A teenager’s graduation ended in tragedy as a family of four was found dead.
The Dawson County Sheriff’s Office was dispatched to a home in Johnson Lake, Plum Creek Canyon, at around 9:45 a.m, on Saturday, May 10.
They found the bodies of 42-year-old Jeremy Koch, 41-year-old Bailey, and their sons, Hudson, 18, and Asher, 16.
Tragically, Bailey’s parents, Lane and Peggy Kugler, made the horrific discovery just hours before their grandson Hudson’s graduation at the Cozad Graduation Ceremony.
The celebration still took place, but Superintendent Dan Endorf commented: “As you know, our community and our 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.”
A press release from Nebreska state police confirmed that ‘all four were found with fatal knife wounds. A knife was found at the scene.’
After a preliminary investigation, police revealed they believed Jeremy killed his two sons and his wife before ending his own life.
There is currently still an ongoing homicide investigation, and the Dawson County attorney has ordered autopsies of the Koch family.
Tragically, just days before the family’s death, Bailey had set up a GoFundMe page for financial support regarding her husband’s long-standing mental health battle.
In the description, the 41-year-old said her husband had been diagnosed with depression in 2009.
On her last post to the now-deleted page, she wrote: “I wish I had better news, as Jeremy was so happy to be released from the mental health hospital yesterday to go home in time for our oldest son’s high school graduation on Saturday.”
Bailey, a special education teacher at Holdrege Public Schools, had previously set up a Facebook page called ‘Anchoring Hope for Mental Health: Jeremy & Bailey Koch.’
She shared the ups and downs of her husband’s mental health struggles, in one post from April 8, Bailey wrote: “Jeremy has survived multiple s**cide attempts… most recently last month when I woke to my husband standing next to our bed with a knife.”
Bailey added that since then, Jeremy had agreed to treatment and electroconvulsive therapy, and had been accepted into a mental health facility.
Lane and Peggy Kugler wrote a post regarding the death of their family: “Jeremy had been fighting mental illness for many, many years. His depression had turned into psychosis. It was not Jeremy that committed this horrific act. It was a sick mind.”
The post continues: “Bailey and Jeremy spent years and years seeking help and answers to Jeremy’s condition. Doctor after doctor, hospital after hospital, medication after medication, therapy after therapy. Treatment after treatment.”
They also shared their anger towards the U.S. mental health care system, calling it a ‘disaster,’ ‘a catastrophe,’ and broken.
It continues: “This country is in crisis because there is far, far too little help available to tackle the mental illness crisis.”
National institute of mental health states that one in five people in America has a form of mental illness, and the total age-adjusted s**cide rate in the United States increased to 14.0 per 100,000 in 2021 and then increased again to 14.2 per 100,000 in 2022.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National S**cide Prevention Lifeline in the U.S.A. at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text Crisis Text Line at 741741.
