Investigators spent two hours Monday grilling an artist who owns the studio where the parents of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley holed up—and now they are examining his electronic devices to determine if he knew the couple was wanted by police.
Andrzej Sikora, 65, has not been charged with a crime, but the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office did not rule that out.
“The issue for Detectives is what did Sikora know and when did he know it,” authorities said in a statement.
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Sikora’s lawyer, Clarence Dass, says his client “voluntarily contacted” the Detroit Police Department and Oakland County Sheriff’s Office when he woke up on Saturday to news of the charges—four counts of involuntary manslaughter—against James and Jennifer Crumbley.
They were charged on Friday after Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald said they failed to prevent their 15-year-old son from taking a gun to school and opening fire, killing four teens and wounding seven other people.
They were scheduled to be arraigned on Friday afternoon but didn’t appear and were declared fugitives. Authorities later tracked them to the industrial building linked to Sikora.
The sheriff’s office said Sikora was “questioned extensively to determine if he assisted James and Jennifer Crumbley hide from law enforcement.
“Immediately after the questioning, Sheriff’s Detectives went to Sikora’s Troy home and executed a search warrant, seizing several digital devices for examination. The information will then be presented to prosecutors to determine if charges are appropriate.”
Dass said on Sunday that his client had nothing more than a “friendly relationship” with the couple, and though he was in his studio when they arrived on Friday morning, he didn’t know that they remained there overnight. A link between Sikora and the Crumbleys was first identified by The Daily Beast on Saturday.
Read it at Detroit Free Press
