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Cozad murder/suicide

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Cozad murder/suicide

HuskerPAC

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I’ve been off the board this weekend, just did a quick look and didn’t see this posted.

Yesterday in Cozad a father killed his wife and 2 sons (18 and 16) with a knife and killed himself. Older son was supposed to graduate that evening.

The father had serious mental health issues for years and was evidently just released from a psych hospital before it happened.

Sorry if I missed a thread on this.
 
Apparently it's a friend of a friend- saw it posted on Facebook.

Horrific. We need to bring back asylums- everyone would have been better off.

I don’t know what the answer is, but mental health issues appear far more widespread and ‘visible’ than at any previous point in my life. Not all of them end in suicide or even violence, but many end up untreated, homeless and abusing drugs. I don’t think that’s better than institutionalization, but someone likely made those decisions in the past to get us here.
 
I’ve been off the board this weekend, just did a quick look and didn’t see this posted.

Yesterday in Cozad a father killed his wife and 2 sons (18 and 16) with a knife and killed himself. Older son was supposed to graduate that evening.

The father had serious mental health issues for years and was evidently just released from a psych hospital before it happened.

Sorry if I missed a thread on this.
I think I read he was at Mary Lanning in Hastings before going home. I assume they’ll be under pretty intense scrutiny. . .
 
When I was a child, a friend/neighbor in VA had similar thing happen. Father had mental issues and something at work caused him to decide he wasn’t going to follow his medication’s rules. I think he was at the bar beforehand so it was mixing alcohol with his meds but it’s been like 30 years. I don’t think he killed his wife as she wasn’t home when it all went down, but killed his son who was probably 13, daughter who was probably 7, then himself.

I often thought about how scary all this had to be for the kids before going dark. He was a good kid and never had any sense of fear in the home. Then the person responsible for keeping him safe is chasing him and his sister around the house having lost it. There is probably still a sense of trust until it was too late.

That story and memory has stuck with me. I feel for all those who know and care for this family.
 
When I was a child, a friend/neighbor in VA had similar thing happen. Father had mental issues and something at work caused him to decide he wasn’t going to follow his medication’s rules. I think he was at the bar beforehand so it was mixing alcohol with his meds but it’s been like 30 years. I don’t think he killed his wife as she wasn’t home when it all went down, but killed his son who was probably 13, daughter who was probably 7, then himself.

I often thought about how scary all this had to be for the kids before going dark. He was a good kid and never had any sense of fear in the home. Then the person responsible for keeping him safe is chasing him and his sister around the house having lost it. There is probably still a sense of trust until it was too late.

That story and memory has stuck with me. I feel for all those who know and care for this family.
Not to de-rail this thread, but Netflix has a documentary called The Family Nextdoor. Successful husband who killed his pregnant wife and two daughters. At the time that the documentary came out, I had 2 daughters the same age as his and my wife was pregnant. It fucked with me so much. I can't imagine the terror in those kids when their daddy was attacking them...
 
Apparently it's a friend of a friend- saw it posted on Facebook.

Horrific. We need to bring back asylums- everyone would have been better off.

"Asylums" never really housed people with serious Depression issues. They were mainly for individuals with severe learning disabilities or Schizoeffective disorders. Sadly, you often had adults with down syndrome housed in the same units with violent schizophrenics.
 
Not to de-rail this thread, but Netflix has a documentary called The Family Nextdoor. Successful husband who killed his pregnant wife and two daughters. At the time that the documentary came out, I had 2 daughters the same age as his and my wife was pregnant. It fucked with me so much. I can't imagine the terror in those kids when their daddy was attacking them...
Yeah that one is wild - I forget the specific but there was something on there about the kids having their blankies and wearing pajamas since he woke them up and put them in the truck. That part killed me. To have no struggle because they trust him so much - sickening. Always bothers me when we don't get a confession/motive from the guy. I know there was the affair which is most likely, but to think "oh I have to kill everyone in my family so I can go be with this strange" is a haunting thought process.

I hadn't heard about this in Cozad - incredibly disturbing and sad. Just looked up a story on it and hadn't even thought yet about the Superintendent addressing it at the graduation ceremony. Destroyed a day/life for the entire community, not just his family. This stuff is so complex - frustration, anger, sorrow, despair all rolled into one.
 
Yeah that one is wild - I forget the specific but there was something on there about the kids having their blankies and wearing pajamas since he woke them up and put them in the truck. That part killed me. To have no struggle because they trust him so much - sickening. Always bothers me when we don't get a confession/motive from the guy. I know there was the affair which is most likely, but to think "oh I have to kill everyone in my family so I can go be with this strange" is a haunting thought process.

I hadn't heard about this in Cozad - incredibly disturbing and sad. Just looked up a story on it and hadn't even thought yet about the Superintendent addressing it at the graduation ceremony. Destroyed a day/life for the entire community, not just his family. This stuff is so complex - frustration, anger, sorrow, despair all rolled into one.
The guy from CO is still alive in prison. He tried to lie about it, of course, then eventually confessed after failing the lie detector. That one was a gut punch, having two small kids at the time myself. I can't imagine what kind of evil you have to have in your heart and mind to take your own flesh and blood out of bed and drown them in an oil well. Like you said, they trust you so explicitly and they're so innocent.
 
The guy from CO is still alive in prison. He tried to lie about it, of course, then eventually confessed after failing the lie detector. That one was a gut punch, having two small kids at the time myself. I can't imagine what kind of evil you have to have in your heart and mind to take your own flesh and blood out of bed and drown them in an oil well. Like you said, they trust you so explicitly and they're so innocent.
I enjoy true crime so I watch a lot of documentaries. It's all terrible but every once in a while I see one that really bothers me. This was one of those. My daughter was around the age of the 2 little girls from this case at the time. I don't remember if it was one of the documentaries or something I read online. But apparently, the older sister saw what happened to her little sister and said something along the lines of please daddy, don't hurt me like you did my sister right before he killed her. When I heard that I about threw up.
 
"Asylums" never really housed people with serious Depression issues. They were mainly for individuals with severe learning disabilities or Schizoeffective disorders. Sadly, you often had adults with down syndrome housed in the same units with violent schizophrenics.
It was more commonly called "melancholia" at the time, or categorized as manic depressive illness/with alternative language. Not to say that they always got it right (and inconvenient people did sometimes get put in by families who wouldn't/couldn't care for them), but suicide attempts (especially multiple attempts) would have definitely been a trigger, and still should be for forcible institutionalization.
 
This is a really sad story.

We have insight to the daily journey leading up to this weekend on their Facebook page. No doubt this will be made into a documentary.

This post from a month ago...
Jeremy has survived multiple suicide attempts... most recently last month when I woke to my husband standing next to our bed with a knife. Thank God, he had a moment of clarity and was able to wake me up to tell me something was wrong. We talked through the ups and downs as he debated ending his life, and I was able to distract him long enough to hide the knife. He then accepted help and allowed me to take him to our safe place, Richard Young Hospital in Kearney.
 
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