Law&Crime Sidebar - 5 Disturbing Details in Unsealed Ohio Dentist Double Murders Warrant

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

New warrant paperwork has been unsealed in the Ohio murder case of dentist Spencer Tepe and his wife Monique. The warrants reveal more details about the evidence against the accused, Monique's ex-husband Michael McKee. Ohio prosecutor Mark Weaver joins Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber to break down the newly revealed information.Be a part of our community with Law&Crime+, where you can watch your favorite hit series and dive into exclusive Case Files, including 911 calls, trial footage, and the evidence they didn’t show you on TV. Download the app or visit https://bit.ly/lawandcrimeplus to start your free trial today!HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrimeTwitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you've been following the savage killings of Spencer and Monique Tepey out in Ohio, you know there has not been a ton of information about the investigation about the evidence. However, there is now new warrant paperwork that has been unsealed and we just learned new details about what authorities may have been looking for and possibly found as Monique's ex-husband Michael McKee stands accused of this brutal double homicide. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Hey, real quick, I got some really exciting news that I want to share with you, okay? So we have spent so much time together here at Law and Crime, you know, obsessing over every wild twist and late-night case, but we wanted to find a way to bring you even closer to the action. And that is why we are finally launching Law and Crime Plus.

This is your new go-to spot for thousands of hours of commercial-free episodes and exclusive case files where you can dive into the evidence yourself. really built this for the community of people who stay up late analyzing every detail while waiting for a verdict. So it's just as much your space as it is ours. Go ahead, download the app, check out the features. Let us know what you think. You can head out over to law and crimeplus.com today to stag our limited time deal for just $3.99 a month or $40.99 for the year. One of the biggest questions we have had in the Tepey murder case is what exactly is the evidence? We know the victims, Spencer Teppy, 37-year-old dentist, his wife, 39-year-old Monique Tepe, parents to two children.

We know it was a brutal crime. Authorities say they were gunned down in cold blood on December 30th inside their home in Ohio. This is in Wineland Park, the 1,400 block of North 4th Street. Authorities say this happened at 352 a.m. authorities indicating that Spencer was shot seven times. Monique 9, we are talking a full magazine of bullets, and the couple's two young children were inside the home when this happened. But thankfully, they weren't physically harmed. Now, the couple were reportedly declared dead hours after the shooting at 10.11 a.m. Apparently, this came about after calls came in.

One about how presumably Spencer was not showing up for work. There was a call about someone seeing a body inside the house from outside the home. And we know the defendant, authorities say the accused killer is Monique's ex-husband. 39-year-old vascular surgeon Michael McKee. They had been divorced since 2017, nearly a decade. And we know the accusations. Authorities claim McKee was living seven hours away in Rockford, Illinois, when he allegedly drove all the way to the Tepe home in Ohio and shot them point blank.

He is even accused of using a silencer or a noise suppression apparatus. He was arrested in Rockford on January 10th. faces four counts of aggravated murder and aggravated burglary. He has pleaded not guilty. He's in the Franklin County Jail in Ohio right now, no bond. But what we didn't have was a lot of the actual evidence, the concrete evidence in this case. But now we talk about the new development. There is newly unsealed warrant paperwork that has just provided us more details that we want to go through.

And we want to talk about the relevance. We want to talk about what they may have found, what the defense can do to fight back. And to be clear, as I go through this and I go through the accusations, Michael McKee is innocent until proving guilty, okay? He has not been convicted. To discuss all this, I want to welcome on Ohio prosecutor, former deputy attorney general, Mark Weaver, friend of the show, Mark always happy to see you.

It's been a minute. I have to ask you about these new details. First, before we can get into it, to set the stage, when we talk about a search warrant and reportedly under Ohio law, my understanding is a search warrant can be unsealed after 90 days. so now we're getting more information. According to the Columbus dispatch, after the TEPPs were found,

police had to then go to a judge to sign off on the search warrant, which happened, I believe, at 1136 a.m. So relatively shortly after the bodies were discovered, is all that standard? Why do they even need a warrant? Do they say, hey, look, there's a crime. There's two dead bodies. Why do we even need a warrant?

