Mom of Teen Triplets Who Lost Three Young Children in 2007 Dies at 48 After Battle With Aggressive Brain Cancer

Lori Coble has died. She was 48.

A mother of teenage triplets who had previously endured the loss of her first three children in a car accident died of brain cancer on Wednesday, Jan. 21, according to a family friend.

“Lori passed away last night surrounded by her family,” the friend said.

Coble’s life held both deep joy and profound grief. In 2007, she lost her three children—Kyle Christopher, 5, Emma Lynn, 4, and Katie Gene, 2—in a car crash.

She and her husband, Chris, spent months trying to survive the devastation. Eventually, they decided to try for another baby. About a year after their loss, they welcomed triplets—each carrying an older sibling’s middle name: Jake Christopher, Ashley Lynn, and Ellie Gene.

For the next 16 years, Lori and Chris centered their lives on raising their children and holding their family close.

In June 2025, Chris began noticing subtle changes that didn’t feel like “normal” clumsiness. Lori was running into walls, stubbing her toe on chairs, and dropping glasses. By early July, he saw symptoms that alarmed him. “Her mouth started to droop a little bit,” he said. “It became too much to ignore.”

In July, Lori was diagnosed with a large and aggressive stage 4 glioblastoma.

Chris struggled to process that their family was facing another devastating turn. “I was hoping we were done with the life-changing, life-altering disasters where life as you knew it yesterday is gone,” he said.

“I started mourning the loss of my wife the day she got diagnosed,” he added. “I didn’t have a lot of hope at the outset—and that weighed heavily on me. I was really upset, mad, angry. How could this be happening to us again?”

Over the following months, Lori underwent two surgeries to remove the tumor. The second procedure was especially complex and left her without control on her left side. Days later, she suffered a stroke and was placed in a medically induced coma. She remained hospitalized for 40 days, with Chris at her side nearly every day.

After she regained enough strength, Lori returned home and began chemotherapy and radiation. But the treatment exhausted her and affected her speech. Over time, she appeared to be declining.

In mid-November, Chris brought her to the emergency room, where doctors discovered a large infection in her brain. Another surgery followed.

“You feel like she’s just being tortured,” Chris said. “I’m not sure that the treatment for cancer in this situation is any better than the disease itself.”

In early December, Lori briefly felt well enough to schedule a Zoom interview. But the day before it was set to happen, she was hospitalized again—this time with a lung infection and pneumonia.

Soon after, she returned home for hospice care. The period was heartbreaking for the entire family, including the couple’s three children, now seniors in high school. Those closest to her focused on keeping her comfortable.

“I’m trying to make every day the best I can make it for her,” Chris said at the time. “I don’t want to have any regrets for the rest of my life that I didn’t do everything possible every day for her.”

On Jan. 21, Chris announced her death on Facebook: “Lori passed at 9:25pm this evening.”

A GoFundMe has been established to help the family.