In mid-March 2023, Blake Schwarz and his wife Michelle seemingly had it all – married just seven months, they moved into their first home and were expecting their first child together. Just a week later, Blake was dead by suicide, at age 26.
Now his widow is speaking out – working on a suicide prevention bill in Congress named for Blake; offering dogs as pet therapy in a new nonprofit, and has recorded a video urging others to help reduce the epidemic of suicide (which claimed 49,316 American lives in 2023), and protect the mental health of those who protect us.
Michelle’s six-minute video (done in early February) – called “A Widow’s Plea” – was shared Feb. 24 on Facebook by the National Fraternal Order of Police.
Blake was traumatized by his job as correctional officer at the federal prison in Thomson, Ill., where he had worked nearly four years.
“Suicide among correctional officers is rarely discussed, yet it’s a crisis that can’t be ignored any longer,” said a Feb. 17 Facebook post from the prison’s union, American Federation of Government Employees, Local 4070. “Correctional officers die by suicide seven times more often than the general public—more than police officers, too. Michelle Schwarz knows this pain firsthand. Her husband, Blake Schwarz, was an honor graduate of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and was on the Disturbance Control Team at USP Thomson in Thomson, Illinois. After years on the front lines, Blake lost his life to suicide.”
The proposed bill in Congress, to increase mental health support for correctional officers, is H.R. 2305, the Corrections Officer Blake Schwarz Suicide Prevention Act, and the Fraternal Order of Police has written to members of Congress urging its passage.
“Law enforcement officers work in a difficult and dangerous profession that can be taxing on their mental health. This is especially true for those who serve as corrections officers, as they are frequently physically and sexually assaulted by the inmates with whom they interact every day,” said the letter from FOP president Patrick Yoes.
“Unsurprisingly, these hardworking officers have suicide rates significantly higher than the national average. It is important that these officers, who risk their lives every day, have access to the most comprehensive and timely mental healthcare possible,” it says.
“Your bill would establish a grant program that would provide funding to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, States, and localities to carry out mental health screenings and provide referrals, where applicable, to mental healthcare providers for those corrections officers who are struggling with their mental health. Improving the mental health of these officers could save their lives. It will also allow them to do their jobs safely and more efficiently, and help with officer recruitment and retention.”
The bill in Congress was first introduced in fall 2024 and then reintroduced last March. The funding and resources will help destigmatize getting mental health help for correctional officers, Michelle said in a Feb. 24 interview with WVIK.
“I think just talking about all of this is already starting to take away that barrier and the stigma with mental health,” she said. “I don't even remember if Thomson ever had anyone come in and speak about mental health. And then when Blake passed, because it was such a huge shock, now I feel like the prison is really starting to talk about mental health and making it more normal to speak about.”
Iowa U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks was among sponsors of the bill when introduced into Congress on March 24, 2025 (the second anniversary of Blake’s death). It will be considered by committee next before it is possibly sent on to the House or Senate as a whole.
The bill would approve $300 million in funding (over five years) to the Bureau of Prisons, states, and local governments to carry out mental health screenings and provide referrals to mental health care providers for certain corrections officers.
The bill would establish an outreach team to refer a correctional officer, if their responses to the survey indicate severe mental illness, to a local mental health care provider for further assessment and outreach, admission (when necessary), and support for that officer in re-establishing ties with a mental health provider.
Jon Zumkehr, president of Local 4070, representing the 400 correctional officers at Thomson, said recently that a couple months after Blake died by suicide, the AFGE local partnered with the Gray Matters Collective and Haley DeGreve, who came and spoke with prison staff, sharing her story.
“We installed 988 signs at our institution so that when staff leave, they are reminded that help is always available,” he said of the toll-free suicide prevention lifeline, available 24 hours a day. “We’ve also held two suicide prevention walks in collaboration with the Gray Matters Collective. Mental health resources, including comprehensive information about local services, have been placed in every officer station.
“To strengthen our support system, we sent 24 staff members to ASSIST training, building a group of advocates focused on mental health,” Zumkehr said. “The Gray Matters Collective also started a correctional officers’ first responder group, led by a licensed therapist and open to all first responders. It’s important to recognize that correctional officers die by suicide at a rate seven times higher than the general population—and even more than police officers.”
AFGE National President Everett Kelley endorsed the bill in fall 2024, to help save lives.
