The Oxford High School shooter’s convicted father said in prison phone calls that he wanted to ruin the prosecutor’s case against him and that she would soon go to hell, sources confirmed.
James Crumbley made the comments to his sister while his trial was pending, sources close to the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed.
The new details were The Detroit Free Press first reported on Monday.
A Michigan jury found Crumbley last week guilty of four counts of negligent homicide for shooting his son, four classmates killed.
James Crumbley and his wife Jennifer Crumbley, who were convicted of the same charges in a separate trial in February, are the The first parents in America to be charged for a school shooting committed by her child.
James Crumbley allegedly told his sister that his goal was to destroy Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald and that she would soon be going to hell, that she better be scared and that she was done , the sources confirmed.
“There is disagreement about what was said and the nature of the stuff,” Crumbley’s defense attorney Mariell Lehman told the media on Monday.
Lehman declined further comment after NBC News confirmed the details of what Crumbley allegedly told his sister.
Asked about the threats Friday, McDonald said he “made a lot of threats” but didn’t want to elaborate because she didn’t want to pay more attention to him.
“I just don’t think it’s important to talk about,” McDonald said at the time.
The alleged threatening statements first became public knowledge during Crumbley’s trial. On March 7, the judge signed an order after prosecutors and defense attorneys reached an agreement restrict his prison communications.
For the remainder of the trial, Crumbley could only speak to his lawyer and legitimate clergy and conduct research to aid his defense – but prosecutor David Williams said in court that the restrictions could be lifted after a verdict was reached.
The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said at the time that Crumbley’s communications in jail were limited “due to threatening statements.” When contacted Monday, the office said it had nothing further to add.
While the sources did not specify the frequency or exactly how many threats Crumbley allegedly made, they did confirm that there were several threats in 2022, 2023 and as recently as January, before the parents’ trials began.
Ethan Crumbley killed four students Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; and Justin Shilling, 17 – and injured seven other people when he opened fire with a handgun on November 30, 2021.
His father had purchased the Sig Sauer 9mm handgun he had used days earlier, and prosecutors said it was not stored safely. Last week, McDonald called the facts “outrageous” and said the shooting was foreseeable and that the parents could have prevented it “with only the smallest amount of effort.”
At trial, school officials testified that both Crumbley parents were called to school the day of the shooting because of a drawing their son had made that depicted a gun and a person being shot. Neither of them told staff they had access to a gun, and they said they couldn’t take him home, citing work.
James Crumbley’s defense claims he could not have predicted that his son would start shooting hours later.
“He wished he had taken his son home that day. If he had known what was going to happen, he would have made different decisions,” Lehman said Monday, He added that Crumbley feels terrible about what happened to the families.
Sentencing for James and Jennifer Crumbley is scheduled for April 9. It is the first time the parents – who cannot communicate in prison – have been able to see each other since they attended joint hearings together before their cases were separated. They each face a maximum of 15 years in prison.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com