Parents of Texas school shooter testify in civil case reminiscent of Crumbley criminal trial

CNN
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They ignored the signs of their teenage son's mental health issues. They overlooked his problems at school. And they allowed him access to the family's weapons, which he used to carry out a devastating school shooting.

These are some of the key allegations made in a civil trial in a Galveston, Texas, courtroom against the parents of Dimitrios Pagourtzis, who shot and killed 10 people at Santa Fe High School in 2018 as a 17-year-old student.

A jury to determine whether the parents are liable for negligence began deliberations on Friday.

The charges against Antonios Pagourtzis and Rose Marie Kosmetatos are very similar to those against Jennifer and James Crumbley, who earlier this year became the first parents to be charged and convicted in connection with the 2021 Michigan school shooting committed by their son Ethan.

The trials are taking place in different states (Texas vs. Michigan) and cover very different issues (civil vs. criminal), but at their core they revolve around the same question: Could the shooter's parents have prevented this massacre?

“In each of these cases, you are asking a jury to hold the parent responsible for the actions of another person,” said Misty Marris, a trial attorney who has prosecuted both cases. “The Crumbley case showed that this can be successful.”

The two cases are part of a growing movement to find someone responsible for the increasing number of school shootings in America in recent years. For teenage school shooters, this means renewed attention is being focused on how they got their hands on firearms and what their parents did or knew beforehand.

“There is certainly a movement that has led other states and jurisdictions to look at litigation where parents could be held similarly accountable because both (Crumbley) parents were held criminally liable for their son's actions in a school shooting,” Marris explained.

The trial of Pagourtzis' parents comes more than six years after Dimitrios Pagourtzis fatally shot eight students and two teachers at Santa Fe High School, about 30 miles southeast of Houston. He was later arrested and admitted to the shooting, police said.

According to authorities, he used a shotgun and a revolver that were legally owned by his parents in the attack.

He was charged with capital crimes, but the case was put on hold after he was declared incompetent to stand trial, the Associated Press reported.

Plaintiffs in the case include family members of six of the eight murdered students and the family of a murdered teacher, as well as four survivors who were injured in the shooting.

The lawsuit accuses the parents of acting negligently by allowing their son access to the firearms used in the shooting and by failing to arrange psychological counseling for him.

The parents testified that they did not see any warning signs before the shooting and that they locked away their firearms before the shooting.

No charges were filed against the parents. Under Texas law, it is a crime to provide a child with access to a firearm. However, a “child” is defined as one under the age of 17, and investigators would have to prove that the person “failed to secure the firearm.”

The lawsuit is the first to go to court involving the parents of a school shooter since Ethan Crumbley's parents were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison for manslaughter in the spring. Prosecutors had accused James and Jennifer Crumbley of “gross negligence” for ignoring signs of their son's mental health problems and getting him a gun days before the fatal shooting.

Ethan Crumbley, then 15, shot and killed four classmates and injured six others and a teacher at Oxford High School in Michigan in November 2021. He pleaded guilty to one count of terrorism resulting in death, four counts of premeditated murder and 19 other charges and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In his closing argument in the Pagourtzis case on Friday, plaintiffs' attorney Clint McGuire stressed that there were signs that the shooter's parents knew about his mental health problems – and that they had not properly secured their weapons.

“We can agree that it is the parents' job to help the child if they know that he or she has a mental illness – be it depression, an anxiety disorder or whatever,” he said.

McGuire referred to emails in which the parents discussed their son's poor health and also to their own statements.

They said “they knew something was wrong, but they didn't know how to fix it,” McGuire said. “They didn't do anything.”

McGuire said in his closing argument that the shooter had missed 57 days of school, failed classes and was perceived by his classmates as unhygienic and obviously helpless. And 18 days before the shooting, he publicly posted a picture of himself wearing a “Born to Kill” T-shirt.

“And after all that, they didn't put their weapons away safely,” he said. “They didn't help him.”

Those arguments are similar to those used by the prosecution against James and Jennifer Crumbley in their separate criminal trials. Prosecutors in that case argued the parents purchased the firearm used in the shooting and stored it improperly, although they dismissed concerns about their son's mental health.

“Despite their knowledge of his worsening mental health crisis, despite their knowledge of his growing social isolation, despite the fact that it is illegal for a 15-year-old to walk into a gun store and leave alone with a gun, he was given this gun as a gift,” Oakland County Assistant District Attorney Marc Keast said in his opening statements in Jennifer Crumbley's trial.

In the trial against James Crumbley, Keast also accused him of acting “grossly negligently” because he bought a firearm for his son four days before the attack and did not secure it, even though he knew that his son was in poor health.

“This nightmare was preventable and predictable,” Keast said.

The Pagourtzi parents' defense arguments were in some ways similar to those of the Crumbley parents: They simply didn't know.

In his opening statements for the Pagourtzis' parents, the defense blamed their son for the shooting, the school for failing to recognize his problems, and the gun manufacturer that sold him ammunition online.

“There were no warning signs,” said attorney Lori Laird. Her son has never had any problems with the police, has no problems with alcohol or drugs and has not faced any serious disciplinary action at school, she said.

In her closing argument, Laird emphasized Dimitrios Pagourtzis' mental illness and attempted to shift the blame onto the shooter himself.

“Your son has a mental illness. Your son is being robbed of his personality,” Laird said. “He is no longer the son you raised.”

“The parents didn't pull the trigger,” she said. “The parents didn't give him a gun.”

During the trial, Antonios Pagourtzis testified in his own defense and, according to CNN affiliate KTRK, said he had no knowledge of his son's mental health issues and said he locked the family's firearms away with a key.

“Is it your position to this jury that you still bear absolutely no responsibility for the horrific, tragic events of May 18, 2018?” asked attorney Robert Torres.

“Yes,” said Antonios Pagourtzis.

The shooter's mother, Rose Marie Kosmetatos, also testified that she had no reason to believe anything was wrong before the shooting.

“Looking back, it's very hard because you look back and everybody's rearview mirror, you can look back and hindsight is always wiser,” Kosmetatos said, according to KTRK. “At the time, there was no external reason to believe he would ever do anything.”

In the Crumbley cases, lawyers for both parents blamed their son for the shooting and the school for not telling them about his mental health problems.

“Can parents really be responsible for everything their children do, especially when it is unpredictable?” Jennifer Crumbley's attorney Shannon Smith said in her closing argument.

“You will not hear that James Crumbley knew what his son was going to do,” James Crumbley's attorney Mariell Lehman said in her opening statements at his trial. “You will not hear that James Crumbley even suspected that his son was a danger.”

Additionally, Jennifer Crumbley testified on the witness stand, although James Crumbley did not testify, and expressed no regret for her actions.

“I asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn't have,” she testified.