COLUMBUS, OH — It was supposed to be a quiet, frosty Tuesday morning in the up-and-coming Weinland Park neighborhood of Columbus. The holiday decorations were still twinkling on the porches, and the coffee shops were just starting to buzz with the post-Christmas lull. But inside the stylish home on North 4th Street, a silence hung in the air that was heavier, darker, and more terrifying than anyone could have imagined. This wasn’t just a quiet house; it was a tomb. And for the two tiny children waking up inside—a four-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy—it was the beginning of a nightmare that would shatter their world and send shockwaves through the entire nation.
The clock ticked past 9:00 AM, a time when Dr. Spencer Tepe, a beloved 37-year-old dentist known for his punctuality and his blindingly bright smile, should have been at his practice, Athens Dental Depot. Spencer was the kind of guy who didn’t just show up; he showed up early. He was the guy who brought donuts, the guy who remembered your birthday, the guy who was so sickeningly nice you couldn’t help but love him. So when his chair remained empty and his phone went straight to voicemail, a cold knot formed in the stomachs of his office staff. They knew. deep down, they knew something was wrong. But they had no idea that their welfare check request to the police would unveil a scene so gruesome, so calculated, and so heartbreaking, it would make even hardened homicide detectives look away.
When the police arrived, the scene was eerie. There was no shattered glass. No kicked-in door. No signs of a struggle that you’d expect from a break-in gone wrong. It was as if the killer had walked in, done their business, and vanished like a ghost. Inside, they found Spencer and his stunning wife, 39-year-old Monique Tepe, dead. Gunshot wounds. Execution-style. But the most chilling detail? The children were there. Unharmed. Physically, at least. They had been alone in that house, with the bodies of their parents, for hours. The 911 calls that later leaked revealed the gut-wrenching sound of children crying in the background, a detail that broke the collective heart of the internet.
For days, the community was paralyzed. Who would want to kill the Tepes? They were the “Golden Couple.” They had the look, the jobs, the house, the beautiful kids. They were less than a month away from their fifth wedding anniversary. They posted photos of their travels, their “date nights,” their perfect domestic bliss. They were the people you envied on Instagram but loved in real life. Was it a random robbery? A patient with a grudge? The theories ran wild. But as is so often the case in the darkest of true crime stories, the answer wasn’t a stranger lurking in the dark. The darkness was someone who had once slept in Monique’s bed.
Enter Dr. Michael David McKee. If you looked him up on paper a month ago, you’d see a success story. A 39-year-old vascular surgeon. Intelligent. Wealthy. Living in a luxury high-rise condo in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. He drove a nice car, ate at nice restaurants, and saved lives for a living. But peel back the layers, and the picture gets ugly. Fast. McKee was Monique’s ex-husband. Their marriage in 2015 had been a whirlwind that crashed and burned in spectacular fashion. They were married for barely two years, separated after just eight months. Friends whispered about control, about emotional abuse, about Monique being “terrified” of his temper. But that was a decade ago. surely, he had moved on?
Apparently not. While Monique found her soulmate in Spencer—a man friends described as “warm,” “goofy,” and “endlessly kind”—McKee was seemingly stewing in a toxic brew of resentment. As Monique built a family and a future, McKee’s life was taking a strange turn. Reports surfaced of professional issues, a lawsuit involving a botched medical procedure where a catheter broke inside a patient, and a bizarre game of cat-and-mouse where process servers couldn’t find him for months. He was ghosting his own life in Las Vegas before popping up in Illinois. And then, in the dead of winter, he allegedly decided to pay his ex-wife a visit.
The timeline police have pieced together is the stuff of nightmares. Authorities believe McKee drove from Illinois to Ohio—a six-hour trek through the dark—specifically to kill. Surveillance footage from the neighborhood captured a “Person of Interest” walking the alleyway behind the Tepe home between 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM. Dressed in all black, hood up, moving with the calculated calm of a predator. This wasn’t a frantic crime of passion; this was a surgical strike. The killer slipped in, silenced two vibrant lives, and slipped out. No screaming. No chaos. Just death.
The arrest, when it came, was swift but surreal. Ten days after the bodies were found, federal agents swarmed a Chick-fil-A (of all places) in Rockford, Illinois, and slapped cuffs on the surgeon. He didn’t fight. He didn’t run. He just stood there, the man who allegedly orphaned two children, waiting for his nuggets. The contrast between his mundane arrest and the horrific crime he’s accused of is jarring. It’s the banality of evil in its purest form. He waived extradition immediately, almost as if he was ready to get the show on the road.