We can immediately collect the evidence. When a crime scene is secure and there's not, a particular rush. Now obviously trying to find the killer is one kind of a rush. A lot of prosecutors want to make sure they have a belt and suspenders approach. So under the fourth amendment, there was a requirement for a search warrant. There are several exceptions to the search warrant rule, but there's nothing better than having a search warrant from the judge. So when there's time, we secure the scene, we get a search warrant. Sometimes we go back for an additional search warrant if the first warrant didn't cover some things that we think it should have

covered. And by the way, just taking a step back. Am I correct that under Ohio law, the search warrant can be unsealed after 90 days? And why that time period? And is this problematic for prosecutors that this information is getting out to the public at this point before there's a trial? You know, you are correct. That's the way it works. It's problematic in that there's been so much pre-trial publicity about this case. And there's been not enough information to feed the desires of public to know what happened. As more details come out, you could see the defense, and I know the defense attorney, Diane Manashe, she's very good. She doesn't have a great case, so she's got to find a way to protect her client. That could include asking for a change of venue. It could have

include any sort of pretrial publicity motions that might limit the ability of the public to learn more. I definitely want to talk about her. I want to talk about what the defense strategy here is, but I have to get into the details of this affidavit. Okay. So we have this affidavit from police that was in support of the search warrant, provides more information, right? So is why we needed the warrant to look for evidence. And it indicates that investigators collected 29 pieces of evidence, which could include items that were packed together, multiple swabs of potential blood and or DNA. evidence and 15 sets of fingerprints and that there were more than 400 photographs that were taken.

I want to take this piece by piece. So Mark, when you look at this, let's first start here, where did they get the blood, the DNA, the fingerprints? They had to be at specific relevant locations in the home, right? Sure. The goal is to find as much as you can in the part of the house where you think the murders occurred. For example, we're now pretty sure that where the children were, there was never any crime happening there. And so that's less of a focus of our interest, more where the bodies were or where we think the intrusion was.

In any typical house, there's DNA everywhere. Now that we have touch DNA ability, everybody's house has hundreds of different sets of touch DNA in all sorts of places. Blood obviously is a little different situation. don't have blood in our house. But crime scene investigators, particularly in a heinous case like this, they want to over find. They want to over stress what they need to collect because we don't know what's going to come up at trial. And what do you think can come from that? What kind of testing do they do? Is it complicated by the fact that this is in a home, right? You tell me, I mean, what kind of tests are conducted on this kind of evidence and what do you think can come from it?

Well, DNA analyst will tell us, first of all, almost immediately they can say is this male or female DNA. And if they have a sample of the suspect's DNA, they can try to do a match. It's not like it is on some TV shows, though. You have to have a good amount. I just recently prosecuted a child rape case, and one of the indicators in that case was we could tell that the DNA was from a male, but we couldn't tell what male it was from. So a lot of this has to depend on the quality of the sample. and how much of the sample was taken.

Yeah. And if they find, like, at least one fingerprint of Mr. McKee in that home, is that game over? Or, again, you know, I'm going to talk about this a little bit later, but there was an allegation that he had been at that home before, right? I think December 6th. If they find a fingerprint there, is that the end of the game for him? It's certainly the beginning of the end of the game. There's no reason for him to be in the house in the house in the first.

private sections of the house. Even if he had been there previously, if his fingerprint is near the bodies in one of the bedrooms, they're going to have to come up with a theory for that. More typically, they're going to push to take, you know, to try to make a deal in some case, and try to reduce the charges, get some sort of outcome because fighting this at trial will be very difficult. From what we've heard so far about the evidence, it is beginning to amass not just one piece of evidence, but several key inculpatory. pieces of evidence. Why 400 photographs? What are 400 photographs taken? And how does that help the prosecution? How does that help the investigation? Different crime scene technicians do this differently.

