Mother had talked of killing children

LOUISVILLE, Ky., July 8 (UPI) -- A Kentucky woman's threat to kill her two children was dismissed by state officials a year before she allegedly followed through, official documents suggest.

Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services declared Gail Lynn Coontz was not a risk to her children despite her hotline call in January 2007 threatening herself and her children, court records released Monday show. Coontz is now facing two counts of murder and one count of terroristic threatening and tampering with evidence in the fatal shootings of her son, Greg, 14, and daughter, Nikki, 10, in their home, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported Tuesday.

Coontz's counselor, Terri White, had affirmed the cabinet's 2007 decision calling Coontz "one of the best mothers" she had ever seen. On March 27, 2008, the day of the alleged killings, Coontz brought a gun to White's University of Louisville counseling center office, briefly holding her therapist hostage before turning herself in to police.

But White insisted Coontz had never threatened to kill herself or her children in more than a year of therapy.

"She repeatedly and very forcefully indicated that she would not kill herself ... she didn't believe in suicide," White told police.