible for that role.

JENNIFER CRUMBLEY: Um... I just didn't feel comfortable being in charge of that. It was more his thing, so I let him handle that. I didn't feel comfortable putting the lock thing on it.

JESSICA LOWTHER: She says, you know, it was his job to keep the gun safe. I didn't want anything to do with it. But the truth of the matter is, she took her son to that shooting range the next day. So she does have a level of culpability there. Her texts were brought into the trial. I just want to read you this exchange about... when Ethan was caught researching bullets at school. He's texting her that he got in trouble, and she responds, 'lol I'm not mad. You have to learn not to get caught.' After the counselling meeting, she texted him, 'Are you OK?' He says, 'Yes. Got back from lunch.' She says, 'You can talk to us.' And he says, 'I know that. Sorry for that. I love you.' And she doesn't even respond to him. She does respond 30 minutes later, after the shooting had already started, 'I love you, too. You OK? Ethan don't do it.' She texts her husband, 'He must be the shooter,' after James tells her the gun and the bullets are missing from their home.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So chilling. And then, shockingly, she's asked if she would do-- have done anything differently.

JESSICA LOWTHER: She responds to that with, 'I've asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn't have.'

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So what happens to his mother? What happens to Jennifer?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Her verdict comes in on February 6th, and she is found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter. And then her sentencing is scheduled for after James's trial. James's trial starts on March 7th, so not long after. About a month after her guilty verdict. Which obviously doesn't bode well for him, but he gets his own separate trial with separate jurors. So in James's trial, the concentration is mostly on the gun safety, because he took Ethan to purchase that gun on Black Friday, four days before the shooting. He left the gun unsecured; ignored safety tips that were offered by the gun salesman. Or saleswoman, I should say. And the gun case that he-- that the gun came in had no locking mechanism, but the gun itself did. The gun had a trigger lock and also had a cable lock that would block the barrel. And he made no attempts to secure that gun. The guns were also not registered. And you heard me say, yes, guns. There were three guns in the house. None of them were registered. There was a youth safety pamphlet that was kind of shoved in the foam of the gun case -- clearly never read. But his main defence is that he was unaware of his son's problems. So he played aloof most of the time. And said, you know, Sure, the gun stuff was my fault, but the parenting stuff was my wife. And, um, that didn't play very well with the jury. And on March 14th, he was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. And they were both brought in, reunited in their prison uniforms on April 9th to be sentenced. And at this sentencing, more victim impact statements are given.

SOUNDCLIP

MOTHER OF MURDERED TEEN: Because you decided that you didn't want to parent and listen to your son, you took the right away for me to be a mother. [emotional] You do not get to decide that. You do not get those privileges. You are not above anyone.

JESSICA LOWTHER: So difficult to listen to, but we thought it was very important in our podcast to give the victims and their families the stage. Because they are the most important people in this and they are the reason why this case is so memorable. And... It is hard to listen to, but I encourage people to listen to it. And I think what I really wanted to do with this podcast was change people's minds. In a way that it's not... let's not talk about guns. Let's talk about the people. Let's talk about the victims and the impact. Because if you want to own a gun -- okay. I'm not going to stop you from doing that. The law is not going to stop you from doing that. But can you take steps to make sure that that gun is stored safely? That your child, your underage child, knows how to use it, is properly trained, and that it's locked away from them?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah. Well, let's talk about the bigger thing. I mean, this is not a problem we have in Canada. I'm not saying that we don't have issues of violence or guns, but it is not. It's a very unique American issue. [JESSICA: Mm-hmm.] Shockingly, the leading cause of death for children in the U.S. now is gunshots. I mean, that really is something. For years, since Columbine, and as these shootings got more and more common, you always hear the conversation about what to do. And we are very well aware of the entrenched divide in your country when it comes to guns. It feels sort of like... there's almost an exhaustion over these stories. Have you come to any place of understanding it better, making sense of this? Like, what has this done to your understanding of not just what's happening, but what people might do?

