← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Ohio Double Murder: Sinister Plan Exposed in New Indictment | Spencer & Monique Tepe
00:16:49
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If.
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You'Re an H Vac technician and a call comes in, Grainger knows that you need a partner that helps you find the right product fast and hassle free. And you know that when the first problem of the day is a clanking blower motor, there's no need to break a sweat. With Grainger's easy to use website and product details, you're confident you'll soon have everything humming right along. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickgrainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. Hi everybody, it's Ashleigh Banfield. Even though it doesn't sound like me, I know this is day three with I just keep calling it the Crud. I don't know what it is. I actually feel okay. I just sound horrendous and it's super hard to talk. I have to breathe extra hard, so I apologize. I up and down for the third day of podcasts, which I call like Brenda Vaccaro, who I love, by the way, but also has this very deep and raspy voice. Anyway, if you can bear with me, I do have a lot to tell you about the double murder in Columbus, Ohio. Something happened today. I expected it. I didn't expect it this soon, and I sure as heck didn't expect the nugget that came out when an indictment came down on Dr. Michael McKee. I'm going to talk all about that in just a moment, and we're going to get really deep into a Lot more of the aspects of this case and what's coming next. Because everybody has their idea of the path that a murder prosecution is going to take, but nobody knows it better than some of the people you're about to hear from because the grand jury has spoken. The grand jury in the murders of Spencer and Monique Tepe. Two and a half weeks after the Tepes were gunned down in their own home, a panel has now officially done it. They have indicted the suspect, Dr. Michael McKee. And along with the charges, which I'm going to get to in just a sec, the indictment let slip a pretty tantalizing little detail we had not heard before. And I didn't expect to hear. The shooter used a silencer, or as the grand jurors put it, a muffler or a suppressor. Dr. McKee, who is Mo Tepe's first husband and a vascular surgeon from Illinois, he's charged tonight with now four counts of aggravated murder and a single count of burglary. And hold on. I did a double take. I thought it was a misprint and they thought it was a false report. Four counts of aggravated murder. Hold it. He was originally charged with two counts of murder, and then they upgraded it and added two counts of aggravated murder. So is it really four aggravate AG murders or is it two and two? As it turns out, it is 100% four counts of aggravated murder, which is unique with two victims. But there's a good reason for it. You're going to hear why, and it actually does make sense. If you have been counting the days, you will know that tomorrow it's going to be one full week since Dr. McKee was arrested in Rockford, Illinois. I'm recording this episode on January 16th. And as I come to you tonight, McKee is still sitting in an Illinois jail cell, probably in the yellow scrubs that we saw him appear in court. His extradition and his return to Columbus is still tba. I'm with you. I think it's weird. It's just a six hour drive that he allegedly made himself. So why is it taking more than a week? There's a lot of machinations that go on the detectives down in Columbus. Sometimes they are. They have fugitive task force, they'll go get people. Sometimes they outsource it to companies that actually do these extraditions. And so that might be happening, but there's some logistics they're trying to iron out between Winnebago county and then Columbus and the authorities there. So I have a little news of my own that I want to share with you tonight. And it's like really surprising to say this, but tonight was my very last night on my News Nation show. It's not a surprise because I knew, because I planned it, but it feels weird saying it because I've been in live TV for 38 years.
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Huh?
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Yes, 38 years of live television. And. And I made a huge decision, one that it did not come lightly. It took months to come to this decision, to leave the live television show and to leave TV as a live entity in general. Because I want to focus more on you guys. I want to focus more on this podcast on Drop Date Serious. This has become such a passion of mine and I just feel like it's just super authentic, right down to wearing a hoodie. And I'm gonna be giving Drop Dead Serious my full attention now. So I think you can look forward to a lot more from me, not just in the nightly podcast, but also membership benefits and extra product and extra information. Lots of stuff that I'm happy to share with you in the future as I start building this out as a full time commitment. I love saying that this is gonna be my full time commitment. So in honor of my final show, News Nation, my team assembled this all star panel to join me to discuss the key developments in the Ohio case. So we had Mark Garagos, who, you know is a criminal defense attorney, managing partner of Garagos and Garagos. We had Matt Murphy, former senior homicide prosecutor in the Orange County, CA DA's office, and Jesse Weber, attorney and host of News Nation's brand new 11 o' clock show, Jesse Weber Live. It premieres on Monday. Please give him all your love. He's so good. He's going to be doing a lot of the content that I was doing at 10, so just check him out at 11 Eastern. Here's my conversation with Mark Garagos, Matt Murphy, and Jesse Weber. Matt, I'm going to come out of the gate with you. Four counts indicted by this grand jury, four aggravated counts, but two murders. Can you explain that?
