PONTIAC (WWJ) -- The defense has rested its case in the manslaughter trial of Jennifer Crumbley, with closing arguments underway Friday afternoon in Oakland County Circuit Court.
During a cross examination that lasted roughly an hour Friday morning, Crumbley was asked by Assistant Oakland County Prosecutor Mark Keast about her self described "hyper-vigilance" as a parent, and why she apparently ignored text messages from her son months before the Oxford High School shootings that he was seeing demons.
Repeating what she said under questioning by her attorney, Crumbley testified that she thought her son, Ethan, was "messing around."
Crumbley is facing four counts of involuntary manslaughter stemming from the November 30, 2021, shootings inside of Oxford High School, in Oxford Township, in which four students were killed and seven more people were wounded.
In this exchange, Keast pressed Crumbley about entries from her son's journal, which were previously entered into evidence.
Keast: "Now you don't deny that your son wrote in his journal that he asked his parents for help. You don't deny that evidence that was in there?"
Crumbley: "No."
Keast: "And you don't deny that the Sig Sauer 9mm handgun was, in fact the murder weapon?"
Crumbley: "I don't."
Keast: "And you also don't deny that that gun was gifted by you and your husband to your son on November the 26th?"
Crumbley: "Describe gifted."
Keast: "How about when you post it on Instagram? His new 'Christmas gift', correct?"
Crumbley: "I explained yesterday that it was for him to use at the shooting range. We didn't just hand him a gun, as a, "'Here you go, son'."
With the prosecution declining to call a rebuttal witness, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald began closing arguments, telling the jury: "I told you during jury selection that it wasn't going to be easy. And it was not easy."
McDonald acknowledged that there was some extremely upsetting evidence in this case, thanking jurors for paying close attention and taking notes throughout the proceedings.
McDonald explained what, exactly, the prosecution must to prove in order to secure a conviction — including that Jennifer Crumbley was grossly negligent, which led to the victims' deaths.
After summarizing the evidence up until the morning of the shooting, McDonald told jurors that even if you ignore all of that, what Crumbley failed to do on Nov. 30 amounts to gross negligence.
In her closing statement, McDonald said, "She is not somebody that used ordinary care to prevent what was foreseeable, reasonably foreseeable, that could have happened: injury or death. And it did, it did.
"Those words on that paper, 'Help me.' She walked out of that school within 11 minutes (meeting with her son and the school counselor) and didn't so much even even address her son.
"She did not give him the help that he wanted. And you can argue about the months before and the weeks before. But if you just even look at what happened that day, she walked out of that school and she knew she knew something bad might happen.
"What does she do when she gets back to work? She all of a sudden texts her son: 'Are you ok? You know, you can talk to us.' These are the actions of somebody who was worried.
"And then it's a different story. Why? Because she knew she had done something wrong.
"She walked out of that school when just the smallest, smallest of things could have saved, could have helped Hana and Tate and Madison and Justin — just the smallest of things. And not only did she not do it, she doesn't even regret it.
"We have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that she is guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter. It's a rare case to take some very egregious facts. It takes me unthinkable and she is tell me unthinkable and because of that four kids have died," MdDonald said.
So, did prosecutors make a strong enough case?
WWJ Legal Analyst Charlie Langton isn't so sure about that.
"Now, the honest assessment here is that the prosecutor has got to prove that the Acts of Jennifer Crumley were grossly negligent, which would have essentially prevented the killing. And it could be, it could be interesting," Langton said on Friday.
Langton continued: "But I was watching the jury very carefully. The jury was taking a lot of notes during a lot of the testimony. But on the cross examination, it just didn't seem like they were that interested. Again, it's hard to read the jury... We'll never know. But this is going to be a tricky little case now for the prosecutor, I'm not saying that the prosecutor didn't score a few points.
"Jennifer Crumbley is certainly not mother of the year. She had an affair. In fact, she had more than one affairs; that came out.
"She was talking on the phone about her concern, not about her son, but about basically carving up in the jail.
"And so she doesn't look particularly good, but the issue is whether she was honest about all of her faults as a person. And to be honest, I think Jennifer Crumley was fairly honest procedurally," Langton said.
It's not yet clear if jurors will begin deliberations Friday afternoon, or if they will be released and bought back to begin on Monday.
Stay with WWJ Newsradio 950 for the latest on this developing story.
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