Doctor Accused of Murdering Ex-Wife and Husband Sued for Malpractice 3 Months Before Deaths: ‘He Just Disappeared’

Three months before Monique and Spencer Tepe were found dead, the man now accused of killing them was named in a medical malpractice lawsuit.

Michael McKee was alleged to have overseen a surgery at Las Vegas Surgical Associates in which an 8.6-inch fragment of a catheter broke off and remained in a patient’s leg, according to an amended complaint filed in Clark County Court.

That amended complaint was filed on Sept. 29, 2025. The patient’s attorney then spent more than a month trying to locate McKee so he could be served, without success.

In a declaration of due diligence filed in the case, a process server described speaking with one of McKee’s co-workers about where he might be. The response, according to the filing, was blunt: “[He] just disappeared.”

McKee’s whereabouts are no longer unknown.

On Jan. 10, 2026, McKee was booked into the Winnebago County Jail ahead of extradition to Ohio, where he is expected to face two counts of aggravated murder with premeditation in the deaths of his ex-wife Monique, 39, and her husband Spencer, 37.

McKee was arrested nearly two weeks after the couple was killed inside their Columbus home on Dec. 30, just days after their fifth wedding anniversary. Their two children, ages 4 and 1, were asleep in their bedrooms at the time, authorities have said.

An arrest warrant filed in Franklin County Court the day McKee was taken into custody states that detectives “able to identify a suspect through neighborhood video surveillance” and then traced that person to a vehicle “which arrived just prior to the homicides and left shortly after the homicides.”

Investigators ultimately tracked McKee to Rockford, Illinois, about 450 miles from Columbus.

He had been working at OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center after leaving Las Vegas and relocating to the Chicago area. Court filings indicate that move occurred sometime after May 2024, when the initial malpractice suit was filed against McKee’s Las Vegas employer.

Illinois state medical records show McKee became licensed to practice in the state in October 2024. In July, he bought a penthouse apartment in Chicago for $400,00. Two months later, he was named in the amended complaint.

The complaint alleges that the “failure of … Michael David McKee, M.D. to properly train or supervise [his co-worker] … caused the catheter or device to shear or fracture, leaving an 8.6-inch portion of the device in the plaintiff’s body.”

It further claims the patient suffered “numerous adverse sequelae” after McKee allegedly “breached the standard of care,” including “lower extremity bleeding, edema, pain, discoloration, disfigurement, and other injuries.”

On Oct. 9, McKee’s co-worker told the process server the vascular surgeon had “just disappeared.” On Nov. 10, the plaintiff’s attorney filed a motion asking for permission to serve McKee by publication—an alternative method that allows notice to be published in a legal journal when a defendant cannot be located.

The judge postponed arguments multiple times before approving that request on Jan. 6, 2026—four days before McKee’s arrest.

The malpractice case is currently scheduled for trial in July 2027, with McKee listed as a defendant.

The plaintiff is seeking more than $50,000 in damages. And because neither Nevada nor Illinois requires physicians to carry medical malpractice insurance, it remains unclear whether McKee would have coverage if found liable or whether he would be responsible for paying damages himself.

McKee is expected to appear next in Franklin County Court as early as this week, where he is expected to be arraigned on two murder counts.

Why prosecutors believe he killed his ex-wife more than eight years after their divorce remains unclear. Authorities are expected to provide more detail once he makes his first appearance in an Ohio courtroom.