“Federal correctional officers work in some of the most dangerous and violent places imaginable and, as a result, are at increased risk for developing depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and suicidality as compared to those in other professions,” Kelley said then.
“Many of our members employed by the federal Bureau of Prisons are military veterans, a group that has experienced staggering rates of PTSD and depression in recent years.”
DeGreve, founder and president of Gray Matters, says in the video that no one talks about the suicide epidemic among law enforcement officers and first responders.
“You don't hear about this on the national news. We're trying to change that,” she says in the video. “And so for us, we know that when we have these communities that we're seeing a lot of mental illness, we're seeing a lot of suicide. Because of the nature of the job, then we have a responsibility to do something about that. So a lot of the donations we receive, we do try to put towards helping first responders have these conversations, have training, have support groups that they can come to and really share with each other. And that's really what it's about, is helping people know that they're not alone.”
The union has donated $4,000 to Gray Matters, for them to send officers to get mental health training. “So they're definitely becoming much more of a partnership than even from where they started,” Michelle said.
When announcing the donation last September, Zumkehr said union leaders can’t do it alone.
“We need to build an army of mental health advocates at Thomson and across the country,” he said. “We need Congress to step up. We need the Bureau of Prisons to step up. We need our leaders to do more than just say they care. We are sick and tired of people saying they care but never showing up."
Love for dogs, calm and peace
Michelle met Blake in 2016 while they were students at Sauk Valley Community College, where he majored in criminal justice. “He loved to be out on our farm with our horses and our ranch,” she says in the video of their home in Chadwick, Ill. “He loved his dogs, he loved the simple life. He loved calm, he loved peace, and he loved just the country life that he had.”
He applied to be a correctional officer at Thomson in July 2019, not yet 23 years old.
“Thomson was kind of known for having very young officers, which can be a benefit, but can also be a huge drawback as well,” Michelle said. “Turnover is huge there. Just the location for one is so poor because it's out in the middle of nowhere. There's really nothing there that draws people in except pay. Then the community of that brotherhood. And so the turnover is high because once officers get in there and realize, oh God, this is not what I signed up for, this is a lot, then they tend to kind of leave and find something else.”
Blake was often required to work double shifts, 16-hour days.
“The atmosphere that Blake described to me during those long shifts is, if I could say it in one word, it would be dark,” Michelle says in the video. “It was a very dark place. The morale was extremely low. And you could just see in people that they were pushing through because they just wanted to make it through their eight-hour shift and go home. And you could see in their eyes how much it affected them.
"And as officers, they try to cover it up with humor because that's how you cope with things. He would cover it up with humor and would just say, it is what it is. I just got to do my job. And he continued to bottle it up and it became harder and harder for him to continue to deal with it.”
Blake was the type of guy to keep a lot of personal issues bottled up.
“He kind of always had the mindset of, other people have it worse. You know, other people are probably struggling more than me,” Michelle said in the interview. “I just need to suck it up. And when he would have a bad day at work, he might tell me, like, bits and pieces of his struggles, but never told me exactly how he was feeling and how it affected him. It was just this happened and that happened, and that kind of sucked. There was never really diving deep into it.”
There was a big warning sign before they got married, in July 2022, Blake told her, “I need help. I feel like I'm going to hurt myself.”
“And you could tell just the desperation. And I had no idea what to do,” Michelle said. “I'm a nurse in the medical field, and I couldn't even tell you what I was supposed to do, except I need to stay with him. And it was, you know, I'm scared to lose my job. I don't want anyone to know about this. I'm ashamed. Like, people can't know because I'm going to lose my job. I mean, you know, that that's his livelihood. He absolutely thought that they would fire him or let him go if they knew how much he was struggling with mental health. He didn't even want to take medication because of the worries of it.”
Blake ended up meeting with a counselor in Dixon twice, and was diagnosed with PTSD. He was prescribed antidepressants.
“But it was the culture, man. Like, you never go into law enforcement and say, hey, I have to be on medication for depression because this job is slowly ruining me, because you're absolutely going to be labeled as soft,” Michelle said.
“And even though every other officer had gone up to him, was close friends and said, like, I'm really struggling here, like, this job is really taking a toll on me, he actually sat and listened to them. So that's kind of why it was a huge shock to everyone when he passed away, because everyone kind of leaned on him as that rock and felt that he had everything all together and he was the guy that nothing really fazed.”
