Hey y’all, it’s Julie Mattson, and this week on Pushing Up Lilies, we’re acknowledging Mental Health Awareness Month by discussing a truly heartbreaking and recent case that shook the nation. In what authorities are calling a murder-suicide, 42-year-old Jeremy Koch is believed to have taken the lives of his wife, Bailey Koch, and their two sons, 18-year-old Hunter and 16-year-old Asher. Just days before the tragedy, Bailey reportedly shared a plea for help, one that now echoes painfully in hindsight. In this episode, we’ll walk through what happened, what was known before the tragedy, and how signs of mental health crises can sometimes be tragically missed or misunderstood. As a death investigator, I’ve seen firsthand the devastating consequences when mental health needs go unaddressed. This episode is not just about the loss of this beautiful family, it’s a call to speak up, check in, and make space for these critical conversations. If you or someone you love is struggling, you are not alone. National Alliance on Mental Illness: Call - 1-800-950-6264 Chat - Text “NAMI” to 62640 * Listener discretion is advised.
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00:06
Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies. I'm your host, Julie Mattson. Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
00:24
Do I have some stories for you? Are you ready? So I hope everyone's having a great week. I've gotten a lot of new followers. I'm so excited. We had a little event at where I work at the county this past week, and I actually handed out little elevated business cards with cute little chocolate skulls.
00:47
I figured if you put those in the plastic, people will actually open it and look at the card, but I also gave everyone a little sticker and just try to kind of promote my podcast. But my followers have gone up about 2000 in the last month.
01:03
That's amazing. I'm always happy to see that trying to grow the crowd and grow our group. And I would love to start having some like monthly zoom calls with some of you. Again, log on to my Patreon. And that is one of the perks that you can get with Patreon is that we can do monthly calls.
01:21
I would love to get ideas on different cases from you. And then also, if any of you want to be interviewed for cases, I would love to do that as well. I have several people in line to do that. And I am taking about three months off school because I have a cruise coming up.
01:38
And I am going to try to use that time to try to get some of my interviews done that I've been putting off just because I simply haven't had time. And y'all know how that is. We're all so busy. First, I want to talk a little bit about Mental Health Awareness Month.
01:55
And we are right in the middle of it. And it's been observed. actually during the month of May in the US since gosh as far back as I believe 1949 but it's observed in media local events and film screenings and all those kind of things so it's been 76 years since this was started.
02:19
The Mental Health Month ribbon is green which symbolizes hope strength and emotional support for those affected by mental illness. We know that there are a lot of people affected by mental illness. I see it every day at work, tons of suicides.
02:39
It's really depressing because a lot of people have gotten help and a lot of people have a support system. Many doubt but it's a struggle even for those who do so you can imagine the struggle for those who don't have any support at all.
03:00
May is the month to raise your voice and take action and change the conversation around mental health. You can actually be a part of this movement, whether it is by sharing your story or just spreading awareness or advocating for change when it comes to healthcare.
03:21
For people with mental illness, every action that you take actually helps break the stigma and build more support for people. I think sometimes when you share your story as embarrassing as it may be, it kind of helps people to know that they're not alone and that they're not the only ones who struggle.
03:45
Again, we see it every day at our job. We see people who have for years struggled with mental illness and attempted suicide multiple times and it's just kind of an ongoing issue for families and their loved ones.
04:04
I think it's important to break the stigma. There are a lot of suicide crisis lifelines. You can actually call the helpline for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which is 1-800-950-6264. You can actually chat with them or also just text the word helpline to 62640.
04:33
They may also have an email helpline at NAMI, which is nationalallianceonmentalillness.org. There are a lot of ways to get involved. They have walks. You can volunteer. You can become an advocate. But I think a big part of it is speaking your truth if you are struggling and just helping to make people aware.
04:58
it is a nationwide problem. One reason why I guess I'm focusing on that is because we have had a lot of suicides lately. Some of it is related to PTSD. Some of it is just issues that come up suddenly like an illness that someone's been diagnosed with.
05:17
There are a lot of reasons why people commit suicide but many many of them actually have a long history of mental illness and like I said a lot of them have gotten help. A lot of them have been in and out of rehab for depression and they've been seeing doctors and they've changed medications multiple times.
05:40
And this story that I have for you today is just an example of that. Jeremy Koch was a Nebraska dad and he is actually suspected of stabbing his entire family to death before he turned the knife on himself.
05:57
And that was just days after he was released from a psychiatric hospital. So he had gotten help and he had just been released. Now, mind you, release does not mean fixed when you go to a psychiatric hospital.
