- Parents of the accused Oxford school shooter want evidence of their affairs kept out of court.
- James and Jennifer Crumbley face manslaughter charges in connection to the shooting.
- Jennifer Crumbley's coworker previously testified that she had an affair in 2021.
Parents of the Oxford school-shooting suspect want to keep evidence of their alleged extramarital affairs out of their upcoming manslaughter trial, court records show.
Amanda Holland, a former coworker of Jennifer Crumbley, previously testified at a pretrial hearing that Jennifer Crumbley was involved in an extramarital relationship throughout 2021 and that she would sneak away from work often to meet a person in a Costco parking lot.
Jennifer and James Crumbley both face involuntary-manslaughter charges in connection with the Oxford High School shooting in November that left four students dead. The Crumbleys are accused of making a firearm too easily accessible to their son, who is accused to carrying out the attack, and ignoring warning signs that he was depressed.
Both parents face up to 60 years in prison and $30,000 in fines if convicted.
Holland said in court that the Crumbleys separated at some point in 2021. According to Holland, the couple resolved their marital issues around the date of their anniversary but she said she could not recall the exact date.
Defense attorneys for the Crumbleys filed a motion on Thursday asking the court to bar evidence of the couple's infidelity into evidence in their manslaughter trial, which is tentatively set to begin on Oct. 24.
The defense argued in the motion that evidence of marital infidelity is not relevant to the charges that the Crumbleys face.
"Marital infidelity, if any, is not relevant to whether the gun was stored in a negligent manner," the motion reads.
The motion says that infidelity is relevant in cases where one spouse is accused of killing another because it could provide a motive, but in a case "where parents are accused of negligent responsibility for the homicidal actions of their child," the parents' affairs are not relevant.
When the defense objected to prosecutors questioning Holland about the Crumbleys' during the pretrial hearing, prosecutor Karen McDonald said the information was relevant because the Crumbleys had a "duty" to protect their community from their son and "what they exposed their son to" should be relevant.
Michigan 52nd District Court Judge Julie Nicholson overruled objections from the defense, but she said "Whether or not there was some type of extramarital relationship between the parties and a duty to the community, I don't know that that is intertwined."