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Going West: True Crime
Monique and Spencer Tepe / Part 2 (Happening Now) // 572
00:38:15
Today, an arrest was made for the murders of Monique and Spencer Tepe, who were killed on December 30, 2025, in their Columbus, Ohio home. Join us as we get into the new details that have since been released, as well as diving deep into who exactly the suspect is... This is the ongoing story of Monique and Spencer Tepe.
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Credit stop if you cancel any lines. Qualifying credit required.
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Special Agent Will Trent, ABC Tuesdays, you run from the dark.
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That's why it chases you.
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Get out of my house. The hit series Will Tread is back.
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Will, this is a manhunt, not a murder that needs to be solved.
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A
And the truth this man killed my mother and left me to die. He's out.
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I think if we don't catch this guy then he's gonna go off the.
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Deep end of control.
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They won't even see you coming.
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I have to end this will tread. Tuesdays 8, 7 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.
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More flavor, more cocktails, more moments. Ditch the rules, keep the ritual. Find yours@ritual0proof.com foreign. What is going on? True crime fans? I'm your host, Heath.
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And I'm your host, Daphne.
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And you're listening to Going West.
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B
Man, oh man. Hello everybody. We are here on a Saturday because yesterday, as many of you know, we came out with an episode on Monique and Spencer Tepe. But this morning there was a major, major update. There has been an arrest made in the case. Somebody who Heath and I in yesterday's episode didn't put enough suspicion on because it didn't seem like there was enough there. And now there's a lot.
- [02:18]
C
Yeah, I mean, honestly, this was kind of the furthest thing from my mind that was going to happen. But now that we know, now that we know that there's been an arrest made, we can finally dive into some of the details and everything that's been released since that arrest.
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B
Yeah. And things we didn't really want to dive into in yesterday's episode because we didn't know if it would be relevant or not. So now we can. We have a bunch of updates for you guys. So thank you all for being here. Thank you for showing interest in this case. And whenever we do happening now cases, we love doing cases like these because he and I are really into current events. We're really into everything that's going on in the news. We stay super up to date and we like talking about unfolding cases to help spread the word. And it looks like you guys like when we do that. So thank you so much. And without further ado.
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C
All right, guys, this is the update of Spencer and Monique Tepe, episode 572 of Going West. So let's get into it.
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B
SA. Tonight, a man's now behind bars accused of killing Spencer and Monique Tepe. The Tepes were shot and killed on Dec. 30 inside their Wineland park home. The couple's two young children, who were also in the home at the time of the shooting, were unharmed. Investigators have been on the hunt for the shooter for the past 11 days. And that search came to an end this morning. They identified a suspect from surveillance footage that showed a car pulling up to the area before the murders and then leaving soon after. They say they then found that car soon after in Illinois and linked it to the suspect. You see him right there. The family also coming forward and releasing a statement of their own saying in part, today's arrest represents an important step towards justice for both Spencer and Monique.
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Foreign.
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First, I want to say for anybody who has not yet listened to our first episode on Monique and Spencer Tepe that came out yesterday, please go listen to that first. Just because we didn't have the latest doesn't mean that everything we talk about is not relevant, because it very much is. We go over the neighborhood, the house itself, the locks, how they were found.
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C
Yes. And also, you know, as much as we had known about that crime at that time.
- [05:17]
B
Yeah. And there was quite a bit. It's a 55 or 56 minute long episode. So go check that out and come back if you haven't. Okay. If you're still here, I'm assuming you listened because if not, a lot of this might not make sense. Now, before we dive into the latest updates on this story, an obituary has since come out which gives a better picture into the life of mo'. Nique. And we wanted to dive into her a little bit more for a second because I know a lot of people didn't like how much she, Spencer's role as a dentist was mentioned, whereas Monique was reduced to being a mom. But I Also want to say that her family said being a mom was her greatest joy, and there was nothing wrong with a woman wanting to be a mother and not have a job. So when I say reduced to just being a mom, like that's not a bad thing either.
- [06:04]
C
Yeah, this is something that she really enjoyed doing, being a mom.
