Weapons found on the property of Illinois surgeon accused of killing ex-wife, Ohio dentist, police say
A weapon linked to the deaths of an Ohio dentist and his wife was found at the property of the woman’s ex-husband, an Illinois surgeon charged in the fatal shootings, police said Wednesday.
Multiple weapons were seized from the home of Michael McKee, and there is a preliminary link to one of the weapons that ties it to the homicides, Columbus Police Chief Elaine Bryant said.
McKee is the ex-husband of Monique Tepe, 39, who was found dead with her 37-year-old husband, Spencer Tepe, last month at their Columbus home.
He was arrested Saturday and charged with two counts of aggravated murder. He appeared in court Monday and was represented by a public defender who said he plans to plead not guilty.
The chief said she could not comment on a motive for the murders.
“What we can say, this was a targeted attack,” Bryant said. “This was a domestic violence-related attack.”
McKee, 39, and Monique Tepe married in 2015 and divorced two years later, after they were already living separately, records show. Family members say they lived together for only seven months.
Bryant said McKee’s vehicle was seen on surveillance video near the Tepes’ home “just before the murders.”
The couple was discovered dead at their Columbus home on Dec. 30 after worried friends and colleagues called authorities.
A friend of Spencer Tepe’s called 911 after he stopped by the Tepe’s home to check on him and found the dentist lying next to his bed in a puddle of blood.
The couple’s otherwise unharmed children could be heard crying in the background, according to a transcript of the call.
“It irrevocably changed the lives of these children,” Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said at the news conference Wednesday.
McKee was arrested by agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Rockford, Illinois, a city about 90 miles west of Chicago, where the suspect is listed as a vascular surgeon at OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center.
As of Monday, McKee was being held in the Winnebago County Jail in Illinois, police said.
Ginther said he would be extradited to Columbus but did not provide a date.
