Left: Jeremy Koch (GoFundMe). Right: Front: Bailey and Hudson Koch. Back: Jeremy and Asher Koch (Bailey Koch Facebook).
Writing how she had “no pride left,” Bailey Koch laid bare in a GoFundMe page her husband’s struggles with his mental health and the desperation she felt in seeking answers.
Days later, she and her entire family was dead.
The Nebraska State Police said in a press release it responded to an apparent murder-suicide in rural Dawson County, in the Cornhusker State’s Panhandle. Around 9:45 a.m. Saturday deputies from the Dawson County Sheriff’s Office arrived at a home at Johnson Lake in Plum Creek Canyon #1. When they went inside they found four bodies: Koch, 41, and her husband Jeremy, 42, along with their sons Hudson, 18, and Asher, 16.
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Authorities believe Jeremy Koch stabbed his wife and sons to death before turning the knife on himself. Cops recovered the murder weapon.
Titled “Jeremy’s Battle: Mental Health Support Needed,” Bailey Koch described her husband’s years-long with depression. She wrote how her family was “as vanilla as it gets” with two teenage sons, one of whom was set to graduate high school and move to California for a three-year bonsai apprenticeship. She was a teacher and Jeremy Koch ran the family landscaping business.
“But my husband tries to kill himself…a lot,” she wrote.
Back in 2009, Jeremy Koch was diagnosed with “severe depression” and over the next few years survived at least four attempts on his life, the worst of which occurred when he took a semi-truck on the highway, his wife said.
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“He was left with a leg broken in four places, punctured lung, fractured pancreas, complete colon reconstruction, brain bleed, and…still depression,” she wrote. “When he awoke, I was in awe and relieved. He was destroyed his attempt hadn’t worked.”
Then her husband went some seven years “without experiencing dark thoughts.” However, his mental health struggles exacerbated in July and he was unable to work which meant the landscaping business floundered and they were living on her teaching salary, she wrote.
“In March, just a couple months ago, I woke to Jeremy shaking me awake saying, ‘Something is wrong,”” Bailey Koch wrote. “He was standing over my bed with a knife ready to end his life. I was able to talk him down and into accepting help.”
He spent several days in a hospital’s mental health wing. They were declined ketamine treatments and tried Electroconvulsive Therapy Treatments, the fundraiser page said. But it didn’t work. Back at home, Jeremy Koch wouldn’t get out of bed and refused to eat, his wife said. He ended up back in the hospital, she said, for dehydration.
“By not eating or drinking, Jeremy is slowly completing suicide,” she wrote. “So here I am…asking for help. I have taken out every penny we have to pay bills. My retirement is gone. Jeremy’s retirement is gone. I have begun the process of looking into selling our family business because the stress is too much on my husband, and nothing is worth losing him.”
Bailey Koch posted an update on Thursday — two days before her death — saying while her husband was home, he was not reacting well to his new medications. But she said she had “hope” after a hospital about an hour away from their home was offering a different treatment. She wrote how they were going to the hospital on Friday to see if they would qualify.
The fundraiser had raised more than $20,000 but was taken down on Sunday afternoon. It’s unclear why.
Officials have ordered autopsies on all four people in the home. The investigation remains ongoing.
If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, call or text 988 to reach the national Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