- [06:08]
B
Yeah, well, actually, children in general were such a passion of hers, which is why she worked at a daycare for many years. But like Spencer, Monique also went to college. Actually, she worked at a daycare while she was in college, and she also attended Ohio State University to obtain her master's in early childhood education. So they went to the same college, but this isn't how they met. Remember, Monique was two years older than Spencer. They actually met online after Monique divorced from her first husband, Michael in 2017, and their relationship grew from there. Now, we previously mentioned that they married in 2021, but it has since been released that they married on December 13, 2020 in a private family ceremony. Monique has a brother named Joseph and a sister named Amanda, all born to parents Nerada and Ignatius Saboterski, while Spencer has a sister named Madeline and both born to parents Yvonne and Tim Tepe. So in our first episode on this case that came out the day before this one, didn't think we'd be back so soon. We mentioned that there was a ton of speculation surrounding Monique's ex husband, Michael. In fact, we didn't even give his surname in the episode because we wanted to help protect his identity since a lot of people were accusing him of murder without any basis. We, we kind of believed in this guy and he totally fucking let us down.
- [07:38]
C
Yeah, I mean, honestly, it had been, what, 10 years, almost 10 years since they divorced. So in our minds, we're kind of thinking, well, what would be the motive here?
- [07:47]
B
Yeah, I think a lot of people were wondering that from the beginning because he's the ex husband. You know, we see that in a lot of cases, people just assumed that he was the only person who would be guilty because we don't know the other players in their lives. But yeah, like you're saying, he. It seemed like that was kind of far fetched because looking at it from the outside, Monique and Michael divorced in 2017. That was almost nine years ago. So the idea that he would have wanted to harm or kill Monique and her husband of five years just felt kind of unreasonable. But Today, on Saturday, January 10, 2025, Monique's ex husband, 39 year old Michael David McKee, has been arrested for their murders.
- [08:32]
C
Well, this week and with the news of his arrest, a ton of information has come out about Monique and Michael's relationship, as well as their divorce. We also did our own personal deep dive into Michael's life and we will get into all of that to help us understand with the information available, how and why this happened. Because obviously, as we know, a lot of times in cases like this, motives and answers don't come out until there's a trial. Because it's pretty rare that pieces of shit plead guilty and spill it all upon their arrest. So before we dive into all that, let's talk about what transpired that morning and how police landed on this arrest. So here's a quick recap. On Tuesday, December 30, 2025, 39 year old Monique and 37 year old Spencer Teppe were murdered inside their Wineland Park, Columbus, Ohio home via gunshot wounds after 911 received multiple calls from loved ones who were worried about them when Spencer Spencer didn't arrive to work at the Athens Dental Depot since he was a dentist and neither of them were answering their phones. We know that Spencer was found on the floor next to his bed in their upstairs bedroom. But police have still not released where Monique was, nor have they released how the assailant entered the home. Just that it was sometime between 2 and 5am Though, as of today, the offense time is listed as the 3.52am so that kind of clears things up for us because in the first episode we talked about how the crime was committed sometime between 2am and 5am That's a pretty good, pretty big window.
- [10:13]
B
Yeah. And we wondered if they would have been awake. A lot of people commented and said, oh well, he had like an hour and a half commute to work. Spencer did. So maybe he would have been up at 5am if it happened then. But this was pretty early 3:52.
- [10:26]
C
So this is kind of clearing things up. We know that it happened around 3:52am now, in our first episode, we discussed a lot about the locks, the doors, etc. Because police detected no signs of forced entry yet all doors were apparently locked. And this is based on the fact that friends called 911, suggesting that they break into the house so they could check on the family themselves and get to the Tepe's two children, aged four and one and their goldendoodle dog who were found unharmed inside. A neighbor came forward the week after the murders explaining that he hadn't heard anything that night, but that the new stretch of homes are well insulated. So he wasn't really surprised that he hadn't heard the gunshots. And right now we don't know if any other neighbors heard gunshots, but considering multiple were fired, we'd be surprised that they didn't. Unless a silencer was used.
- [11:23]
B
Yeah, especially because if you guys look at our socials app photos of their house and their neighbors, the houses are so close together.
- [11:31]
C
Yeah. It's not like they're separated by like 30 yards. I mean, they're just a few feet away from each other. And actually, this neighbor who explained that he didn't hear any gunshots that night explained that his cameras were not working then, so he couldn't provide footage. But in a conversation with police, they apparently told him that they thought the crime was targeted against Monique and Spencer and that it wasn't a random attack. So he's saying that police told him early that, yeah, we really think that somebody was targeting this couple, which is.
- [12:03]
B
Kind of surprising to me, first and foremost, that they would share that. But maybe they were so confident that they didn't care. But also because when we were talking in the last episode and we were going over the. The gun violence and crimes in their neighborhood, it very much felt like it could have been random and maybe a home invasion gone wrong because there really was nothing at the time pointing to this being somebody that they knew. Like we said in the end of the episode, the family didn't say Spencer had a weird patient or something. It didn't seem like from what we had that it could have been personal.
