Man charged in deaths of Ohio couple told ex-wife he could ‘kill her at any time,’ court document alleges

By Elise Hammond, Holly Yan, CNN

(CNN) — The man accused of killing his ex-wife and her new husband in their Columbus, Ohio, home allegedly had a history of abusing her and stalked the house weeks before their deaths, according to a newly unsealed court document.

Monique Tepe told her friends and family her ex-husband Michael McKee was abusive and threatened to kill her during and after their brief marriage of less than two years, a probable cause affidavit written by a Columbus detective says.

One witness told police Monique had shared that McKee “forced unwanted sex” upon and strangled her, according to the affidavit. Another person told police McKee “had told Monique that he could kill her at any time and would find her and buy the house right next to her, that she will always be his wife,” the document says.

Monique and Spencer Tepe were found dead inside their house on the morning of December 30, 2025. Their children, aged 1 and 4, were also inside but unharmed. For weeks after the killings, police were tight-lipped about the investigation and any possible motive, with the Columbus police chief saying only that the attack was “domestic violence-related.”

Now the unsealed affidavit is painting a picture of McKee’s alleged movements around the Tepes’ home before and after the killings, tracking his presence in the neighborhood – and shedding new light on the search for the suspect.

A Franklin County grand jury has charged McKee with aggravated murder and aggravated burglary while using a firearm suppressor, according to the indictment. He has pleaded not guilty.

Diane Menashe, a defense attorney for McKee, declined to comment on the allegations in the affidavit when reached by CNN. She waived a request for bond at McKee’s arraignment in Ohio on January 23.

Footage placed suspect at scene before killings, document says

Monique Tepe and McKee married in August 2015. Their divorce was finalized less than two years later – in June 2017, court records show – about a month after it was filed by Tepe, who was using her maiden name of Sabaturski at the time.

On December 6, 2025, detectives uncovered surveillance video of McKee near the Tepes’ house while the couple was out of town at the Big Ten Championship football game in Indiana.

The affidavit says McKee was seen on the “curtilage” of the property, a legal term used to describe the area immediately surrounding a home, including things like the yard or driveway. McKee left a few hours later, it says.

McKee, a vascular surgeon who was living in Chicago, was not on the schedule that day at OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center, where he worked, according to the document.

Monique Tepe left the football game in Indiana early, her friends told investigators. When they asked her husband why, Spencer told them, “She was upset about something involving her ex-husband and was going back to the hotel,” according to the affidavit.

Police also used surveillance video to track a suspect to a car the affidavit says arrived in the Tepes’ neighborhood shortly before the killings on December 30 and left shortly after. During the investigation, police released footage showing “a person of interest” walking in the alley near the couple’s home in the Weinland Park neighborhood and later said they believed the person was McKee.

The Tepes were killed sometime between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., Columbus police have said.

Other footage confirms McKee was in possession of that vehicle, according to the affidavit, which described it as a silver SUV. The vehicle was connected to McKee’s past address and current work address and had stolen Ohio and Arizona license plates on it at different times, the court document says.

Investigators found that vehicle on January 9, 2026, in the parking lot of the hospital where McKee worked. It had scrape marks on the window where a sticker that had been there before the murders was peeled off, the affidavit says.

McKee was apprehended at the hospital the next day, on January 10.

Suspect’s phone left unused for 17 hours

Investigators also recovered “multiple weapons” from McKee’s property, Columbus Police Chief Elaine Bryant said previously, and there is a preliminary link from a ballistics database tying one of the weapons to the homicides. She did not elaborate on the type of weapons found.

The affidavit also alleges McKee left his phone at the hospital while carrying out the killings. The phone sat, unused, in Illinois for about 17 hours from December 29 through noon the next day, according to the document.

Columbus police had no reports of any incidents related to McKee and Monique Tepe before the killings, Bryant said.

Aggravated murder charges require prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant committed the killing with “prior calculation and design,” according to the law.

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