Aurora residents shared shock and trauma on social media as they recounted seeing a man hanging in Del Mar Park in the heart of town. The Aurora Police Department posted on X on Friday afternoon that it was investigating the incident as "an apparent suicide" and that "there are no indications of foul play or that anything criminal occurred and there are no larger community concerns."
A lack of information over the weekend worried people who had witnessed or heard about the incident. Video circulated on TikTok showing Krouch's body hanging from a tree with APD cars at the scene. Others took to Facebook and Reddit to try to understand what happened.
Before Krouch was identified on Monday, witnesses said on social media that the man they saw hanging was Hispanic. After APD's quick announcement, several social media users wondered if APD reached its conclusion too quickly without looking at Krouch's death as a potential lynching.
Krouch's death came two weeks after a Black man was found hanging from a tree in Albany, a death that was also ruled a suicide. The two hangings come at a time of heightened fear of hate crimes, including in Colorado, where an anti-Semitic attack in Boulder on June 1 resulted in the death of 82-year-old Karen Diamond on June 30, and injuries to around a dozen others. President Donald Trump's aggressive deportations and rhetoric led many on social media to wonder if the Aurora death was the result of a vicious hate crime against a Latino.
On June 30, the Arapahoe County Coroner's Office released Krouch's name and date of birth, confirming that his manner of death was "suicide."
Who Was Mom Krouch?
Carol saw on social media that a body was found hanging in Del Mar Park but didn't know it was Krouch until she confirmed his identity for Westword. The news is "devastating," she says.
According to his former roommate, Krouch never seemed like someone who would take his own life or anger people enough to kill him.
"He did have a kind heart," she says. "I'm devastated, because I never pictured him to hang himself or as him having bad karma from somebody else to do that. He stayed to himself for the most part, from what I recall."
According to his former roommate, Krouch never seemed like someone who would take his own life or anger people enough to kill him.
"He did have a kind heart," she says. "I'm devastated, because I never pictured him to hang himself or as him having bad karma from somebody else to do that. He stayed to himself for the most part, from what I recall."
Carol says Krouch was homeless when they met, and she brought him into her home because she lived on her own. Krouch isn't the only homeless resident she's invited to live with her, explaining that she did so for several years after her husband left her. Carol says Krouch stayed with her for about a year, but she thought he was only going to stay a couple of days when she first welcomed him.
Carol says Krouch told her he was a Cambodian immigrant and went by "Tommy." She describes him as "very intelligent but didn't aim the right way."
Other than an acquaintance Krouch had when he first moved in with Carol, she didn't know of any other friends or family he may have had, she says. The last time she saw Krouch was shortly after he left her home; he set up a tent and lived in a bike lane on the street in front of her house. She says Aurora police swept him out of the spot soon after she saw him.
Other than an acquaintance Krouch had when he first moved in with Carol, she didn't know of any other friends or family he may have had, she says. The last time she saw Krouch was shortly after he left her home; he set up a tent and lived in a bike lane on the street in front of her house. She says Aurora police swept him out of the spot soon after she saw him.
Homeless suicides are usually hard to track because coroners have a tough time telling if drug overdoses are intentional, and these suicides tend to happen in isolation with no note left behind, local experts say. However, the number of confirmed suicides by homeless Coloradans has been increasing steadily since the state began tracking that data in 2015.
From 2020 to 2023, dozens of homeless residents are known to have committed suicide in Colorado while hundreds more died from drug overdoses that haven't been determined as intentional or unintentional. In 2023, more than 260 homeless residents in Colorado died from suicide and drug overdoses that were intentional or unintentional, according to data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
In 2020, Sue Sanders spoke about a law in Greenwood Village capping motel stays at 29 days that forced her into the street; in August 2022, she shot herself in her car after leaving her cousin a long note explaining she was "out of ideas." In August, a 58-year-old handyman named Joe Henry told Westword about losing his job at the Brown Palace for sleeping in out-of-order rooms while he was homeless; he was found dead from an apparent suicide less a week after sharing his story.
While Aurora reels from Krouch's death and learns more about who he was, his story sounds sadly similar to the ones that are becoming more common in Colorado.
