Husband of woman who killed sons, herself opens up about wife’s depression in Facebook post

HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. — The husband of Jennifer Laber, who took her own life as well as her two young boys’ at the end of November, opened up on Facebook Thursday to talk about his wife’s depression.

Ryan Laber first talked about his wife’s depression at the memorial service for Jennifer and their sons, Adam and Ethan.

But in a post to the Laber Family Memorial Page on Facebook Thursday, he elaborated on exactly how deep and crippling her depression was.

He says she had struggled with bouts of depression before that “involved very low self-esteem, no recognition of consequences to self harm, and a strong desire to escape.”

He said Jennifer had lost 80 pounds, but still felt self-conscious about the extra skin that was left over following her weight loss.

He also said that she was a “tremendous” mom, but her motherhood “turned into her greatest source of pain” and said that the only way she thought her pain could be resolved was in heaven.

“Going to heaven was just a next step to her,” he wrote. “So as an act to insure [sic] she could provide the best motherhood to her boys, she took them with, painlessly, while they were under a deep sleep.”

“Depression is a sickness,” Ryan wrote. “It is coercive and often operates in silence. There is no fault to lay blame.”

He acknowledged that some might find his explanation of what happened disturbing, but said he wanted people to understand “a bit more of where Jen was that day.”

Anyone who needs help treating or dealing with depression or mental illness should call the national suicide hotline at 1-800-273-8255.