Neb. Mom Once Woke Up to Husband Standing Over Her with a Knife. Months Later, the Whole Family Was Stabbed to Death

• Nebraska State Patrol said over the weekend that officers discovered Jeremy Koch, Bailey Koch and their children Hudson Koch and Asher Koch dead at the family’s home at Johnson Lake
• Police say investigators believe Jeremy killed his wife and two sons before taking his own life
• News Channel Nebraska reported that Bailey had pleaded online for help for her husband, who she said was battling depression

Just months before a Nebraska man killed his wife and two sons before taking his own life, Bailey Koch had said that she awoke to her husband standing over her bed with a knife before she got him to agree to check himself into a mental health facility.

But the treatments “didn’t work,” Bailey, 41, wrote in a GoFundMe earlier this month, according to News Channel Nebraska. She had hoped to raise more funds to help Jeremy, 42, receive more mental health treatment.

On Saturday, May 10, authorities found Jeremy dead at his home at Johnson Lake, Plum Creek Canyon #1 after investigators say they believe he fatally stabbed his wife Bailey and their two sons — Hudson, 18, and Asher, 16 — at the family’s home, according to a news release from the Nebraska State Patrol. All four were found with knife wounds, and a knife was located at the scene.

Just days prior, Bailey had made a plea online asking for others to join in helping her husband, who she said was battling depression and had been treated with electroconvulsive therapy at a local hospital, according to News Channel Nebraska. The outlet reported that Bailey began a GoFundMe, hoping to raise funds for more treatments to help Jeremy, who she said had survived multiple past suicide attempts since she said he was diagnosed in 2009.

“I have no pride left,” Bailey reportedly wrote on the GoFundMe page, which has since been taken down. “Mental illness is taking my husband from me, and I’m begging you to open your eyes and see the reality that is this society’s mental health crisis.”

News Channel Nebraska reported that Bailey said on May 8 that Jeremy had been released from inpatient care at a local hospital. She appeared to celebrate the fact Jeremy would be home in time for their eldest son Hudson’s high school graduation, which was slated for Saturday, according to the outlet.

But that same morning, police were dispatched to the family home and discovered Bailey and her two sons had been fatally stabbed.

After Jeremy returned home from inpatient care, Bailey wrote on GoFundMe that her husband had another setback after starting a new medicine. “This is mental illness,” Bailey wrote, according to News Channel Nebraska. “A roller coaster of ups, downs, highs, lows, hope, and no hope.”

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Bailey ultimately contended that the hospital treatments had not worked for her husband. “Jeremy became a shell of himself,” she wrote.

The community was mourning the Koch family on Saturday shortly after police announced finding the family’s bodies at their home in south central Nebraska.

According to local outlet News Channel Nebraska and Bailey’s Facebook page, she was a special education teacher at Holdrege Public Schools. The school district wrote in a statement, “Our hearts are with everyone impacted [by] a tragic event that has deeply affected us all.”

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Bailey’s father Lane Kugler wrote in an open letter on social media that he discovered the bodies of his daughter, grandsons, and son-in-law on Saturday morning. “What I saw will haunt me for the rest of my life,” the grieving father wrote, adding that he is “so angry” over the alleged murder-suicide and the failed attempts to help Jeremy.

“Jeremy had been fighting mental illness for many, many years,” Kugler wrote. “His depression had turned into psychosis. It was not Jeremy that committed this horrific act. It was a sick mind.”

Cozad Community Schools, which News Channel Nebraska reported is the district where the two boys went to high school, also mourned the family’s deaths during what would have been Hudson’s graduation ceremony on Saturday. The school district posted a video of Hudson’s graduating class’ commencement, during which superintendent Dr. Dan Endorf reminded attendees that the community and senior class “experienced a tragedy within the past few hours.”

“The bittersweet emotions felt by the senior class on their graduation day, and by this entire gymnasium for that matter, cannot be concealed in this moment,” Endorf said, encouraging graduates to “hug your loved ones.”

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to 988lifeline.org.