- [12:40]
C
Yeah. And on top of that, you know, as. As you're saying, you know, we discussed all the crime and stuff like that within that neighborhood and that, that row of houses, they're all pretty nice and new. Like, they're fairly, I would say, fairly expensive homes for that neighborhood specifically.
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B
Yeah, they're definitely the nicest homes on the block.
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C
So if somebody randomly was going to target a house, you would, you would kind of understand why they would maybe go for that row of homes specifically.
- [13:07]
B
So. True.
- [13:08]
C
Well, as we know, one surveillance clip was released, and we don't yet know if that was Michael or not, because that's all that's come out on that. But we know that surveillance footage is how they caught Michael because after reviewing footage from all of the cameras on their street and many beyond it, a certain vehicle stood out to them, seen arriving shortly before the killings and leaving shortly afterwards. So they traced this vehicle and quickly investigators found it in Rockford, Illinois, which is a six and a half hour drive away from Columbus, Ohio. So, I mean, in their minds, they're thinking, why is this car that we're checking out on surveillance footage six and a half hours away, quite the road trip.
- [13:54]
B
Well, let's get into the owner of that vehicle, the person who showed up on other surveillance cameras that police looked at, Michael McKee. Michael David McKee was born on June 29, 1986, and has been living in Chicago, Illinois, specifically Lincoln park, which is an hour and a half drive from Rockford, Illinois, where the suspicious vehicle was found. He attended Bishop Rosecrans High School in Zanesville, Ohio, which is an hour east of Columbus. And this is a private Catholic school. And there he played football and basketball and received several academic honors throughout his time there. And he was also part of the debate team, like Spencer and Monique. He also attended Ohio State University, very popular university among this group, studying medicine in their medicine and public health program, graduating in 2014. So, like I said, he has a connection to Rockford, Illinois. It seems that is where he has been working recently, practicing medicine, specifically surgery and vascular surgery. But he allegedly used to work in Columbus, Ohio, as well. Other documents suggest that he only has medical licenses in Illinois and California because he also used to practice in la, but he did previously do a residency at the Carilion Clinic in Columbus, Ohio. He also previously had a Nevada medical license, which elapsed in mid-2025. And he was actually one of several doctors that were named in an ongoing personal injury lawsuit in Nevada. But according to his medical licenses, he did not have any disciplinary history in the states that he practiced in. He also doesn't have a prior criminal record, aside from traffic tickets, which is something we brought up in the last episode, where, like, he doesn't have a criminal record. He lives in a different state.
- [15:52]
C
Yeah, we were kind of trying to dig into his background a little bit to see if there was anything there.
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B
It just didn't feel like it was gonna be a thing. Like, I'm shocked.
- [16:01]
C
There was really nothing there. We didn't see anything that would indicate that he might be responsible for this.
- [16:06]
B
Well, regarding his relationship with Monique, according to an unverified friend of the family's, Michael knew Monique and her family while growing up. So they go way back. They apparently knew each other since first grade. They added, quote, he was nice, focused and quiet. Everyone knew he wanted to be a doctor, and he was set on that path at an early age. Now, Monique grew up in Westerville, Ohio, which is north of Columbus, so about an hour from Zanesville, so we don't know yet. Where she went to school. We cannot confirm how long they actually knew each other, but some sources claim that they had at least been romantically connected since 2012, which would have been while he was studying at OSU. I couldn't find a graduation date or year for Monique. We know that she earned her master's, so it's possible that in 2012 she was still in school, but we're not sure. According to divorce records and their wedding registry with the knot, Monique and Michael McKee married on August 22, 2015 and separated only seven months later in March of 2016. So despite them potentially dating for years, looking very happy on their wedding day. Check our socials if you want to see a photo. Their marriage was was incredibly short. But official divorce proceedings didn't begin until a little over a year later in May of 2017, and they finalized in June of 2017. So a seven month marriage, or at least seven months before the separation, and a six week divorce.
- [17:48]
C
Now, at the time of their divorce, Michael was living in Roanoke, Virginia, where he was attending a surgical residency program. So he's lived in many different states over the years, whereas Monique was still in Ohio working for Nationwide in Columbus. But the divorce itself didn't appear explosive. It was actually labeled as amicable. They didn't share any children with each other. They divorced when they were 31 and 30. And although we mentioned in the previous episode that restraining orders were placed against each other, again, this was really just a standard practice and really just had to do with their assets, like how they were going to split up the assets that they had. They just didn't want them, you know, causing any problems for each other.
