GRAND HAVEN TOWNSHIP, Mich. – “Everybody wants to know why. It’s unfathomable, and we need to know why,” said Emily Stoye Jones, the cousin of Amanda “Mandy” Karolkiewicz told Local 4. “We still want to know. Make it make sense just a little bit, because it doesn’t make sense.”
As the family is left planning seven funerals, they say they hope police will still keep searching for a possible motive in the murder-suicide that killed Mandy, 39, and the couple’s six children. The Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office said 47-year-old Kristopher “Kris” Karolkiewicz, died by suicide.
Investigators also said fires throughout the home were intentionally set after the killings, and family pets died from the fire and smoke. There were no previous police calls to the home, and Local 4 found no prior criminal history for Kris Karolkiewicz.
Local 4 also learned Kris Karolkiewicz had recently lost his job. He worked for the American Heart Association from September 2023 until earlier this month, when his “employment ended” in July 2026, the organization confirmed.
The couple had four boys, ages 15, 12, 11 and 5, and two 11-year-old adopted girls. As investigators work to determine what led to the killings, Local 4 independently confirmed that years prior, Mandy wrote online about rebuilding her marriage. She also discussed affairs, repeated dishonesty and counseling.
Online blog posts
Those posts appeared in a Reddit forum dedicated to couples recovering from infidelity.
In one of her most detailed posts, Mandy, under the username “MandyK1179,” described trying to reconcile with her husband more than four years after discovering what she believed was an affair.
In one post from May 2024, she wrote: “We have six kids, so the idea of leaving is insanely terrifying.”
She also wrote about how her husband grew up in what she described as “a toxic family dynamic that encouraged lying” -- and that even after an affair, she would sometimes learn he had not been truthful.
Mandy also wrote about feeling discouraged by how her husband handled confrontation.
“He’s a perfectionist,” she wrote, adding that “the slightest confrontation about how he’s caused me pain causes him to spiral.”
Mandy wrote about how they began marriage counseling together, writing at one point, “I’m feeling so discouraged that we’ll ever be able to make progress.”
Mandy wrote that she believed her husband had changed and described shifting away from self-blame and rebuilding her confidence.
She also wrote that her husband understood she would never accept infidelity again, writing: “He knows that I now know I deserve better than what he gave me in the past.”
‘Mandy’s lot in life was to be a mom’
Although Mandy appeared to share online, her family says she was very private when it came to sharing personal matters with family members and others.
“We may never know what her relationship was with her husband on a day-to-day basis,” Jones said. “You never saw her sad. You never saw her upset. She just always looked on the bright side.”
“She was bubbly,” Jones continued. “She was funny. She was just that rare person that truly lit up any room she walked into.”
Jones said Mandy was also a dedicated mother, above everything.
“Mandy’s lot in life was to be a mom,” Jones said. “Every day, her focus was on them and making memories with them… and giving them the best experiences that she possibly could.”
“The kids loved her back with a fierceness,” Jones said. “They just had such a beautiful relationship.”
Jones said Mandy deliberately carved out one-on-one time with each child, building a unique relationship with each of them. Jones said Mandy recently took her two adopted daughters to China, visiting Shanghai Disney and returning to where the girls had been adopted.
Jones said Mandy felt it was “critically important” that her daughters understand where they came from, appreciate their heritage and feel proud of it.
That dream, Jones said, started in childhood, after a teacher read a book about adopting a child from China when Mandy was in third grade. Jones said Mandy told her mother she wanted to adopt a little girl from China someday.
“She carried that into adulthood,” Jones said. “She adopted two.”
According to her website and author biography, Mandy, who wrote under the name Mandy Karol, was passionate about “special needs and trauma-informed advocacy, mindfulness, reading, dining out, traveling, and exploring the Lake Michigan shoreline.”
Jones said that passion led Mandy to write a book after she developed calming techniques and positive mantras to support her daughters’ special needs.
“She was so proud of that book,” Jones said.
‘A small example of how she loved’
Grand Haven Area Public Schools said Mandy Karolkiewicz worked as a substitute teacher at Peach Plains Elementary, where the district described her as someone who went “above and beyond for students,” responding with “empathy, patience, and care.” Jones said Mandy had a gift for making people feel seen -- even in small, everyday ways.
Jones held a heart-shaped trinket box while speaking with Local 4 that she said Mandy gave to her years ago. She said she keeps it near the kitchen sink, so her wedding ring stays clean while washing dishes.
“It’s just a small example of how she loved her people,” Jones said. “She thought of them in little ways.”
Focus on their lives, not their deaths
Mandy’s family says they hope the focus remains on Mandy and the children — and on making sure their story doesn’t end with the way they died.
“Look at Mandy for who she was. Look at her kids for who they were, not because of what happened,” she said. “That shouldn’t be the highlight of their story.”
Steve Lawwill, Mandy’s father, shared a family photo on social media shortly after the killings, writing, “So grateful for the joy they brought into our life. We are just so shattered.”
“We pray for God’s peace and comfort as we grieve their deaths and honor their lives,” Steve and Rebecca Lawwill said in a statement to Local 4. “We ask that the media give our family space in the weeks and months ahead, and that they respect the privacy of all who loved Mandy and the children.”
“We’re proud of her,” Jones said. “We’re proud of them. It was an honor, and is an honor, to even be a little bit related to her… and to speak about her.”