Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley’s father James wails he’s a ‘martyr’ in prison calls after being sentenced to 10-15 years for letting his son massacre four children

The father of school shooter Ethan Crumbley insists he is a ‘martyr’ who feels he is ‘joining the military’ to prevent other parents from being jailed like him.

James Crumbley was sentenced Tuesday along with his estranged wife Jennifer to 10 to 15 years behind bars for failing to prevent their son’s massacre.

Ethan, 15, shot staff and students at Oxford High School in Michigan on November 30, 2021, killing three teenagers and wounding seven people.

He was jailed for life without parole and his parents were convicted of involuntary manslaughter for failing to secure the gun he used in his rampage.

James Crumbley maintained his innocence and played the victim in several recorded calls he made from prison from December 2022 to earlier this year.

‘I feel a bit like a martyr. We’re martyrs, you know, without the whole dying aspect of it. Because I don’t know a better word to use. So I use the word martyr, he said in a call.

“But we are martyrs to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else in America again. To make sure no one likes (sic) that stupid, stupid b***h (Oakland County Prosecutor) Karen McDonald.’

Crumbley claimed he ‘wanted to fight the good fight’ for other parents who could be charged if their children committed a mass murder.

‘I feel like I’ve joined the military and want to fight for my country, you know? I kind of am. I fight for everyone else’s freedom, he said.

‘I feel a bit like a martyr or martra, however you want to pronounce it. If they allow this stupid b***h to do to us what she is trying to do based on nothing.

‘Here’s the thing, she never did any kind of investigation before they charged us.

‘They try to blame us, they try to say that none of this should have happened because you.

‘Tis so **king ridiculous. It wasn’t us! It wasn’t us! It was the f-king school!’

Elsewhere in the audio released by prosecutors Wednesday, Crumbley threatened McDonald.

‘Karen McDonald, you are going down. Yes, you stupid b***hes in the damn king’s prison, record this call, send it to Karen McDonald,” he said on October 9, 2023.

‘Tell her how James Crumbley will bloody take her down. She won’t have a law license when I’m done with her.

“Karen McDonald wants to work at f**king McDonalds because she won’t be able to get a job anywhere else.”

In another call on December 6, 2022, he said: ‘Well, she will soon be the king of hell sucking on a hot rock down in hell soon.’

Another call on December 20, 2023 was more specific: ‘Yes, damn King Karen McDonald. You’ll be damned when I get out.’

Crumbley’s rage had not subsided earlier this year when the threats continued in another call on January 4.

‘You know what, three months from now it’s going down when I get out of here. I’m going crazy, Karen, he said.

‘Yes Karen McDonald, your ass is going down and you better be damned scared.’

It remains unclear who Crumbley was on the phone with during his calls.

Prosecutors released the calls Wednesday along with a sentencing report by the Detroit Free Press got some of the sound.

‘The defendant’s prison calls showed that he blamed everyone but himself for what happened and that he repeatedly referred to himself as being persecuted and considered himself a “martyr,” the persecutors write in the report.

An Oakland County Sheriff’s Office investigator told the magazine: ‘Most of the content of the messages I’ve reviewed appears to be Mr. Crumbley complaining about litigation and courtroom tactics, and Mr. Crumbley making comments about winning the case in court and make Karen McDonald look bad to the public’

The outlet obtained the recordings through freedom of information laws, which also revealed a police report filed by prosecutors related to the calls.

The report asked the sheriff’s office to investigate what they considered “harassing and threatening” phone calls.

The calls were mentioned on the first day of Crumbley’s trial, causing a courtroom spat and the jury being sent home for the day.

Prosecutors raised an issue with Crumbley’s jailhouse communications, which his attorney objected to the matter being made public.

Crumbley’s attorney, Mariell Lehman, maintained that Crumbley did not threaten to physically harm McDonald, but vented frustrations.

During the sentencing, the phone calls were brought up again, with prosecutors arguing they warranted a harsher sentence.

Judge Cheryl Matthews agreed, telling Crumbley he ‘threatened the welfare of the prosecutor’.

His son Ethan opened fire on the school in Oxford, Michigan, killing Hana St. Juliana, Madisyn Baldwin, Tate Myre and Justin Shilling.

Ethan was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murders, after being convicted of 24 crimes, including terrorism.

Crumbley and his wife Jennifer were convicted in separate trials earlier this year, where juries found they ignored Ethan’s pleas for help and bought him a firearm.

Their sentences will be served minus the nearly two and a half years they have already served, and they will be barred from contacting the families of their son’s victims.

The two are the first parents in the United States to be held responsible for a child who carries out a mass school attack.

McDonald said Crumbley ignored signs that his son was deeply disturbed, didn’t get him the help he needed and didn’t store the firearm safely in the family home.

McDonald also presented the jury with texts Ethan Crumbley had sent to a friend and journal entries he had written in the months leading up to the shooting.

In these he talked about wanting medical attention and hearing voices, but he was afraid his parent would be ‘pissed off’.

On one occasion, according to a text message to a friend, Ethan asked Crumbley to take him to the doctor, but his father ‘gave me some pills and told me to suck it up’.

Defense attorney Mariell Lehman argued that James Crumbley could not possibly have foreseen that his son would carry out a mass shooting.

Crumbley, accompanied by Ethan, purchased a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol over Thanksgiving weekend in 2021.

The boy called it his ‘new beau’ on social media. His mother described the gun as a Christmas present and took him to a shooting range.

Four days after the purchase, the parents went to Oxford High to discuss a violent picture their son had drawn on a maths paper.

Next to the drawing included phrases that said: ‘Thoughts don’t stop. Help me.’ There was a gun on the paper that looked like a Sig Sauer.

The Crumbleys didn’t take him home, and the school staff – who believed he might be suicidal – didn’t demand it either.

But no one checked the boy’s backpack for a gun, and the shooting happened that afternoon.

Ahead of his sentencing, James read a statement in which he said his ‘heart is broken for everyone involved’ and stressed that claims he had no remorse for his son’s actions were not true.

‘I know the pain and loss will never go away.’