Courage and little sleep
“It took a lot of courage for him to work up to go to counseling. A lot of discussions on our part, a lot of coaxing from me for him to finally go,” she said. “And medication is only a tool. It's not an end all, a fix to everything. So he still struggled with sleep almost every night. I mean, I think he probably got four hours of sleep every night. And that's being generous. So that along with everything that was happening, I mean, people don't take their own life because of one little thing, right? It's a compilation of things.”
At the time, Michelle worked as a nurse at the prison, and after his death, she switched jobs, to work at the ER at CGH Medical Center in Sterling, and director of nursing at a traumatic brain and spinal cord injury center in Prophetstown. They were married on Aug. 6, 2022.
At the time he took his life, Blake and Michelle had everything going for them. She was expecting her first child, and they just bought their dream house, one week exactly prior to his suicide (which was March 24, 2023). “We bought our dream home out in the country. It's a big ranch. And we actually also had found out, like, a week or two prior to us buying the house that we were expecting,” she said.
Meanwhile, Blake had lost 20 pounds.
“He actually was concerned that something was legitimately wrong with him with how much weight he had lost,” Michelle said. “And it was just because of the job taking that much of a toll on him that caused him to lose that much weight because he couldn't sleep. He didn't make time to eat for himself because he was too tired to eat. I mean, it was just this vicious cycle that he had to go through.”
He was in charge of officer safety in one of the prison’s worst units.
“So you can imagine extremely high stress. And so, with how terrible things were at the prison, with how terrible the officers were treated, what the inmates were doing to all of them, and kind of the entire morale of the system, they eventually changed their mission to become a minimum-security prison,” Michelle said of early 2023, when they shipped many dangerous inmates out of the prison to higher-security facilities.
“There were so many times when he would feel so much despair of. I just don't know what to do,” she said. “I would say to him, you know, I don't care if we live in a cardboard box. I just want you to be happy. Let's find a different job for you. And he's like, but we can't afford that. And a huge part of it was a huge hit to your ego and your pride of feeling as a man that you're not able to stand up to the job and you’re not able to take the toll that the job has on you.”
Michelle said Blake didn’t know how to start looking for a different career, so he felt stuck.
“I know a lot of other officers said the same thing to him, like, this is all I know, but I also can't live life like this,” she said. “So you're just in this constant stuck state. And so he had to stay. He felt he had to stay.”
He had not been to counseling since summer 2022, before they got married. “We just got so busy with planning our wedding and going through the phases of life and buying a house after our wedding and things like that,” Michelle said. “He just never went back.”
Neither of them knew about the suicide hotline (now 988) people can call 24 hours a day.
“The only thing I could think to do was to contact his counselor and say, hey, we need to tell her,” Michelle recalled. “And he's like, no, please don't. They're gonna lock me up. I will lose my job. Like, please do not call her. She's gonna lock me in a unit and I'm gonna lose everything. Which is what a lot of people fear. You know, they just think their entire world's gonna go crashing down. If anyone knows that they're struggling, because unfortunately, that's kind of our culture, and that's the stigma of mental health.”
At Thomson, “they want to know that you're of sound mind, because then they feel like you can't do the job if you're not of sound mind,” she said. “That's a big responsibility in that career. So I think that was a huge fear of his as well.”
She called Blake “a very closed-off person. I was kind of one of the very few people that he trusted,” Michelle said.
“He was very particular on who he told and what he told. And so I was pretty much it,” she said. “He did tell his counselor specific things that he had struggled with. But outside of that, I do not know of anyone that he had said he felt like that he was having suicidal ideations.”
After darkness, a new life
Their daughter, Blair Austin (her middle name is the same as Blake’s), was born on Oct. 6, 2023.
“It was obviously one of the hardest things that I've ever had to go through. And it was kind of like an act of God,” Michelle said, noting her faith has helped sustain her.
She’s shown her pictures of Blake, and told her he is in heaven.
“It wasn't until a couple nights ago that we were laying in bed cuddling, and I said, do you know Daddy in heaven loves you very much?” Michelle said. “I said, you know, he's not here, but he still loves you very much. And she goes, why Daddy leave me? And that hit me so hard. And I said, he didn't leave you, baby girl. You know, he was just sick. So obviously, I just tell her right now Daddy was sick and he's up in heaven and you can always talk to him when you want….As she gets older and asks questions, that's probably the hardest part.”