JESSICA LOWTHER: I will say that I personally have noticed a lot more attention being made to these shootings. There was a shooting recently in Georgia at another high school, perpetrated by another 14-year-old, where four more people were killed, this time with an AR-platform-style rifle. And again, with a gun purchased by a parent for their child. But maybe perhaps a worse circumstance was that this child was investigated by the sheriff's department and-- off of a tip from the FBI, because he had threatened to shoot up his middle school before. So his father decided to go out and buy him an AR-style rifle... after being investigated for shooting threats. And this shooting was maybe the first time I had seen other students telling their immediate perspectives on what happened. One student, this young black woman, was in her classroom and she heard a bang on the door. And her teacher told her to go let the person in. She gets up and she looks through the window. And she sees Colt Gray, the 14-year-old, with a rifle in his hand, and she knows immediately not to let him in. He keeps banging on the door. She tells the teacher he has a gun. And ultimately, she saves the lives of the 34 people in that classroom because she didn't let him in. And are we really going to rely on kids and teenagers to save our lives? Because it kind of seems like we have to. We've got to reach a breaking point. Personally, after Sandy Hook, after 20 six-year-olds were massacred and nothing was done, it's kind of hard to believe that anything is ever going to be done... I, I don't know. I don't know what it's going to take to enact change in this country. It's terrifying to be an American. It's terrify-- I don't have children, but it's, I'm terrified for my nieces. I'm terrified for my friend's children. I'm terrified for all kids. I'm terrified for everyone. It's, the gun culture has gotten out of control in this country. And it-- you're absolutely right, it does not happen anywhere else. And we have to face that as a country.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Have you made any sense of this yourself?

JESSICA LOWTHER: I really haven't. I find it very hard to swallow that anybody could be so negligent with their own flesh and blood. I don't understand how you can put a weapon of war in the hands of a child whose brain isn't fully developed, isn't fully formed. They don't know the consequences of their actions. They can't think further than the end of high school.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: To that end, Jessica, I'm just curious. Like, he is spending the rest of his life in jail. So, is that fair?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Yeah. He spends the rest of his life in prison, but his parents were only sentenced to 10 to 15 years.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah. And like you said, he's a 15-year-old fault. Not fully formed. Obviously mentally ill.

JESSICA LOWTHER: What I find very interesting about it is that, you know, a lot of these-- because the court judicial system in this country takes so long, he was about 18 years old when he finally pled guilty and all of these hearings had finally finished. And you could see a marked change in him. [KATHLEEN: Hmm.] Because he was finally getting the help he needed in prison.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Interesting.

JESSICA LOWTHER: People were paying attention to him. And he had, for lack of a better word, a community around him, who had to pay attention to him. And the judge said that they did not think he was capable of reform, but I, I... I don't know. It's, it's really hard to think that if someone would have stepped in and got this kid help, those four children would still be alive and he would not be in prison, they would not be in prison, and he could be a functioning member of society.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Well, Jessica, thank you for bringing us some insights into your podcast and to this story. I appreciate the work.

JESSICA LOWTHER: Thank you for having me, Kathleen.

[Music: Closing Theme]

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: You've been listening to Crime Story from CBC Podcasts. We release a new episode every Monday, so please remember to follow the show in your podcast app. You can get our next episode a week early on CBC Podcasts' YouTube channel or by subscribing to CBC Podcasts' True Crime channel on Apple Podcasts. In addition to early access, subscribers to our True Crime channel also listen ad-free. Crime Story is hosted by me, Kathleen Goldhar. Our producers are Nikky Manfredi and Mitchell Stuart. Sound design by Julian Uzielli and Mitchell Stuart. Media source from ABC News, Law & Crime, and Wondery. Our senior producer is Geoff Turner. Our video producer is Evan Aagaard, and our YouTube producer is Jon Lee. Executive Producers are Cesil Fernandes and Chris Oke. Tanya Springer is the Senior Manager of CBC Podcasts and Arif Noorani is the director of CBC Podcasts.

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Transcript: Crime Story, Episode 53

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