And so some of them will, you know, take example, let's say there's a cup near a body. You take it from every different angle. You take the photo from above. You take it from the side where the handle is. You take it from the other side. You take where it's resting. So that's four images, just to capture one cup. You never know at trial what some defense lawyer might suggest to the jury and say, why didn't they take this one angle of the cup? What are they doing there? Jurers can get suspicious when defense lawyers scatter seeds like that, seeds of doubt. So crime scene investigators, depending on their outlook, will often go over the top with what's necessary, rather than later be accused of willingly not taking some image.

When they talk about items packed together, what do they mean? Well, that could be anything. That could be, for example, a box that has several items in it. It could be a stack of paper that were together, something that's clipped together. That's a general description that's hard to say. But, for example, if the murderer interacted with that something packed together, jurors were going to want to know, was it originally packed together? Did the murderer put it together with these items elsewhere previous to the

the crimes occurring. Once again, the more photos and images you have, then as a prosecutor, I can go through and decide which of these images I'm going to admit into evidence. It won't be all of them. It'll be the ones that really help tell the story. I want to also highlight something else. So according to 10 WBNS, the warrant indicates that authorities were also looking for firearms, shell casings, and home security footage. Talk to us about that. Well, we all know now that home security footage is ubiquitous, whether it's doorbell cameras or whether it's people who put up cameras outside their house or some cases inside their house. So that footage is important, not just from the day of the crime, but from days previous to the crime

to see if anybody was scouting or staking out the house to find out how to get in there. With respect to the other things, they're finding, obviously we want to know about any guns or any casings, both in the home of the McKee, the suspect, as well as the home where the crime occurred. Why is there not more information in this war? And I have more pieces I want to get into, but why is there not more information, more details about this? I mentioned at the top there seems to be a lack of understanding all the evidence they have against him.

I'll talk about more of the evidence in a minute, but why is there not more details of this investigation in the affidavit? As far as we could see, we didn't get a copy of the actual one. We're looking at reporting based on it. Why is that the case? Well, police get a sense for which judges, what, how much information in the search warrant affidavit before the judge will sign the search warrant. Also, in a high profile case, some judges don't need to know a lot. They know there's a problem.

They know there's going to be a lot of scrutiny on them, and they're just quick to sign. They don't want to be criticized for not having issued a search warrant. So it's an officer-by-officer determination. It's a crime-by-crime determination and a judge-by-judge determination. Now also, according to the Columbia Dispatch, this is kind of all the material that has been sent over by prosecutors to Mr. McKee's attorney, Diane Manashi. You mentioned her before. We've interviewed before. We covered her, by the way, on a previous sidebar in light of her coming on to this case. We talked about her previous cases, her defense strategy, her win record in high profile criminal cases. She's an excellent attorney. I encourage everybody to check that episode out if you want to learn a little bit more.

But here, according to the dispatch, this is what was apparently sent over to her. So multiple search warrants from Ohio and Illinois. Firearms experts reports. Comparison images and evidence images. More than 4,000 media items, including photo and video evidence. Crime scene diagrams and scans. More than 250 video files of surveillance-related footage from the Rockford Hospital where McKee had worked. And by the way, we, the public can't see all this evidence at this point.

in time, but I do want to talk about it. Mark, search warrants. Is Diane Manashi going to go through them and see if they're defective, if they're beyond the scope, if they were supported by false information? Talk to us about how a defense attorney attacks a search warrant, and if it's successful, what should happen? Well, there will be a lot of pretrial motions filed, because particularly when there's a significant amount of evidence, the job of a defense attorney is to try to find something wrong in the process to try to convince a judge that law enforcement or the prosecutors have somehow cut a corner, broken a rule, done something they shouldn't have done. We saw this most recently and most infamously in the Alec Baldwin case. Everybody knows Alec Baldwin shot and killed that

woman. There's no doubt about that, but the case was dismissed. Not because he wasn't guilty, but because there was allegedly a problem with how the prosecution had handled the case and the judge dismissed it. So particularly in those cases where the evidence is strong, defense lawyers focus a lot in the pretrial motion practice on mistakes made. Now, you talked about the amount of evidence that was given over to the defense. A cynic would say that's the strategy of here's the haystack, go find your needle. someone else might say, well, no, I don't want to be accused of a Brady violation, Brady versus Maryland, the U.S. Supreme Court case that said you have to give over exculpatory evidence as a prosecutor. So someone else might say, no, I'm going to give you everything. We're going to play our cards open and up on the table. Either way, it's a ton of work, and hundreds and thousands of man hours will be spent reviewing this evidence and preparing this defense.

