Jailed parents of Michigan school shooter will have separate trials after police interviewed new witnesses

• James and Jennifer Crumbley will have separate trials after two new witnesses came forward.
• A court convicted the Crumbleys' son of murder and terrorism for the 2021 Oxford High School shooting.

James and Jennifer Crumbley will have separate trials after their attorneys said two new prosecution witnesses could hurt their chances of a fair trial.

The Crumbleys are both facing involuntary manslaughter charges in connection with the 2021 Oxford High School shooting in Michigan, which left four students dead.

The couple's teenage son pleaded guilty to murder and terrorism charges related to the shooting in October 2022 and is scheduled to be sentenced on December 8.

In one of the first cases of its kind, the parents are accused of making a firearm too easily accessible to their son and ignoring warning signs that he was depressed. Both parents face up to 60 years in prison if convicted.

On Monday, a judge granted Jennifer Crumbley's request for a separate trial, according to the Detroit Free Press. Attorneys for both parents had filed requests to separate the trial after two new prosecution witnesses came forward on October 31, according to the outlet.

Court filings showed that two witnesses from Florida spoke to police, and prosecutors turned over police reports and audio files of the witness interviews to defense attorneys on November 2, The Free Press reported.

After reviewing the new evidence, attorneys for both parents said that separating the trial was "necessary" to avoid infringing on the "rights of both spouses," according to the outlet. The defense said that separating the trial is necessary because prosecutors intend to call one or both of the witnesses, the report says.

The split trial comes after months of contention between the couple, according to court documents.

Earlier this month, the prosecution said in court filings that James Crumbley's attorney should know that Jennifer Crumbley "has placed blame on him in jail communications," not elaborating further.

In a February 2022 pretrial hearing, a former coworker of Jennifer Crumbley testified that Jennifer was having an extramarital relationship throughout 2021 and that she would sneak away from work to meet someone in a Costco parking lot.

Defense attorneys for the Crumbleys later asked the judge to bar evidence of the couple's infidelity from entering the courtroom. As a result, the judge limited the prosecutor's ability to show some evidence of extramarital affairs in separate decisions in June 2022 and November 2022, court documents show.

Attorneys for James and Jennifer Crumbley did not immediately return a request for comment from Insider.