OCHESTER HILLS, Mich. — Kira Pennock said her friend, Jennifer Crumbley, sent her a text message in the aftermath of a Nov. 30 shooting rampage at Oxford High School, telling her "my son ruined so many lives today."
The comments came hours after Pennock said Crumbley, the mother of 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley, had sent her a screenshot of a troubling drawing Crumbley's son was caught drawing on a math assignment.
Crumbley told Pennock, the 25-year-old owner of a Metamora horse farm, that morning that she'd had a "s--- day," and "just had to go to my son's school and meet his counselor."
"I was alarmed. I thought that was not normal," Pennock testified Tuesday during a preliminary examination for Jennifer Crumbley and her husband, James, who are charged with involuntary manslaughter in the shooting rampage that left four students dead and seven other people injured. "All of the violence, all over the page. It didn't seem like something a kid would do on a test in school," Pennock, the first witnesses called for the hearing testified.
Later the same day, Pennock said, she'd heard about the shooting after getting a call from another student's mom.
"My thought is that it was Ethan. I know they own guns and go out shooting, and that math test with everything written on it made me think it was him," she said.
Pennock said Jennifer, in a note that afternoon, told her "I'm bawling right now" and Pennock testified that she understood that to mean, Ethan was the shooter.
Jennifer, she said, thanked Pennock "for not judging her, like the rest of the world," and Pennock said she wasn't sure how to take it.
Pennock said she told Jennifer Crumbley in response that "it sounds like Ethan was a troubled kid" and that she didn't blame the mother for his alleged acts.
Jennifer, Pennock added, describes her son as "a good kid who made a terrible decision."
That afternoon, Pennock said, Jennifer Crumbley sent her a text to report she wouldn't be making it to the farm that night as planned for a riding lesson. But didn't say why.
Later, Pennock said, Jennifer sent her a note saying "I'm bawling right now" and "my son ruined so many lives today."
Pennock shared snippets of her exchange with Jennifer Crumbley in the aftermath of the deadly shooting after testifying that Jennifer Crumbley had confided last summer that her son was "weird" and "didn't do normal kid things."
Defense attorney Shannon Smith noted Tuesday that Pennock's friendship with Jennifer was limited to horses and small talk. Pennock testified that communications involving Crumbley's son never rose to a level of alarm where she'd thought to call law enforcement. Not even on the day that she'd seen the drawing, she noted.
The couple is charged in the deaths of students Madisyn Baldwin, Justin Shilling, Hana St. Juliana and Tate Myre.
Ethan Crumbley is charged with 24 felony counts including murder and terrorism on allegations he fatally shot the four students and wounded six other classmates and a teacher.
Andrew Smith, an attorney and the chief operations officer for a real estate company where Jennifer Crumbley worked as a marketing director, was the second witness for the prosecution on Tuesday.
Smith, Jennifer's direct supervisor for about five years, said he'd gotten a text message from Jennifer that morning, also informing him that she had to go to her son's school and shared the drawing.
Around noon, he testified, she'd returned to work and was in the copy room. She mentioned to Andrew Smith that her son needed counseling, he said, and "I think she said she felt like she was failing him, or a failure."
He later heard her "screaming down the hallway" that there was an active shooter at Ethan's school. She left and texted Smith just before 1:30 p.m. to inform him "the gun is gone and so are the bullets," he said.
"OMG Andy, he's going to kill himself he must be the shooter," Jennifer texted Smith, according to testimony.
"Ethan did it," Jennifer added in another text. "I need my job. Please don't judge me for what my son did."
Smith testified he was "surprised" and "alarmed" by her text message. "I was surprised she was worried about her job at that point; I thought she would be more concerned about what was going on," he told the court.
Earlier Tuesday, Pennock described Jennifer Crumbley as a friend and said Jennifer didn't talk much about her son.
"She said that he did not have any friends. That he only had one friend and he spent a lot of time online or playing games," Pennock testified. "He just seemed to keep to himself.
"She thought that it was weird that he wasn't out doing normal things," she said.
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald asked whether Jennifer Crumbley had referred to her son as "weird."
"Yes," Pennock answered.
The hearing got underway just after 9:20 a.m. The rattle of jail shackles was heard, and James Crumbley was led into the packed courtroom followed by Jennifer.
Upon entering the courtroom, guests from the public were seated to the left. Among them: Attorney Ven Johnson, who has filed a civil suit against the Crumbleys, their son and several Oxford school officials.
McDonald has said the couple bought their son a handgun as a Christmas gift and has alleged that they failed to properly secure the weapon or advise school officials of it after being called to the school just hours ahead of the shooting to discuss Ethan's allegedly disturbing behavior and drawings depicting guns and a dead body.
The couple, prosecutors have said, refused to remove their son from school that day and he was sent back to class.
Prosecutors and the defense team for the Crumbleys argued ahead of the planned exam before 52-3rd District Judge Julie Nicholson over whether the hearing should be adjourned based on the volume of evidence in the case and concerns about how much has been provided to the defense team and reviewed.
Nicholson noted the court allowed attorneys from both sides to meet for 45 minutes Tuesday morning and that the examination had previously been adjourned for six weeks.
She noted the measures taken thus far and stressed she believes that there has been "sufficient evidence that has been turned over to the defense attorneys."
"Good cause does not exist to adjourn the exam," the judge added.
Smith and fellow defense attorney Mariell Lehman, said in a filing last week that they wanted the prosecutor's office to narrow down a list of 30 potential witnesses that might be called to testify. On Tuesday, Lehman noted that list had been pared down to 16 witnesses.
McDonald's office responded in its own filing, noting defense has been provided with all of the information in a timely manner.
McDonald also said she wants Nicholson to order the Crumbleys to stop mouthing "I love you" to each other in court, arguing it's traumatic for the families of victims.
On Tuesday, Nicholson warned the couple not to have communication with each other: "It's disrespectful and it's disruptive," she said.
The Crumbleys, who are being held in the Oakland County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bond, each face up to 15 years in prison if they are convicted.
McDonald has described the parents as flight risks and previously told Nicholson that when the Crumbleys were arrested on Dec. 4, hiding inside a Detroit warehouse, they had $6,600 in cash, 10 credit cards and four cellphones. The parents, she said, also "drained" Ethan's bank account of $3,000, leaving only 99 cents in the account.
Their son, if convicted, is facing up to life in prison for his alleged crimes.
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(Staff writer Carol Thompson contributed.)
