After Husbands' Suicides, 'Best Widow Friends' Want Police Officers To Reach For Help

Nicole Rikard had recently married Sgt. John Rikard of the Asheville Police Department in North Carolina. He had an 8-year-old son, Tucker, from a previous marriage. From the time Nicole and John started dating, they had scarcely been apart.

Soon after they married, however, Nicole had to go to Florida for some work training — she was a crime scene investigator in the same police department. John worked an overnight shift and would call her when he woke up to check in.

But one day, John wasn't answering her texts. Nicole heard from a colleague that he hadn't shown up for work either.

She started to panic, imagining multiple scenarios. For starters, she thought he could have had a heart attack and died, like John's father did. John had had a hip replacement, so she worried he could have fallen down the stairs. John was a recovering alcoholic, and though she "had never met him intoxicated," she was concerned he could have relapsed and been on a bender at home. He was having trouble sleeping; she wondered whether he could have accidentally overdosed by mixing a sleep medicine with another medicine.