But the real bombshell dropped this week. If you thought the initial murder charges were bad, the new indictment is a sledgehammer. A Franklin County grand jury didn’t just rubber-stamp the police charges; they escalated them. Michael McKee is now facing four counts of aggravated murder and one count of aggravated burglary. The “aggravated” label is key here—it opens the door to the death penalty. Ohio is a death penalty state, and given the nature of the crime—two victims, premeditation, invading a home—prosecutors have every tool they need to seek the ultimate punishment.
The most jaw-dropping detail from the new indictment? The “specs.” The grand jury found evidence that McKee allegedly used a silencer. Let that sink in. A vascular surgeon, a man trained to fix delicate veins and save lives, allegedly went to the trouble of acquiring or fashioning a suppressor for his weapon. This screams premeditation. It suggests he didn’t just want them dead; he wanted to get away with it. He wanted to do it quietly, perhaps so the neighbors wouldn’t hear, or maybe—and this is the thought that keeps me up at night—so the children wouldn’t wake up while he executed their parents.
Legal experts are already weighing in, and it’s not looking good for the doctor. The “course of conduct” specifications mean that killing two or more people is an aggravating circumstance. The “burglary” charge means he broke into their sanctuary to do it. Every box for a capital case is being checked. One legal analyst called the indictment “overwhelming,” noting that the combination of the surveillance video, the car tracking, the ballistics (shell casings were found), and now the silencer detail creates a mountain of evidence that will be nearly impossible to climb.
So, why? Why now? Why drive six hours to kill an ex-wife you haven’t been married to for nearly a decade and her new husband? This is the question burning up the internet. True crime forums are ablaze with theories about “grievance collectors”—people, often with narcissistic traits, who hold onto slights and perceived wrongs for years, letting them fester until they explode. Was he jealous of her happiness? Was he angry about his own failing career? Did seeing her with a “perfect” family push him over the edge?
The psychology of a surgeon killer is a trope we’ve seen in fiction, but seeing it play out in real life is chilling. Surgeons are often stereotyped as having a “God complex”—a belief that they are above the rules, that they hold the power of life and death. Did McKee feel that he had the right to decide when Monique’s life ended? The level of entitlement required to break into a home and murder two parents while their babies sleep nearby is unfathomable to the average person. It suggests a complete lack of empathy, a void where a human soul should be.
And let’s talk about the victims. It’s easy to get lost in the sensationalism of the “Killer Surgeon,” but we cannot forget Spencer and Monique. Friends describe them as the kind of people who made you believe in love. They met online, fell hard, and built a life centered around their kids. Spencer was a guy who loved his job, loved his wife, and loved being a dad. Monique was a runner, a baker, a mom who put her heart into everything. They were stripped of their future in an instant.
The community reaction has been a mix of heartbreak and fury. A GoFundMe set up for the children raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in days, a testament to how much this couple was loved. But underneath the sadness, there is a simmering rage. People are angry that a man who had every privilege, every opportunity, chose to destroy a family. They are angry that the system couldn’t protect Monique from an abusive ex, even years later. They are angry that two children will grow up knowing their parents were stolen by a man who once promised to “do no harm.”
Online, the “netizens” are having a field day, and their takes are as raw as you’d expect. On Reddit, the threads are filled with locals sharing their shock. One user wrote, “I’ve been going to Dr. Tepe for three years. He was the nicest guy. Always asked about my dog. I literally can’t process that he’s gone.” Another comment, which has garnered thousands of upvotes, reads, “The fact that he left the kids alive is the most confusing part. Was it mercy? Or did he want them to wake up and find them? That’s a special kind of evil.”
Twitter (or X, whatever we’re calling it) is flooded with the hashtag #JusticeForTheTepes. People are digging up old photos of McKee, analyzing his “dead eyes” in his mugshot. “He looks like he’s bored,” one user tweeted. “He just killed two people and he looks like he’s waiting for a bus. Psychopath.” There’s also a lot of discussion about the “red flags” of domestic violence. “It’s been 10 years and he still came back,” a viral TikTok explains. “This is why we say leaving is the most dangerous time, but honestly, with guys like this, you’re never truly safe.”