06:14
You know, they don't send you home with a big bow wrapped around you and tell your family that you're fixed. It's an ongoing struggle. Now, Jeremy 42 allegedly killed his wife, Bailey, who was also 42 in their two sons, Hudson, who was 18 and Asher, who was 16.
06:33
And this is according to the Nebraska State Patrol. Now, the family lived in a home in Johnson Lake, which is rural Dawson County. And law enforcement responded to this call at about 9.45 AM on Saturday, May 10th.
06:49
And again, this is very recent, this three days ago. I kinda like to cover recent stories because we're not tired of hearing those. Sometimes they just get played literally to death on TV. And I feel like sometimes more recent stories are interesting.
07:07
Now, all four family members were found in the residence with fatal knife wounds and autopsies have been ordered. Koch was released from a mental health hospital literally three days before this happened.
07:22
And again, we've talked about it's not that he didn't have a support system and it's not that he did not have help and wasn't trying to get help. His wife was a special education teacher. Her name was Bailey.
07:36
And the two of them started dating in high school about 25 years ago. So high school sweethearts. He was diagnosed with severe depression in 2009. And in a Facebook post the day before the murder suicide, Bailey wrote that she had submitted paperwork.
07:57
for a cotch to be approved for a new medical treatment called transcranial magnetic stimulation. And this is a non-invasive brain stimulation technique used to treat mental health conditions. Days before the accident also, a GoFundMe page was launched.
08:17
And it has since been shut down because I looked it up. But it had raised more than $20,000. It was taken down the day after the murders. Bailey stated that Jeremy's condition worsened last year, so in 2024.
08:33
And in March, which was just last month, she awoke to him standing over her with a knife. So she was asleep in bed, woke up. He was standing over her with a knife. Bailey's father, Lane Kugler, actually found the bodies in the home.
08:51
And he had recently spoken. to Bailey about some financial struggles that they were having. But also about how her husband Jeremy's mental health was declining. Hudson, one of the sons, Hudson Koch, was to receive his diploma at Cozad High School's graduation on Saturday afternoon, just hours after the incident.
09:16
So on the same day, on the 10th, he was to graduate. Now, transcranial magnetic stimulation, TMS, I looked that up. And what that does is it uses magnetic pulses to influence the electrical activity in the brain.
09:33
And it's supposed to help with OCD and depression and PTSD and all types of mental disorders. Now, magnetic coil is placed on the head to generate magnetic pulses that actually stimulate specific areas of the brain.
09:51
So apparently, these pulses can alter the activity of the nerve cells and influence, cognition, and mood. The pulses are delivered in a series of treatment sessions, and they usually do five days a week, but this goes on for four to six weeks.
10:10
Sessions normally last anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour. This has been approved by the FDA for treatment-resistant depression. So that would be for those who aren't responding to medications as expected.
10:26
It's also said to help with other conditions like Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, anxiety, and PTSD, which would be great. I mean, if it could help with symptom relief, with some of those diseases, that would be amazing.
10:42
Remission rates are up to 60%. But according to Bailey, Jeremy's depression had turned into psychosis. The family's faith, though, had helped them. through the worst of times. Bailey reportedly lived in fear of possibly losing her husband to mental illness for many years.
11:03
So again, he was diagnosed in 2009, so this went on for a long time. Jeremy had survived multiple suicide attempts over the years, and the cool thing is, and I love this, they were not afraid to talk about it.
11:20
Mental health awareness and advocacy had become Bailey's purpose. I love that she talked about it because she probably saved a lot of people, letting them know that they weren't alone and their struggles weren't just theirs.
11:35
She shared a page on Facebook called Anchoring Hope for Mental Health to give her passion a voice, and she challenged people to resist casting blame toward those who had been diagnosed with mental illness.
11:49
Now she held her doctorate in special education. She was educated, she knew how to talk to people and people listened. She stated that sometimes the battle to live with your brain is exhausting and makes deaths sound appealing.
12:06
Now, Jeremy ran a family landscaping and greenhouse business for 19 years. But because of his mental illness, he really had not been able to work. And that's the main purpose of the GoFundMe account, because he was also in this psychiatric facility.
12:21
Now, in 2015, Jeremy actually survived four suicide attempts. This is frightening because we look at the different ways that people commit suicide. We see overdoses, which to me seem like, okay, you're going to take this medication, it's going to sedate you, you're going to fall asleep, it's relatively painless.
12:46
Whereas some people just get this over with, I want this to work. They will research what weapon to use, they will research where to shoot themselves to make sure that it works. We've seen it on people's laptops when we go to suicide scenes.