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Yeah, I know Mark had the same thought that I did on this. I bet. It's just. It's just kind of weird, for lack of a better term. So what they're doing is they're proceeding on two different potential theories. The first two are what we would call P and D or premeditation and deliberation. The then count three is the burglary by itself, and then counts four and five are the same murders, but with a different aggravating factor. Where they separately allege murders committed during the course of a residential burglary. So in California, where, where Mark and I do most of our cases, that basically qualifies it as what's known as a special circumstance. So in the state of Ohio, they technically have a death penalty, but like California, there's a moratorium on it, but that would theoretically make him eligible for life without possibility of parole. So it's a, it's a weird way to do it, frankly. But I know Mark was also probably thinking, I can't wait to hear what Mark has to say about this. This was a super fast indictment. This we went from. I mean, this is just light speed. He hasn't even been, he hasn't even been extradited yet from Illinois, and they've already got an indictment waiting for him in, in the state of Ohio. So there, the next step they'll be. There'll be a bunch of pretrial motions, actually, as we'll see the process go on. The next big step will be actual trial now that they've got an indictment in hand.
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So Garagos, jump in here because when I heard quadruple aggravated murder, I sort of felt like the breath went out of any defense attorney who may be lined up to do this case. Is that as scary as it sounds are the two extra ag murders that have the burglary and insurance policy in case somehow a jury decides maybe it wasn't premeditated?
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Well, actually, I think Matt is spot on that when you hear it, not only is it weird, but I think also that when you present this to laypeople who are obviously by definition the jurors, it's a little bit confusing. It's a little kind of anti intellectual, if you will. You would immediately assume that there were multiple or serial. And when it becomes that it's theories, I think that that just opens up the defense to all kinds of mischief. Frankly, Matt is right that it, it's like dangling in front of a defense lawyer, just all kinds of things and talk about, okay, well you couldn't prove this theory, so you did this theory or you threw this out, you couldn't follow up on this one. And why are you indicting and why are you going to a grand jury and why this rush to judgment? I actually think things like this, when you do it this way, end up backfiring on the prosecution.
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So, Jesse, you and I have been through a lot of trials together. Some of them are great and some of them are stinkers. And I often think that sometimes the litigators are checking their boxes and forgetting that everybody who's in the jury box is just some dude. Right? We just need a story that we can wrap our heads around. And in this particular case, I'm seeing movement and timing and forensics. And I'm wondering, in your opinion, how important is it going to be for these prosecutors to put together a bedtime story for the jurors instead of a checkbox case?
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D
So it's very important. Before I even get to that, Ashley, thank you so much for everything you've always done for my career. I love you. You're amazing. And thank you for having me on your last show. Okay. Very important. Why they need to tell a story. Obviously, motive is not a element that they have to prove. But when you're trying to explain why this guy who was, is accused of this, was divorced for so many years and then all of a sudden, what snapshot. I mean, they have to explain why he would have allegedly traveled 400 miles and killed them in the middle of the night. Remember, he's charged with aggravated murder. They elevated it to get to life in prison. That's prior calculation and design that it was premeditated. So what are they going to have to show? They are going to have to show those to that travel. They are going to have to show he went into that house. They are going to have to show the circumstances of that killing. And there's still a lot we don't know, right? We don't have forensics, we don't have DNA. But, but they say they recovered a weapon that was tied to it. They now have the car, they have the surveillance footage. They now say that that is him. So being able to tell a clear, concise story about why he would have done this when he hasn't said anything right now, I think that's going to be critical for the prosecution.
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So, Matt, you know, when we listen to these dribs of information coming out, the average person tends to think slam dunk right away. And that is far from the story for a prosecutor. What in this particular case, given what we know, and it's not a lot, what worries a prosecutor most right now this early on?