I think the firearms expert reports are very interesting because I'm curious what we can expect there because my understanding is, okay, authorities allegedly recovered a weapon from McKee's home out in Illinois that they believe is linked to the tepee killings, that this is based on preliminary ballistic testing. So we're talking potentially the murder weapon, right? What is that testing? What is that testing? I will tell you, let me just add to this, according to Columbus Division of Police. Chief Elaine Bryant, they use National Ballistics Data through the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network or N-I-B-I-N. So what exactly would these reports say? What is preliminary testing? Well, many rounds, which is what we call the piece of lead that's inside a bullet,

many rounds and cartridges have their own signature that's unique to the gun that goes through them. They're not registered. Not every bullet has a serial number on it, for example. But depending on the kind of gun it comes out of, it might leave a signature as it goes through the barrel based on the unique metal factors of the inside of that barrel. Having said that, we know this in the Charlie Kirk case right now where there's a discussion about whether or not the bullet can be matched to the rifle. I worked on a case years ago, officer involved shooting, where several officers had to fire their weapons at the same moment at a suspect who was pointing a gun. And when we took those bullets to get analyzed, they were all Glockes in this instance. The expert told us that the nature of these

guns, you couldn't tell which gun fired which bullet. So sometimes we know it can do a direct match. Sometimes we can't because of the nature of the inside of the barrel and the way that the firearm ejects the bullet. And it could be, if a case only rested on, that and you can strike you know you can raise a little bit reasonable down in terms of the murder weapon in terms of who fired it or in terms of you know if it's the actual weapon that could be you know end a case but when you couple that with the other evidence in this case it's just a piece of the puzzle right and i want to talk about that a little more because when i'm saying the 250 video files of surveillance related footage from the rockford hospital where mckee worked was

sent over to diane minashi before even getting into the other evidence and i'll i'll get into that cell phone and the car. What are they looking for there? Why is that relevant to the case where he worked? Trying to build a pattern of where the defendant was in the days and weeks before the crime, when he arrived, by what direction, and then looking to see if that pattern has changed. You also might want to see what he's wearing. Famously from the O.J. Simpson case, the civil case, the kind of shoes that he used to commit that murder were, found in a photo of him at a charitable event years earlier, a very unusual set of shoes that wasn't commonly sold. So by looking at a photo of him at a charity event, months or years before

the murder, investigators for the civil attorneys were able to identify that set of shoes as the one that was used by the murderer, the night of the murder. So similarly, you're looking for patterns, times, clothes, things he may or may not carry with them. You never know what could be a clue, both for the defense and for the prosecution. And this is where I want to get into the other evidence, okay, because there is some more evidence that we have that we've at least learned over the course of this story. For instance, the Columbus dispatch reports

that McKee's cell phone showed no activity for 17 hours or allegedly showed no activity for 17 hours, and it was only picked up again when someone would be coming back to Rockford. And they claim that that data shows McKee was near the Teppy home, including for several hours on December 6, but this is when the couple was out of town. NBC even reporting there was a security video showing him going into the home. Mark, talk to me about that.

Yeah, this is one of the most troubling things for the defense. There's no good reason for him to be three states east at the home of his ex-wife. He can be up to no good. And now someone might say, well, it's not illegal to do that. We're not suggesting it's illegal to do that. We're suggesting it indicates you still have a very dangerous interest in your ex-wife and her new husband. Anybody with a lick of sense knows that your cell phone tracks you where you go. And as a result, anybody with a lick of sense who wants to not be tracked will somehow disable their cell phone.