13:03
We'll look at their laptop to see what they've been searching, and people will search where to shoot yourself in the chest to guarantee results. There's so many different ways. This to me is horrifying that in 2012, one of Jeremy's suicide attempts was a car accident where he drove straight into a semi on the highway.
13:26
We have these all the time. People run out in front of cars, they jump in front of trains, they jump off bridges into traffic, all kinds of different suicide attempts. I think that they don't even consider the fact that it might not work.
13:44
What if you are a quadriplegic and you're in a rehab facility for the rest of your life, then you can't hurt yourself any. anymore, and you're forced to live a life that you don't like in helpless condition.
14:00
That was always my thought. It's like, I don't understand, but that's the thing I don't understand. My mind doesn't work that way because I don't suffer from mental illness. And so we're not supposed to understand.
14:15
It's not our struggle, but it is our fight. Now, when this happened, when Jeremy drove in front of the semi, his leg was broken in four places. He punctured his lung. Now, they said he fractured his pancreas.
14:31
I didn't know you could fracture your pancreas. But anyway, I need to look that up a little bit. But it said fractured pancreas. He had complete colon reconstruction. So he obviously had some issues with his colon and also a brain bleed.
14:49
After he woke up from all of this, he was destroyed but his attempt didn't work. I mean, he wanted to end his life. And he's lucky he was able to walk again and wasn't left completely debilitated. But in his mind, he was not lucky.
15:06
In his mind, he wanted to die. And to him, I think the worst thing that could happen did happen. He survived, he had injuries, and then he survived. And that's not what he wanted. It's been an ongoing struggle for this family.
15:23
And obviously, it ended in the death of all of them. And it's so sad. And again, we see this in our office almost on a daily basis. And I mean, bless our dispatchers. And I always want to mention them because they're the ones that take these calls.
15:43
And a lot of times, they don't really get to hear the end result of what happens. They don't get to hear the good stories about people who survive a suicide attempt and go to rehab and actually are started on medications and start families and live a somewhat normal life.
16:03
They don't get to hear the sad stories about who didn't survive, how someone may have killed themselves. And so they are kind of thrown into it. I mean, they take those horrifying calls and you know what it must sound like.
16:19
And I'm not a dispatcher and never have been. But I can imagine the horror in people's voices sometimes when they call 911 and those poor dispatchers are on the other end of the line. And so just imagine how hard that must be for them emotionally to take that home and sometimes not get the finality of knowing what happened to that person or that family member who made the call.
16:44
Also the police officers on the scene, many times they're the ones. doing CPR, and they're the ones calming the family. And they're the ones who kind of have to hold it together for everybody. EMS, I know that y'all see terrible things.
17:02
I can only imagine, I guess I remember this from my hospital days, just the fact that I was there and saw people suffer was horrifying to me. And that's kind of what I don't miss about the hospital, to be honest.
17:17
And EMS signs up for that, the fire department signs up for that. I mean, they know when they go into a house fire, there may be a person in there. And that person's not always going to be okay. These guys see the worst of the worst.
17:34
Many of them also struggle from mental illness. We've had a lot of police officers commit suicide lately. I think we had four in Houston, literally during the same, maybe even week. I know for sure it was the same month, but because they do see bad things and they do tend to compartmentalize.
17:54
I think it's important to be aware, it's important to reach out to our friends and to focus on offering emotional assistance and encouraging those with mental health issues to get professional help and creating some sort of a supportive environment.
18:17
Part of that is listening without judgment. Just being understanding, sometimes just offering help with daily tasks makes a huge difference because it's hard sometimes for people to dysfunction on a daily basis when they're going through these struggles.
18:34
I do love that a lot of the rehab facilities hire people who have a history of mental health or substance abuse issues because they are not judgmental. They have been there, they've been through it, they completely understand the struggle and I think it makes the people in the facility feel like they're not being judged and I do love that.
19:00
Helping with daily tasks, errands, appointments, those things are very important because again, sometimes people just cannot function. I know that we've all had that friend where we go over to their house and they're like in bed and they won't get up and they haven't gone to work in a couple of days and their house is a mess and they start to drown.
19:21
They're just drowning. Sometimes just to help, you know, straighten up the house, run an errand, take them to an appointment, encourage professional help. Sometimes just having a conversation and listening to somebody, connecting them with a support group or even just a therapist or somebody that they can talk to if it's not you.
19:43
Being understanding and then recognizing that recovery actually takes place. takes time, it's not going to happen overnight, they're not going to be okay the next day. They're not necessarily going to be okay after they're released from a psychiatric hospital or a recovery center.
