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Originally Posted by Omaha World Herald
The couple married at age 18 after their first daughter was born. By 2004, they had nine children.
That March, police officers removed the children from the home. Court records detail the family's troubles:
Officers found a broken septic tank and containers of human waste. The family had had no gas in the home since April 2003 and no water since June 2003.
The officers also found three dogs, four cats, two rabbits, 12 caged mice, two salamanders and one lizard.
A judge ordered the parents to find decent housing, keep a clean home and get jobs.
The children were returned home nine months later, but problems lingered.
Neither parent held a steady job. More than once, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services paid their rent when they received eviction notices and paid utility bills when the family was threatened with shut-off notices.
Psychological examinations of the parents found that the mother expressed "distorted thinking." She resisted finding a job, ignored eviction notices, didn't help her husband with the cooking and cleaning — but still wanted to have more children.
And she did.
On Jan. 2, 2007, she gave birth to a daughter. Several days later, she collapsed from a stroke, according to a 2007 article in the North High School student newspaper.
Weakened by stress, the woman died the next month at an Omaha rehabilitation facility. She was 34.
Soon after, the courts closed the social services case.
The couple's oldest daughter told the student newspaper that she took over child-care duties, which she already had shared with her mother. She fed her siblings, checked their homework and sent them to bed.
Despite her busy home life, she managed to graduate a year early in 2007 from North. It was something the girl had dreamed about doing even before her mother died, she told the school's newspaper.
This past July, however, the father lost his job.
That's what he told officers when he left nine of his children at the hospital. He also mentioned his wife's death.
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