Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of the Oxford High School shooter that killed 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana, 16-year-old Tate Myre, 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin, and 17-year-old Justin Shilling, both face involuntary manslaughter charges because they bought their son the gun.
Jennifer Crumbley's trial is ongoing, and on the fifth day, Wednesday, January 31, 2024, the man that she was having an affair with testified. Jennifer Crumbley was having an affair with Brian Meloche, a fire department captain that Jennifer Crumbley was friends with in high school.
Jennifer Crumbley was in communication with Meloche before and after the shooting, and Meloche testified about this communication. In a conversation that Jennifer Crumbley had with Meloche the day after the shooting, she wrote, “I failed as a parent. I failed miserably," reported The Detroit Free Press.
"You didn’t do this," Meloche responded. She wrote back: "I’m scared."
In another conversation, Jennifer Crumbley wrote in December 2021, "I’ll never be okay. I lost my son. He’s a murderer. And I’ll forever have to live with that. I’m not sure life is worth living anymore. I have nothing left to live for. He was it."
More from LittleThings: Parents Of Florida OnlyFans Model Accused Of Killing Her Boyfriend Are Also Arrested
Prosecutors say that there were signs Jennifer Crumbley's son needed help, but the parents ignored these signs and didn't get help for their kid. In text messages sent to Meloche, Jennifer Crumbley appeared to blame the school, saying, "no officer was Notified and apparently there were threats and no one, not even us notified.”
Because of violent drawings that their son drew at school, Jennifer Crumbley and her husband were called into the school for a meeting on the same day the shooting happened. The shooter had also written, "The thoughts won't stop. Help me," alongside the drawings.
In texts to Meloche, Jennifer Crumbley blamed the school for deciding "he could stay in school" because "they didn’t see him as a threat," reported The Detroit Free Press.
But Jennifer Crumbley and her husband could've taken their son home from school but chose not to because they had to go back to work. Within 48 hours, they said, they would get mental health help for their son.
The sketches found on the worksheet at school were not the only apparent cry for help from their son. On the sixth day of Jennifer Crumbley's trial, some of their son's journal entries were shown in court, reported WDIV Local 4.
In one journal entry, he wrote, "I want help but my parents don't listen to me so I can't get any help."
In another, he wrote, "I have zero help for my mental problems and it's causing me to shoot up the f—ing school."
Jennifer and James Crumbley were found hiding in a warehouse several days after the shooting in December 2021. Jennifer Crumbley's attorney Shannon Smith tried to claim that Jennifer Crumbley and her husband were not actually on the run and "left town on the night of the tragic shooting for their own safety."
Before they were found, Jennifer Crumbley texted Meloche saying, "We're painted as monsters. We're fearing for our lives."
But during the trial, another text that Jennifer Crumbley had sent was revealed: "We’re on the run again. Helicopters. Not sure where to. I’ll message you,” she wrote at the time, reported New York Post.
