(NewsNation) — As more information begins to emerge about Michael McKee, a panel spoke with “Banfield” on Tuesday about the accused killer’s past and some of the warning signs uncovered about him.
McKee, 39, was arrested last week and charged with two counts of murder in the shooting deaths of Spencer and Monique Tepe.
Long before McKee’s name garnered national attention for the murder investigation, he was grabbing headlines in his youth. As a first-grader, McKee received an honorable mention in a kids’ poster contest from then-Secretary of State Bob Taft. The licensed vascular surgeon also earned recognition at age 13 during a state science day held at Ohio Wesleyan University.
McKee was also a city spelling bee winner and ranked fifth in his class as a senior in high school. Before graduation, McKee was named a National Merit Scholar, biology student of the year and a member of the National Honor Society. He and Monique Tepe met while attending Ohio State University.
Court records said McKee married Monique Tepe in August 2015 and divorced in 2017. McKee and Tepe’s marriage only lasted for a short amount of time, prompting Gigi McKelvey, host of the “Pretty Lies & Alibis” podcast, to believe “jealousy and rage” could have played a role in the alleged killing.
“Jealousy and rage is such a powerful emotion, and I think it trumps common sense or all of the straight A’s or however many times you’ve been in the newspaper or the fact that you’re a vascular surgeon,” she said.
McKelvey says McKee’s online activity over an eight-year period since he and Tepe were together may also provide some clarity.
“How often was he stalking them? Was he seeing her public profiles of a very happy marriage? Then come the children and think, ‘That should have been me’? I can’t think of any other reason why a man who easily could find a woman who wants to marry a vascular surgeon and live in a nice place like that, but seems like he never married again and makes me wonder, ‘Did he just never get over her?'”
McKee made death threats towards Monique Tepe during marraige
Monique Tepe’s brother-in-law, Rob Misleh, told NewsNation’s Ashleigh Banfield last week that McKee threatened her life while the two were married.
Monique Tepe also expressed feelings about “wrong relationships” and a “waterfall of tears” in her vows on the day she married Spencer Tepe. Both pieces of information screamed red flags, forensic criminologist Dr. Laura Pettler said.
“It’s always best to view them in the context of the conflict between them … shifting between emotional conflict to potentially a behavioral conflict, where maybe an abuser is going to then move from just thinking about hurting the victim to actually acting,” Pettler said. “And that becomes lethal for a domestic violence homicide victim.”
Pettler added that Tepe’s words indicated “she went on a journey and there was a tremendous amount of emotional growth through trial and error.”
“That resulted in meaning to her because she was saying, you know, this wasn’t worthless,” she said. “This wasn’t that my journey mattered because it led me all the way to you. And it really struck me that she was so emotional and she was so grateful to be there with Spencer that day.”
Coercive control may have played role in McKee, Tate’s marraige: Doctor
Former criminal behavioral analyst Dr. Laura Richards added to Pettler’s remarks by acknowledging that McKee may have been stalking Monique Tate “in slow motion” and using “coercive control.”
“There’s a drip, drip, drip before the murder of controlling and abusive behavior,” Richards said. “Often, people don’t see the psychological and emotional; people look for the physical abuse.”
McKee and Tepe were only together for eight months before she filed for divorce a short time later.
“I want to know, what’s going on in that marriage,” Richards said. “And equally, what happened to trigger her to move out? The filings said they were incompatible.”
Ex-homicide detective: Michael McKee probably felt invisible during drive to Ohio
Investigators reportedly zeroed in on McKee, 39, after tracking a vehicle that had been parked in the neighborhood at the time of the killings to Rockford, Illinois.
Police suspect McKee drove over six hours from Columbus, Ohio, to Rockford, Illinois, beginning around 4 a.m. Dec. 30, shortly after allegedly killing the Tepes. They added the Tepes were murdered exactly at 3:52 a.m.
Retired homicide detective Fil Waters points out McKee may have felt the comfort of being invisible on the road at the time he was driving.
“That gives him a form of security that can’t be found anywhere else,” Waters said.
As for potential routes McKee took or avoided, Waters feels it will answer questions about whether he was trying to throw investigators off.
“They’re going to pull data out of the car. If he had his cellphone with him, the data out of there that’s going to track him one way or the other,” he said.
Electronics in Tepe house could help investigators: Director
Investigators said ballistic evidence and surveillance footage led them to McKee. Chris McDonough, director of the Cold Case Foundation, wonders if some of the electronics in the Tepe household might allow for more information about the time of Spencer and Monique’s deaths.
“We’re not sure if there’s some monitoring devices in the house, i.e., a baby camera or something to that effect of when the children may be sleeping,” McDonough said. “Maybe that picked up the gunshots at a particular time.”
McDonough also questions whether the victims could have been wearing smart watches. Why? The moment their heart stopped, some of the exercise apps could have been running in the background.