On March 27, 2008, siblings Randy Nicole Nikki Coontz, age 10, and Gregory Louis Coontz, age 14, were found dead in their beds in a middle-class neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky. Both children had suffered multiple gunshot wounds and are believed to have been shot while sleeping. Nikki was a fourth-grader at McFerran Elementary and Gregory an eighth-grader at Noe Middle School.

The deaths came to light after the children’s mother, Gail Lynn Coontz, then 37 and a student at the University of Louisville, created a hostage situation at the university’s health services building by brandishing a handgun and holding a counselor at gunpoint. University police disarmed and took her into custody; a subsequent welfare check by Louisville Metro Police at the family home uncovered the children’s bodies.

Gail Lynn Coontz was charged with two counts of murder plus charges of terroristic threatening and unlawful imprisonment related to the campus incident. A grand jury later indicted her. A clear motive was not publicly established. Did anyone in the community or the children’s schools have information about Nikki or Gregory’s last days?