There’s also a strange, dark humor surfacing, as people try to cope with the absurdity of it all. “Imagine going to med school for 10 years, becoming a vascular surgeon, and then throwing it all away to murder your ex and get caught at a Chick-fil-A,” one comment read. It’s a cynical take, but it highlights the sheer wastefulness of the crime. He had everything, and he burned it to the ground for… what? Revenge? Ego?
As the legal machine starts to turn, we are in for a long, ugly ride. The discovery phase is going to be brutal. We’re going to learn about the texts, the Google searches (you just know he Googled “how to use a silencer”), the GPS data. We’re going to hear about the breakdown of his marriage to Monique in excruciating detail. And we’re going to have to watch those poor families—Spencer’s parents, Monique’s brother—sit in a courtroom and look at the man who destroyed their lives.
But the most heartbreaking image remains those two children. They are safe now, with family, but the trauma is already written into their story. They are the silent victims, the ones who have to grow up in the shadow of this tragedy. The community has rallied around them, but no amount of money can buy back a mother’s hug or a father’s laugh.
This case is far from over. In fact, with the new indictment, it’s just beginning. We are looking at a trial that will likely be televised, analyzed, and obsessed over. It has all the elements of a prime-time drama—wealth, jealousy, professional success, and gruesome violence—but we have to remember: this isn’t a show. These were real people. And there is a real monster sitting in a cell in Illinois, waiting to answer for what he did.
So, what do you think? Is this the act of a cold-blooded sociopath or a man who snapped? Does the death penalty fit the crime? And how do we protect ourselves from the people in our past who refuse to let go? Drop your thoughts in the comments below, and let’s keep the conversation going. Because if there’s one thing this story tells us, it’s that sometimes, the scariest monsters aren’t hiding under the bed—they’re wearing scrubs and living in the penthouse next door.
PART II: The Anatomy of a Perfect Life (And How It Was Stolen)
To understand the magnitude of this tragedy, you have to understand what was lost. We often hear “they were a great couple” in eulogies, a standard line thrown out to be polite. But in the case of Spencer and Monique Tepe, it seems to have been the absolute, unvarnished truth. They were the couple that made you believe that second chances aren’t just possible—they’re better.
Monique Sabaturski, as she was known before she met Spencer, had already been through the wringer. Her first marriage to Michael McKee was a whirlwind that turned into a tornado. Friends say she rushed into it, dazzled perhaps by the brilliant young surgeon, only to find herself trapped in a relationship that was reportedly controlling and volatile. When she finally got the courage to file for divorce in 2017, citing incompatibility, it was an act of survival. She walked away. She didn’t ask for millions. She just wanted out. She wanted peace.
And she found it in Spencer Tepe.
Spencer was, by all accounts, the anti-McKee. He wasn’t a brooding, intense surgeon with a god complex. He was a dentist who worked in Athens, Ohio, a college town known for its laid-back vibe. He was an Ohio State grad, a massive Buckeyes fan, and a guy who spent his weekends golfing or watching football. He met Monique online—a modern romance for a modern tragedy—and they clicked instantly. They married in 2020, and their wedding photos show a couple that is radiantly, stupidly happy. The kind of happy that makes you smile just looking at it.
They settled in Weinland Park, a neighborhood in Columbus that is currently undergoing a massive revitalization. It’s a place where old brick homes are being renovated by young professionals, where community gardens are popping up, where people walk their dogs and actually talk to their neighbors. The Tepes fit right in. They were the neighbors who would wave from the porch. The ones with the stroller.
Their home on North 4th Street was their sanctuary. They filled it with life. A daughter, now four, who was just starting to understand the world. A son, barely a toddler, who likely only knew his father as a source of tickles and snacks. Spencer’s social media wasn’t filled with flexes about his car or his money; it was filled with pictures of his kids. Him holding his son. Him playing with his daughter. It was a wholesome, normal, beautiful life.
And that’s what makes the intrusion of Michael McKee so violent. It wasn’t just a physical break-in; it was an ontological one. He was a relic from a past Monique had buried. He was a ghost from a bad dream she had woken up from. By driving those six hours from Illinois, he was forcing his way back into a narrative that had written him out. It was an act of ultimate narcissism: If I can’t be the main character in your life, I will be the villain who ends it.
PART III: The Surgeon’s Mask – Who Is Michael McKee?