20:02
Advocating and supporting them to make sure that they get the services and the resources that they need are important. Dispelling myths and misconceptions. I think everyone struggles a little bit, maybe not to the point that meds are required or that counseling is required.
20:19
But I think everyone has their days, right? I mean, we all have bad days, we all have sad days, and that's just part of life. And I think it's important not to judge, just to be supportive of one another.
20:34
Also taking care of yourself when you are that support person, because supporting someone with mental illness is emotionally demanding. So you also have to support your own health and well-being. But having an open mind and realizing that you can't fix it is very important.
20:55
A lot of people just get frustrated because they're like, I don't understand. We've given them all this help and support, and they're on all these medications, and nothing's getting better. But you can't fix their mental illness.
21:09
But you can provide the support and encouragement that they need to get the help that they need. Of course, if someone's in danger, you need to help them seek professional help. You need to be persistent with that, but not pushy.
21:25
And just encourage them to seek help, but also respect the pace that they want to do that and the fact that they need some autonomy. They need the ability to make that decision on their own. Of course, if someone is in crisis, you need to call 911 or take them to the nearest emergency room.
21:44
But you can call or text 988 also to reach the 988 suicide and crisis hotline. Again, I just wanted to touch on this subject because of May being mental health awareness months, and I think it's kind of pushed to the side.
22:01
And I just want to let people know that we see it in our office every day. And I'm glad that there's a month. I'm glad that there's a month to raise awareness. And I hope a lot of corporations and companies take advantage of that and offer some sort of counseling options for employees.
22:22
Because again, when they do, I think that helps people to reach out because sometimes they can't afford it. And that's our problem with homeless here in Denton. Many of them can't afford the medical care they need to treat their mental illness.
22:35
And so that has spiraled and turned into homelessness. It's just become a big problem. So want to raise awareness and just We've still got some days in the month. It's only the 13th. Let's reach out.
22:55
I just encourage you to call someone that maybe has fallen off the grid. If there's a friend or family member that you feel like has been sad or has been through some things, reach out to them and take them to lunch or send them cookies or send them flowers or just let them know you care.
23:13
I don't think people realize how much of a difference that can make. It really can make a difference. Some people just need a little cheering up, but some people need much more. So if you have that friend, just please reach out.
23:27
This is the month again to remind ourselves that mental health issues are real and the struggles are real. And I feel for Bailey and she tried so hard to help her husband. And it wasn't like he wasn't getting help.
23:44
I mean, many people don't, but. He was getting help and still ended up killing his entire family. But she was trying. She sounds like an amazing lady. Wish I would have known her and I'm sure she had a lot more to offer.
24:00
This story is so sad. Also wanted to let y'all know that my plan is October 10th. Pushing up Lily's is having our first annual murder mystery dinner. And it's going to be amazing. The plan is to be at Prairie House and Crossroads.
24:19
My plan is to do beef and chicken fajita buffet. And then that will be followed by a two hour murder mystery. I think it's going to be so much fun. There's going to be giveaways. There's going to be prizes.
24:34
Everyone will go home with something. I can tell you that it's going to be very entertaining. I'm going to try to make this an annual event. I think that it's always fun. During the first hour they're going to visit with the crowd and kind of find out who has that personality that would make them a good victim or a good perpetrator.
24:57
I think it'll be fun. The audience will get to participate. And I'm really, really, really looking forward to that. Again, don't forget to log on to my Patreon. If you're interested in those monthly calls, there are options.
25:11
There's also a free option. There are several different levels of membership. Don't forget the cereal box, which is launching soon. You can go online at the website up across the top. There's an option to order.
25:25
You do want to be in that first month because y'all are going to get some special gifts. And I'm kind of relying on y'all to tell me what I can do to make it better, to make it the best ever. Shoot me an email, julie at pushinguplilies.com if you have a story you want to discuss or if you'd like to be interviewed.
25:42
And don't forget the website, www.pushinguplilies.com. Again, I encourage you to look at my interview. I was on Good Morning, Texas a few weeks ago, if you haven't seen that. Look that up. You can probably Google my name and Good Morning, Texas, and it should come up.
25:59
But I look forward to talking to you all next week. And again, please, please, please don't forget to reach out to a friend that you haven't heard from in a while. They're probably not mad at you. Something might be going on and they just need a friend.
26:12
So don't forget to reach out. All right. Talk to you all next week. Thanks. Bye. Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies. If you like this podcast and would like to share with others, please do me a quick favor and leave a review on Apple Podcast.
26:29
This helps to make the podcast more visible to the public. Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at PushingUpLilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.