Mom accused of locking up sons in ‘horror-movie’ house said they were the #BESTFAMILYEVER
The Wisconsin mom accused of keeping her two young sons locked up in a feces-covered “horror-movie” house used social media to portray their lives as a happy family — even using the hashtag #BESTFAMILYEVER.
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.
The 7- and 9-year-old sons she is accused of locking up in a feces- and urine-covered home are rarely seen, with Koch blaming it on them going through “a ‘please, no photos’ phase.”
When she did post pics, they often grimaced in apparent discomfort — with their faces buried under unruly mops of hair that were so matted with feces they later had to be shaved off in a hospital.
One pics showed one of the boys hanging a Christmas decoration over one of their bedroom windows, which officials said were boarded up — seemingly wearing a diaper, which the boys still used because they still had not been potty trained, an affidavit noted.
The happiest the boys looked was in a series of shots where they ran to greet their grandma in the middle of the 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 who later admitted to cops that he “knew how the children were living was not right but he had to ‘pick his 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!!!!” she wrote.
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, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“These children have been horribly damaged from their mother’s actions … They are, essentially at this point, unable to function in society.”