Let’s turn the lens on the man in the mugshot. Michael David McKee. 39 years old. A vascular surgeon. In the medical hierarchy, vascular surgeons are near the top of the food chain. It is an incredibly demanding field, requiring steady hands, nerves of steel, and a level of intelligence that is rare. You are dealing with the piping of the human body—arteries, veins, the very flow of life. One slip, and a patient bleeds out.
McKee was good at it. He did his residency in Roanoke, Virginia. He did a fellowship in Maryland. He worked in Las Vegas. He eventually landed at OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center in Rockford, Illinois. To the outside world, he was a pillar of society. He made good money. He lived in a high-rise. He had the credentials that command respect.
But there were cracks in the porcelain.
The first major red flag was the divorce. Lasting less than a year in a marriage is unusual, especially without a major catalyst like infidelity (which hasn’t been reported). It suggests a fundamental, explosive incompatibility. The court documents from 2017 are dry, but the rumors swirling around them are not. Family members have since hinted at “emotional abuse,” a term that covers a lot of ground but usually implies control, gaslighting, and intimidation.
Then came the professional wobbles. The lawsuit filed in 2024 is telling. It wasn’t just a malpractice suit; it was a suit that claimed he “just disappeared.” A process server tried nine times to serve him papers at his home. They saw a TV on. They saw lights. But no one answered. At his work, colleagues said they had “no idea” where he was. This paints a picture of a man who was already unraveling, a man who was running from accountability, hiding in plain sight.
Was the pressure getting to him? Was his career stalling? Or was he simply bored?
There is a terrifying concept in psychology known as the “Dark Tetrad”—narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism. While we can’t diagnose McKee, his alleged actions fit the profile of a “Wounded Narcissist” to a T. A narcissist cannot handle rejection. It doesn’t matter if the rejection was ten years ago. It’s a stain on their ego that never washes out. Monique’s happiness, her new husband, her perfect family—it might have felt like a constant, silent mockery of his own empty life.
The fact that he allegedly used a silencer suggests he didn’t want a confrontation. He didn’t want a shouting match. He wanted an execution. He wanted to play God. And for a few horrific minutes in that bedroom on North 4th Street, he did.
PART IV: The Night of the Hunter
Let’s reconstruct the night of December 30th based on the chilling details released by the Columbus Police Department.
It’s late December in Ohio. The nights are long, pitch black, and freezing. Most people are tucked away in warm beds. The streets of Weinland Park are empty.
Sometime around 2:00 AM, a vehicle enters the area. It’s not a local car. It’s registered to Michael McKee. It has traveled hundreds of miles to be here. The driver parks. He doesn’t pull into the driveway; he likely parks a few blocks away, or in an alley, trying to be invisible.
Surveillance cameras—the silent witnesses of our modern age—catch him. A figure. Clad in black. Hood up. He’s walking with purpose. He’s not stumbling like a drunk coming home from a bar. He’s not meandering like a dog walker. He is heading towards a specific target.
He reaches the house. There is no forced entry. This is a detail that haunts me. Did he still have a key from a decade ago? Unlikely, since they never lived in that house together. Did he pick the lock? Did he find a hidden key? Or—and this is the most terrifying thought—did he knock, and did one of them, sleepy and confused, open the door to their killer?
Once inside, he moves to the bedroom. This is where the “aggravated burglary” charge comes in. He is an intruder in the most sacred space a family has. Spencer and Monique are likely asleep.
The silencer changes everything. A gunshot is loud—140 to 160 decibels. It wakes the neighbors. It wakes the kids. It screams “emergency.” A silencer (or suppressor) doesn’t make a gun silent like in the movies, but it dampens the noise significantly. It turns a BOOM into a sharp crack or thud.
He fires. Shell casings hit the floor. Spencer and Monique die.
And then… silence.
The killer stands there. The adrenaline is likely pumping through his veins. He is in the house with the bodies. And he is in the house with the children.
He knows they are there. You can’t stalk a family without knowing about the kids. He likely hears them breathing in the next room. Does he check on them? Does he stand in their doorway? The fact that he left them alive is the subject of endless debate. Some call it a shred of humanity. Others call it a final act of cruelty—leaving them to wake up alone, orphans in a house of death.
He leaves. He walks back to the alley. The camera catches him again. He gets in his car. And he drives. Six hours back to Illinois. Back to his condo. Back to his job. Back to his life, as if he hadn’t just destroyed an entire world.