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Boy, that's a great question. Actually, I think that where my mind goes is, and I'm sure Jesse and Mark are thinking the same thing. I would love to see his Google searches and see what's in there. There isn't really. There isn't really a whole lot right now. Based on what's been released, this looks like a very strong case. The silencer was certainly new, or what we call a suppressor. But this is. This has all the makings. At least on the surface. This guy's presumed innocent. Of course, this has all the makings of one of those cases where you just got an obsessive X. And we've all either had an obsessive X or Mark and I have done these cases together in. In Southern California, where you just got. You got guys that just can't hear the word no. So it's going to be really interesting for me as a former prosecutor to hear what else they've got, what Google searches went on, where he got the suppressors, because those are. Those are very expensive. And in a lot of states like California, there's a complete ban on them. So this is going to be. There's a lot more evidence coming our way. You and I talked about this the other night, Ashley, and I think you were the first to get it out. This was a Niban hit, which I think is very interesting. So they've got. That's. That's the national ballistics database where they take expanded shell casings from one crime scene and match them to known exemplars. So it sounds like they actually got the firearm here, I think maybe, but they certainly got expended shell casings from his previous residents. And that is incredible, incredibly powerful in front of a jury to link him.
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To these murders, to a weapon and to a silence. You're right. So, Mark, I mean, we're talking about a lot of the bad stuff that defense attorneys don't like to hear. We're talking about surveillance. The police say they have vehicle timelines. Police say they have a weapon and the silencer suppressor that they allegedly have at this point. Can you see any realistic openings right now for defense attorney? Again, knowing what we know.
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Well, knowing what we know, actually. And I apologize for smiling when Matt was telling that story. I was thinking of one particular case that I'm sure he was referring to that we had against each other, if you want to talk about obsession. But putting that aside, yes, there are openings. I mean, the hit on the shell casings reminds me I had another case, not similar, but. But an instrumentality found at the scene. I've actually had two in murder cases. One was a bottle with a fingerprint. Another was a mattress and a bed frame with a fingerprint. We were able to show in both cases and one dismissals in both murder cases that. That was just from somebody else and a good investigator. In both cases, separate guys actually found that Out. So. So I'm not so sure that that's as compelling as it sounds. At least when you frame it the way the prosecutors do. You don't know who brought that casing to the scene. You don't know what the circumstances were of the exemplars and everything else. There's always a lot more to it. I mean, remember, the best day in a lot of these circumstantial evidence cases for the prosecutor is the day they announce it, which is one of the reasons they always want to get a gag order on the defense.
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After that, I think the best day is when they have openings before the defense goes up and gives their opening. Jesse, speaking of the narrative, legally, it is very smart to exercise your right to remain silent, which this defendant did eventually when he was in cuffs. But then when it comes to the media, it makes you look so guilty. And there is a jury pool out there somewhere wanting to know anything more about this. I know what you're going to say, but I want to know why you're going to say it. He should never say another damn word. Why?
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D
Because it used against him. I mean, the Timothy Busfield case this week was the complete opposite.
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C
Right.
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D
Different circumstances, different charges, but he was fighting a case in the court of public opinion and the court of law. This is somebody who's a private citizen. He has not said one word. I think that's very wise. Allow his attorney to do the talking. And right now, he doesn't have to prove anything. What they are going to try to do is dismantle the prosecution's case any which way they can. Any which way. The car evidence, the ballistic evidence, the surveillance footage, go that route. If he says anything, it could potentially be used against him. And if. And if it's only his choice if he ever decides to take the stand. So right now, there's really nothing he should say or could say that I think would help him.
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Jesse Weber, Mark Garagos, Matt Murphy, my final goodbye to you on News Nation. I can't thank you enough for being on this program tonight and for being so smart and helpful all the time. And, Jesse, best of luck to you.
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D
Thank you so much.
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C
It's a real honor, Ashley. Thank you, Ashley, for bringing us in. Yeah.
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A
So clearly we are only at the beginning of this case in Ohio. I think we are basically in the same situation with wondering again why that's where Brian Kohberger left us. And we'll never get that answer. I really don't think we will. Why? Why would you do something like this. Why would you choose those four innocent kids? How could you actually perpetrate that crime? Will we get answers in this case? Dr. McKee? He's innocent until proven guilty. Things don't look good for him right now, that's for sure. And of course, the answer would be why so many years later? What on earth got into you if in fact you did it? This case is still very much unfolding. We're going to continue to follow every single development in it closely. I always ask you to subscribe so you don't miss one of these episodes when we give you new information. Also, I love hearing from you. Please drop us a line in the comments. We love to hear your comments. I've been reading a lot of them and so many of you are so nice about my awful voice. Thank you. I'm fine. I'm actually totally fine. I've never had an illness like this where it's just knocked me out at my moneymaker. Like literally. It's what I do for a living. I talk. So I can't believe I got this. Whatever this crud is. And. And it's really made it hard for me to talk. But thank you for bearing with me and my voice. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. And remember, the truth isn't just serious. It's dropped. Dead serious.