Mother of Michigan school shooting suspect worried she was failing son, her boss testifies

The mother of the teen accused of killing four students at a Michigan high school last November expressed concern that she was failing her son, her boss testified on Tuesday.

Andrew Smith, the boss of Jennifer Crumbley at a real estate company, testified that Crumbley did not go into much detail after she arrived at work late on what would become the day of the fatal shooting Nov. 30, The Associated Press reported.

Smith discussed a conversation he had with Crumbley once she arrived at work following the meeting that she and her husband had with school officials that morning.

“She had said her son needed to get some counseling,” Smith testified, according to the AP. “I think she mentioned a family pet had passed away and a grandparent had passed away. She felt as if she was failing him, or a failure.”

Smith said that she later texted him once news broke that her son, Ethan Crumbley, was suspected of fatally shooting four students and injuring others at Oxford High School, expressing concern over her job.

“‘Please don’t judge me for what my son did.’ I was surprised by that text,” Smith testified, according to the AP. “I was surprised she was worried about her job at that time.”

Smith’s testimony comes as part of an important hearing to see whether the parents of the Michigan school shooting suspect, Ethan Crumbley, can be tried for federal charges over accusations that they failed to pick up on warning signs about his behavior at school and at home, and that they made the gun allegedly used in the shooting too accessible, the news outlet noted.

Specifically, Jennifer Crumbley and James Crumbley both face four charges of involuntary manslaughter.

Ethan Crumbley separately faces two dozen charges for allegedly killing four students and injuring seven others on Nov. 30 at Oxford High School. Last month, he waived a similar key evidentiary hearing, which immediately sent the case to a trial court.