(Reuters) – A Michigan judge set bail at $500,000 each for the parents of a teenager accused of murdering four fellow high school students, after authorities arrested the couple yesterday following a high-profile manhunt.
Appearing by videolink from jail for their arraignment, James and Jennifer Crumbley both pleaded not guilty to four counts of involuntary manslaughter.
Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald told the hearing the Crumbleys withdrew $4,000 from an ATM while authorities were searching for them and remained a flight risk.
“These are not people that we can be assured will return to court on their own,” she said.
Authorities began searching for the couple after Oakland County prosecutors said on Friday that they would be charged with manslaughter in connection with the campus mass shooting. Prosecutors said the Crumbleys bought the handgun for their son as a Christmas present and then ignored warning signs including on the day of the shooting.
The Michigan school shooting is only the latest such incident in the United States, where elected officials have sparred over how to make schools safer for children as attacks have grown increasingly common in recent decades.
Judge Julie Nicholson said yesterday that she had “some concern about the flight risk” posed by the couple after they did not appear for the Friday arraignment.
Two attorneys for the Crumbleys, Shannon Smith and Mariell Lehman, have said the couple never sought to evade authorities.
“Our clients were absolutely going to turn themselves in,” Smith said at Saturday’s hearing. “It was just a matter of logistics.”
Detroit Police Chief James White told reporters in the early hours of Saturday that the couple had been found hiding in a commercial building on the city’s east side. He said they had not broken into the building, but were let in by somebody.
White said a member of the public spotted their vehicle outside the building.
The couple’s 15-year-old son, Ethan Crumbley, is being held without bail and has been charged as adult on suspicion of carrying out the deadliest U.S. school shooting on Tuesday at Oxford High School, about 40 miles (60 km) north of Detroit.
Crumbley’s parents were expected to appear for a Friday afternoon arraignment but stopped responding to calls from their attorneys, according to Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe, prompting a search by the sheriff’s office and U.S. Marshals Service.
During the arraignment, Jennifer Crumbley sobbed as the judge read the names of the students killed in the shooting and related charges.
The judge set preliminary hearings for Dec. 14 and 22.
