4 dead in central Nebraska murder-suicide

A man struggling with mental illness killed his entire family and then himself over the weekend, according to the Nebraska State Patrol.

The State Patrol said in a news release that the Dawson County Sheriff’s Office was sent to a residence at Johnson Lake in a rural part of the county about 9:45 a.m. Saturday morning and found four people dead inside the home.

The news release said the patrol believes 42-year-old Jeremy Koch stabbed to death his wife, Bailey, 41, and his two children, 18-year-old Hudson and 16-year-old Asher, before fatally stabbing himself. All four were found with fatal knife wounds, the State Patrol said, and a knife was found at the scene.

Hudson Koch had been scheduled to graduate on Saturday from Cozad High School. The school said it has made school staff and counselors available to support students.

The State Patrol is leading the investigation, and the Dawson County Attorney has ordered autopsies of all four bodies.

Bailey Koch had publicly acknowledged her husband’s struggles with mental illness in both Facebook posts and a GoFundMe campaign she started to raise money she said was needed to help their struggling landscaping and lawn care business.

She said in the posts that he had attempted suicide multiple times and had recently been struggling to adjust to a new medication after not responding to electroconvulsive therapy.

On Friday, the day before authorities found the family dead, she posted that paperwork had been submitted for Jeremy Koch to have transcranial magnetic stimulation, a non-invasive brain stimulation technique used to treat depression in people who hadn’t responded well to other treatments.

Koch spoke about his mental health struggles with Nebraska Public Media in the fall of 2022 and talked about how things were going well, saying at the time that it had been six years since he had had thoughts of suicide. He called it a “huge win,” and said he was sharing his story in the hopes that it could help other people struggling with mental illness.

Lane and Peggy Kugler, the parents of Bailey Koch, released a statement on Facebook on Sunday in which they called the U.S. mental health care system "broken" a "catastrophe" and a "disaster."

"Far too many diseased minds have nowhere to go. Yes, there is some help that can be tapped but, not near enough," the post said. "And the truth is, their hands are tied with regulations and insurance companies that don’t pay enough to cover cost or research. There is nowhere near enough research. There is nowhere near enough money, facilities or resources available."

If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.