“Nothing made Blake happier than sharing his life with his wife and knowing that he was a father to his unborn baby,” his obituary said.
Michelle and one of Blake’s best friends, Daniel Sward, started the nonprofit Paws for the Powerless on the first anniversary of Blake’s death, March 24, 2024. They have seven dogs (not all for Paws), one already has been matched with a licensed counselor, and Michelle’s dogs have been a great comfort to her and Blair.
“I wanted to do something basically to show that, his death was not for nothing and that I hope that if I can prevent at least one more death, then it's worth it,” Michelle said.
“After Blake passed, obviously, my entire world was flipped upside down, and there was times where I didn't want to be around anyone,” she said. “There's nothing to say, really, in that moment. So I just remember there was so many times where all I wanted to do was be by my dogs. I mean, I remember even the night that he passed, I was saying to my parents, as I'm sobbing, like, I need my dogs. Get me my dogs.”
“And they were with me literally every day. I took them in the car with me. They were absolutely a huge source of healing for me,” Michelle said. “The best part about dogs with healing and with grief for anyone that's struggling is, you know, you don't have to look a certain way. You don't have to say the perfect thing to them. They don't expect anything from you. They're just there for you. And that's really what people need when they're struggling and going through, whether it's trauma, grief, anxiety, kids with special needs that are maybe overstimulated.
“Dogs are just there for you, and you don't have to be a certain way or act a certain way for them,” she added. “That's what I really hope that these dogs can provide to other people going forward is, like a little kid that may be having a horrible home life, and they come to school and they're barely hanging on by a thread, but they see this therapy dog, and it just speaks to them, and that gives them a little bit more hope to keep going and keep moving on.
"Or this first responder may have had this horrible call, and it's messed with his head, and it's taking a huge toll on him. And this dog comes up to him and just provides him with so much comfort and. And gives him the courage to go seek help or whatever it may be.”
Michelle says on the group website: “We have a deep passion for mental health and have dedicated countless hours to finding the best ways to help those who are struggling, all while honoring Blake’s memory. Our dogs have been with us through every aspect of life. They are not just pets; they are truly part of our family. They supported me during my entire grieving process after Blake passed away, providing strength and comfort at my darkest moments.
“This led us to consider how we could best help others facing similar struggles. We decided that offering therapy dogs to those in need could provide hope and companionship,” the site says. “We hope the dogs we provide will touch many lives and inspire those in need to find the strength to face another day.”
A key phrase that resonated with Blake was “Protect the powerless,” reflecting his commitment to advocating for individuals facing mental health challenges and offering support to those in need, the site says, noting Paws for the Powerless will choose a person to become the handler of a trained therapy dog after they complete their training and certification.
“This partnership will allow the therapy dog to provide comfort and support to those who are struggling. Paws for the Powerless focuses on raising awareness about suicide and mental health issues,” the site says. “We offer fully trained and certified therapy dogs to individuals seeking hope and assistance during difficult times. Our mission is to create a supportive environment for those who may feel powerless.”
They will celebrate their anniversary with a “Paws ‘n’ Pearls” fundraiser on March 27, 2026 at McCormick Event Center in Rock Falls, Ill. It aims to raise funds to train more dogs, and cover pet food and vet bills, Michelle said.
In her video, she wants people to know Blake was not just an officer.
“He is someone that had big plans for his life and we had big plans for him,” Michelle says. “He unfortunately doesn't get to watch his two-year old daughter grow up because this job took so much from him. The hardest part now about navigating the journey without Blake is seeing how much his little girl is like him. And she will not get to experience who her father was and how incredible he was. And that is the hardest part because I can't get past not having his little girl see him. And that's all he wanted, was to be a dad. And he doesn't get to be that.
“Justice for me from Blake's death looks like absolutely passing the Blake Schwarz Suicide Prevention Act because that is going to provide officers with the necessary tools that they need to get through a shift and provide them with the support of the horrendous job that they have to deal with on a daily basis, which absolutely will help get the next officer home to their family safe,” she says. “Another little girl doesn't have to grow up without their father. Another son doesn't have to grow up without their father. Another wife doesn't have to go home to an empty house because of this. This bill helped prevent another suicide. And that would be justice for me.”
If you or a loved one is having suicidal thoughts, you can get help by calling the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. All calls are confidential.
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