Monique Tepe Did Everything Right — The System Still Failed Her

Michael McKee allegedly told Monique Tepe he could kill her at any time. That she would always be his wife. That he would find her wherever she went. According to witnesses cited in an unsealed Franklin County affidavit, those threats were made during and after a marriage that allegedly included strangulation, sexual violence, and sustained emotional abuse. Monique left. She divorced McKee in 2017, married Spencer Tepe in 2020, and built a life with two young children in Columbus, Ohio.

On December 30, 2025, Spencer and Monique were found shot to death inside their Weinland Park home. McKee has been charged with aggravated murder and aggravated burglary. He has pleaded not guilty.

This episode explores the psychology of sustained threat — how chronic fear physically reshapes the brain, why normalization of danger makes escalation harder to detect from the inside, and why telling survivors to "just leave" ignores the most dangerous phase of domestic violence. Court records allege McKee surveilled the Tepe home in the weeks before the killings using a vehicle with stolen license plates. Surveillance video allegedly captured him on the Tepe property during the Big Ten Championship weekend, three weeks before the murders.

We also examine how McKee allegedly moved through four state licensing systems over a decade — Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, Illinois — with expiring credentials, a malpractice lawsuit, and a process server who couldn't locate him, while no institution connected his alleged history of domestic violence threats to the licenses being issued in his name.

Monique Tepe's story challenges everything we think we know about escaping danger.

#MoniqueTepe #MichaelMcKee #SpencerTepe #DomesticViolence #HiddenKillers #NormalizationOfFear #SystemFailure #AggravatedMurder #ColumbusOhio #TrueCrimePodcast

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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.