A Wisconsin mother is being accused of keeping her two sons locked up in a feces-covered house, while using social media to portray their family as “The Best Family Ever”.
Katie Koch, 34, used social media to post memes about wrestling, witchcraft and her support for ex-President Donald Trump, but mostly to gush about her love for her co-accused, boyfriend Joel Manke, 38.
Meanwhile, her 7 and 9-year old sons were locked up in a feces and urine covered room and were rarely seen. Koch tried to tell people her sons just didn’t want photos taken of them and were going through a ‘please, no photos phase’.
When she did post photos, they often grimaced in the pictures looking like they were in discomfort, with their faces buried under unruly mops of hair. Later it was discovered their hair was matted down with feces and would have to be shaved off at the hospital.
One of the few photos taken, shows her son hanging Christmas decorations over a bedroom window, but the picture looks very staged. Officials said later on that the windows had been boarded up on the outside of the childrens’ bedroom. You can also seee the child is still wearing a diaper because the parents never potty trained them.
The happiest the boys looked was in a series of photos where they ran to greet their grandma in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Koch would eventually admit she “f—ed up” and knew “her boys deserve better,” the affidavit said of her interview under oath. She also sent the boys a three-page apology letter.
However, in her social media posts, she used hashtags to say she was #blessed with the #BESTFAMILYEVER.
Mostly, that was credited to Manke, her boyfriend since late 2019.
Manke later told police, “I knew how the children were living was not right, but I had to pick my battles to avoid arguments.”
Koch gushed over his parenting skills in a February 2020 post alongside photos of him leading the boys by the hand, their heads under hats.
“Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs,” she wrote of Manke. “The ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile, and who love you no matter what. It takes a strong man to accept somebody else’s children and step up to the plate another man left on the table. Joel, Thank You!!!!”
Both would eventually be arrested after the boys escaped, with neighbors reporting that the naked, blood-covered kids looked like “cavemen” who’d never seen the sun before.
Each faces more than 40 years in prison if convicted of multiple counts of neglect and false imprisonment.
“It was something out of a horror movie,” Assistant District Attorney Mallory Davis told an initial hearing. “These children have been horribly damaged from their mother’s actions. They are, essentially at this point, unable to function in society.”