PART V: The Digital Dragnet
In the old days, a killer might have gotten away with this. He crossed state lines. He had no direct connection to the victims in their current life. He wore a mask.
But it is 2026. You cannot move without leaving a digital footprint.
The Columbus Police detectives, specifically the homicide unit, deserve a standing ovation here. They didn’t have a smoking gun immediately. But they had data. They pulled the “tower dumps”—records of every cell phone that pinged off the local towers in that 2 AM to 5 AM window. They looked for numbers that didn’t belong.
They pulled the license plate reader (LPR) data from the highways. They looked for a car making a round trip from Illinois to Ohio in the middle of the night.
And they found him.
The “Person of Interest” video was the public face of the investigation, but behind the scenes, the tech was tightening the noose. They tracked his car. They tracked his phone. They likely saw his search history.
When they raided his condo in Chicago, they found the arsenal. Multiple weapons. And, crucial to the new indictment, a weapon that preliminarily matches the ballistics from the scene. They found the “suppressor.” They found the proof.
The 911 calls from the discovery of the bodies are harrowing. The first call comes from Dr. Mark Valrose, Spencer’s boss. He’s in Florida on vacation, but his staff calls him. “Spencer isn’t here.” It’s such a simple sentence, but for a man like Spencer, it was an alarm bell.
Then the friend goes to the house. The call where he says, “There’s a body,” is the moment reality crashed in. You can hear the panic, the confusion. “I can hear kids inside… I think I heard one yell.”
That audio will be played in court. And there won’t be a dry eye in the jury box.
PART VI: The Court of Public Opinion vs. The Court of Law
Now, Michael McKee sits in a cell. He has been denied bail (standard for capital murder charges). He has a public defender for now, but given his resources, he will likely lawyer up with a high-powered defense team soon.
What will his defense be?
The “It Wasn’t Me” Defense: This is the hardest road. With the video, the car data, the phone data, and the ballistics, claiming he wasn’t there is going to be a tough sell. Unless he can prove his car was stolen and his phone was hacked and someone else looks exactly like him, this is a losing battle.
The “Insanity” Defense: This is risky. To be found not guilty by reason of insanity, you have to prove you didn’t know right from wrong at the time of the crime. The planning—the drive, the silencer, the evasion—screams that he knew exactly what he was doing and tried to hide it. That is the definition of “consciousness of guilt.”
The “Procedural” Defense: This is the most likely route. His lawyers will attack the evidence. They will say the warrant was bad. They will say the chain of custody on the shell casings was flawed. They will try to get the video thrown out. They will try to chip away at the mountain until it’s a molehill.
But the prosecutors have the “Rock”—the new charges. The Grand Jury indictment is a powerful tool. It means a group of citizens has already looked at the evidence and said, “Yeah, there’s enough here to put him away for life.”
PART VII: The Echoes of Trauma
As we consume this story as “entertainment” or “news,” we must pause to consider the human toll.
Spencer’s patients are grieving. A dentist is a surprisingly intimate part of your life. You trust them with your pain, with your smile. The lobby of Athens Dental Depot is likely filled with flowers right now.
Monique’s running group. The other moms at the preschool. They are all looking at their own lives, wondering how fragile it all is.
And the family. Rob Misleh, Monique’s brother, has been the spokesperson. His statements have been grace personified. He speaks of “protecting the future of the children.” He isn’t screaming for blood on TV; he is trying to hold together the shattered pieces of his family.
The children will grow up. They will eventually Google their parents. They will find these articles. They will see the video of the man in the alley. They will know that their father was a hero and their mother was a light. And they will know that a man named Michael McKee took them away.
We can only hope that by the time they are old enough to understand, justice will have been served.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This story has everything that terrifies us. It’s the ex who won’t let go. It’s the violence that comes to the suburbs. It’s the successful professional who hides a dark secret.
But it also has everything that gives us hope. The way the community rallied. The swift work of the police. The refusal of the family to be broken.
Michael McKee thought he could write the ending to this story. He thought he could turn the Tepe family tragedy into his masterpiece of revenge. But he was wrong. The ending won’t be written by him. It will be written by a jury of twelve peers in Franklin County, Ohio. And if the evidence is as strong as it looks, that ending is going to involve a very small room, a very thick door, and a lifetime of silence.
What are your thoughts on the new charges? Do you think the death penalty is on the table? Share this article and let us know in the comments.