Jennifer Crumbley Trial Day Three: Crumbley Once Called Son an ‘Oopsie Baby’

PONTIAC, MI, Jan. 29, 2023 ~ The third day of Jennifer Crumbley‘s involuntary manslaughter trial Monday featured more key testimonies in deciding whether she should face responsibility for neglecting her son, Ethan, before he committed the 2021 Oxford High School shooting.

The trial saw testimony from Shawn Hopkins, a counselor at Oxford High at the time of the shooting where Ethan Crumbley killed four classmates and injured seven others, who said he was “confused” why the parents didn’t take their son from school hours before the shooting. Kira Pennock, a family friend who runs a barn where the shooter’s parents stored their horses, also testified that Jennifer Crumbley referred to her son as an “oopsie baby” and that she shared the violent drawing made by Ethan with her shortly before the shooting.

Hopkins said that after he saw the drawing made by Ethan Crumbley, which depicted a gun, a person bleeding, and the words, “the thoughts won’t stop, help me,” he feared the shooter was experiencing suicidal ideation and didn’t want him to be alone, so he called the parents for a meeting. While he said that he never told the parents his son should go home, he was hoping that they would get him same-day counseling. However, he was surprised to hear that the parents couldn’t do that because they had to return to work, so their son was sent back to class on the day of the shooting.

The historic trials for Jennifer and James Crumbley are the first to prosecute parents in the U.S. of a school shooter related to their child’s mass shooter.