They'll turn it off. They'll remove the battery. They'll do something that would stop any signal from being put out to a cell tower. And so that's likely what happened here. If he is prepared, think about this. This is not a crime of passion. A crime of passion is when you come upon something and you act impulsively. When you live in Illinois and your ex-wife is in Ohio, just the time it takes to drive there

gives you plenty of time for what the law calls prior calculation and design. And as part of a criminal's prior calculation and design, they think about how can I avoid detection, shutting down my cell phone, putting it in a special bag where the signal doesn't come out, whichever way he disabled it, that's likely what happened. It's similar to Coburger when they said that he turned his phone off at the key time of the killings, but at least he had some sort of, I don't know, I don't think it was going to work, but he was like, oh, he went to school relatively nearby, he might drive in that area.

If they can establish through cell phone data or through surveillance that McKee is there, It doesn't make sense. That's, I think, going to be quite problematic for Diane Manashia. Although, I wonder, can you strike at the actual data? Is that ever effective? You say, hey, this is not, you can't look at the cell phone data. It's wonky. You can't look at the surveillance data. It's wonky. Does that work? It typically does not work by matter of suppression because you'd have to prove a Fourth Amendment violation at a suppression hearing. more typically what they'll do is they'll try to attack the foundation or the authenticity of it. At trial, a prosecutor has the burden of submitting evidence to the judge and saying, Judge, here's the foundation for the evidence, here's the authentication for this evidence, please admit it into the case so that the jury can consider it.

That's the part where the defense will attack it. Somehow say there's not a proper foundation, it's not properly authenticated. They're going to try to keep it from getting in. in either at a pretrial motion in what's called a motion in limine to limit evidence into the trial or during trial when they put the person on the stand who collected the evidence and by way of cross-examination and impeachment of the process of assembling that cell phone information. And now I've got to go to this other key piece of evidence. This is a big one. So authorities say they clocked a car near the Teppi's home before the killings and then

this car allegedly left after the killings that it was. was seen on camera at least one other time in that area. And they reportedly traced it back to McKee and back to Rockford. And they claimed that McKee allegedly used at least two license plates on this silver SUV, including one stolen Ohio plate and an Arizona plate. And when they apparently found the car, it reportedly had the Arizona plate. And there was evidence that a sticker had been, quote, hastily removed. Mark A, how do they know this?

What evidence would be used at trial to support this? And B, how problematic is that for the defense? Yeah, this might be one of the strongest pieces of evidence I've seen in this case. In 49 states, including Ohio, there are flock cameras. That's the name of the company that tracks license plates and allows police officers to find stolen cars, people who have a warrant for them, even suspended tags. And so as we all drive around streets and in most states, these cameras capture our license plate. And they're actually programmed to look specifically at license plates and check them against outstanding warrants.

That's likely where it came from. It's entirely possible it also came from security cam from nearby homes as well. But the flock cameras are ubiquitous around big cities like Columbus. So you're going to hit them several times as you traverse through the city. Again, somebody who's smart knows this. You can't be a doctor and not be smart, right? So somebody who's smart knows this, and as a result, he's been taking steps to try to evade that it's him. Stealing a license plate is an obvious one.

None of us secures our license plate. All you need is a screwdriver to remove it. And then tearing off stickers that might indicate, you know, what county it's from, for example. In Ohio, every license plate has a sticker that indicates what county it's from. That might be something he did as well. But, Mark, there's so much we don't know in this case. I'm getting an example. They say that these killings happen at 3.52 a.m.

