James Crumbley during trial.
The 65-year-old jury foreman, a grandfather of three who grew up with guns in the Upper Peninsula, says the conviction in the James Crumbley case in Oakland County Circuit Court came down to how the gun was stored.
Tresa Baldas of the Detroit Free Press interviewed the foreman, who is not mentioned by name, about the trial of Crumbley, who was convicted late last week on all four counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with his son Ethan's murder of four students at Oxford High School on Nov. 21, 2021.
"Securing the gun is the whole thing," the foreman told Baldas Saturday, emphasizing that James Crumbley could have used variouis methods to secure the gun used by his son.
Crumbley and his wife Jennifer, who was convicted last month, become the first parents in America to be charged and convicted in a mass slaying done by their child. Prosecutors charged that they were reckless, irresponsible parents, who could have prevented the mass shooting had they paid attention to their son's mental health issues and not bought him a gun, which they failed to secure properly.
During trial, it came out that James Crumbley told police that the gun used in the shooting that killed four and wounded seven, was in his bedroom armoire, unloaded in a case; and that the bullets were stored in a separate drawer under some jeans, according to the Freep.
"It could have been a safe, a cable lock, a trigger lock," the foreman told Baldas. "It all could have been used at some point."
James Crumbley's wife Jennifer was also convicted of four counts of involuntary manslaughter in a separate trial last month and awaits sentencing. Both James and Jennifer Crumbley have been sitting in the Oakland County Jail since early December of 2021, just days after the mass shooting.