How do authorities know that? Well, some of it could be a doctor could not get you, an autopsy doctor, a forensic specialist could not get you to the exact moment. But other devices, electronic and otherwise in the house that may have been involved, might do that. Certainly people, those of us who wear. smart watches know that, for example, my smart watch is constantly monitoring my heart rate and things that are happening in my body, whether I'm, you know, being healthy or not. So that

creates a whole new set of evidence that we didn't have as recently as 15 years ago that can tell us what's going on in a person's body based on the watch they're wearing or other device. Yep, that's a good point. But again, there's just so much we don't have that I would like a clear explanation. But again, that's the purpose of a trial. Motive hasn't been laid out, right? Not necessarily. And to be clear, it doesn't necessarily even have to be shown or be proven. It's not an element of the charges. It does help to fill in the pieces. It does help to tell the story for a jury. And one of the things that's come up, and NBC has highlighted this, they reported it, that there is this probable cause affidavit that indicates that a person told authorities that

McKee had allegedly threatened Monique, saying he could, quote, kill her at any time and would find her and buy the house right next to her. That there was also an alleged statement that she will always be his wife. And allegedly, and allegedly Monique told the witness about this. I don't know if there are hearsay issues here, but Mark, it does. First of all, you tell me if that would be like a hearsay issue, but also, is this the kind of evidence that would help? I mean, is this the kind of evidence that would establish how somebody,

which makes this case so bizarre, divorced for so many years out of nowhere, just comes up and allegedly kills her and her husband? Let's respond to your last question. This is the kind of evidence that would help the jury. If we can get it, then I'll address the hearsay question in a moment. As you mentioned, we don't have to prove emotive, but juries are desperate for a motive, particularly in a case with such serious penalties as this.

So jurors would like to have a theory. It gives them great comfort to know that, I can see why he would have done this. That means probably he did it. So if this comes in, it's powerful, powerful mode of evidence, even though it's not required to be shown. Now, with respect to hearsay, hearsay is an out-of-court statement offered to prove its own truth.

You put John on the stand. If John says Mrs. Tepe told me this once, that's hearsay. That is, there's no exception to the hearsay rule for that. But if John gets on and says, no, no, the defendant told me once. That is an exception to the hearsay rule. That's not hearsay what the defendant has said, even though it's an out-of-court statement offered to prove its own truth. There's a specific exclusion for the exception rule that allows that to come in. So it's going to depend on who is the person saying this statement and where that person

heard it from. Do you think this is relevant because we haven't had a chance to talk about it, that there was reporting that three months before the shootings, McKee was apparently being sued for medical malpractice. People magazine saying a friend of Monique said he thought she could not live without him, that she needed him. So for her to thrive, so for her to thrive in her new marriage, that just destroyed his fragile little ego. I mean, this is somebody's opinion. But how much of what's going on in McKee's life, or was allegedly happening in McKee's life, is going to play a role in this trial? There's an evidence rule that judges have to consider that says that evidence that is more prejudicial than probative has to be excluded.

Prejudicial means it's going to inflame the passions of the jurors. Probative means it gives the jury's insight into the crime. And so there's a balancing test. It's a very common exception you see at trial. Judge, that's more prejudicial than probative. That's going to mislead the jury. It's going to get them down a path that's not probative as to what the elements of this case are. So I would be surprised if the judge would not be asked to rule on that by defense counsel.

I think that would come up. If that evidence were offered, either at pretrial, Diane Manashy and her team, would you seek to exclude that testimony or during the trial itself. The closed door status conference is being held on April 13th, where I imagine they are just going to try to maybe set future dates for, I don't know, motions or hearings. So we'll see what happens. but again, it's closed door. We're not going to get a ton of information.

But I will just end on this point. Look, it's a very high-profile case. There are a lot of people invested in this. Their deaths have shaken that community, their friends, their family. It is awful to just give you a sense about this. NBC reported that the TEPI's relatives had said that this couple shared a, quote, beautiful, strong, and deeply happy relationship, that the family is heartbroken, quote, while no outcome can ever undo this loss,

our family is committed to seeing this tragedy fully and fairly brought to justice and to honoring Spencer and Monique by protecting the future of the children they love so deeply. So we talk a lot about the evidence, but that's the human point of that. Mark Weaver, thanks for taking the time.

Really appreciate it. Thank you, Jesse. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcast. You can also check us out on NBC's Peacock as well. If you want to follow me, X, Instagram, my News Nation show, Jesse Weber Live, Monday through Friday, 11 p.m. Eastern.

I'll see you next time, everybody.