- [18:33]
B
Yeah, it just protected them or each of them from selling their shared assets as well as from, like, potential harassment. Because obviously divorce is often a very contentious process.
- [18:45]
C
Yeah, I mean, for example, Monique had paid for her own wedding ring, it was $3,500, and her own engagement ring, which was $2,500. So the divorce document stated that these were her personal property, not shared assets. Monique had a lawyer in their divorce as well, but Michael actually decided that he was going to represent himself. But interestingly, they hired a private retired judge to oversee the final hearing, which was apparently for speed and privacy, hence why it only took about six weeks to finalize. So for whatever reason, they wanted it to be quick, or at least Monique did, because she was, of course, the one who filed. Now, the only notes on why they divorced were incompatibility. So we don't really know at this point what that means whether there was a dispute over something, if they really just didn't like each other at the end of the day or what, or.
- [19:41]
B
If there was more to the story and they just decided let's just get a divorce and get it over with. Like there clearly is a lot that we don't know about their relationship and at least how Michael acted towards her if he murdered her so many years later.
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C
I think now that we know Michael's name, we know that he's been arrested. I feel like a lot of that information will surface. We will find out more about Michael David McKee.
- [20:10]
B
So that is pretty much the gist of what we know about their marriage and their divorce and their relationship that has been concretely released. But it seems like there's more under the surface.
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Thursday on NBC.
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There was an explosion at a top secret prison. Some of the most infamous killers broke free.
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FBI.
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- [26:24]
B
Later on in this episode we're going to talk about a court document that we found that is very suspicious and connects to the divorce between Michael and Monique. But we're going to get into that later. Unfortunately at this time we don't know if they remained in contact, if there was an affair, if there was any stalking because obviously Michael needed some type of motive to want to take the life of his ex wife Monique and her husband of five whole years, Spencer. Presently, Michael lives in a penthouse condo on North Lincoln park west known as the Pierre. It's a vintage full amenity mid rise building. It's really beautiful. It overlooks Lincoln park and Lake Michigan. So again, he's hours away from Monique and hadn't lived near her for a very long time. By the way, for anybody wondering his stature, he is currently 6 foot 1 and, and 200 pounds.
- [27:22]
C
I think it's kind of funny because somebody on Reddit said that he looks like the human version of spongebob. I also saw somebody, yeah, I also saw somebody say that his head looks like a Lego. It does.
- [27:35]
B
I think they're saying that because he kind of has a square head, square face.
- [27:37]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And not to talk too much shit, obviously, but this guy's a, this guy's, you know, he's a monster.
- [27:42]
B
So yeah, if he did this, then him, he's SpongeBob. Well, on January 10, 2026, just before noon local time, 39 year old Michael McKee, practicing vascular surgeon, was arrested in Rockford, Illinois. Now, as I just said, he Lived in Chicago. And Rockford, again, is an hour and a half away from Chicago, but he apparently has been working at OSF St. Anthony Medical center in Rockford. So he's got a little bit of a commute there. So if they arrested him in Rockford, which it says they did everywhere, and linked the vehicle in question to Rockford, and he owned the vehicle, by the way, and has since September 9, 2025, they must have traced his car and him to his workplace. And he may have been arrested while at work.
- [28:35]
C
Can you even, even imagine, like he's at work doing surgery. Yeah. About ready to do some surgery and the police just walk in and put him in handcuffs, gloves on. Yeah, that'd be crazy.
- [28:47]
B
It'd be crazy. Well, at 12:04pm so within a few minutes or so, Michael was booked at the Winnebago County Jail right there in Rockford as well. And I will note that he was arrested without incident today, the day of Michael's arrest, the day this episode drops, January 10th, the complaint and warrant was released in public records and here's what it says. Quote, complainant being duly sworn, states that the above named defendant, Michael McKee at Franklin County, Columbus, Ohio, on or about the 30th day of December 2025, did knowingly cause the death of another to witness Monique Francis Tepe by means of shooting her with a firearm, as well as the death of Spencer Louis Tepe by means of shooting him with a firearm. It's actually in this document that lists the offense time to be 3:52am, which again, it was previously mentioned to have happened between 2 to 5am so, yeah, based on surveillance footage, the police must have been able to pinpoint a more accurate timeline because this information came out before they even arrested Michael McKee. So we, it's possible as well that he has been interviewed and was interviewed before his arrest. I imagine he would have been, but we, we don't know yet.
- [30:16]
C
Also, I do want to mention that the car that the vehicle in question that Michael was linked to has not been mentioned anywhere in publication. So we don't know the color, the make, the model or anything about that yet. And I think the reason why they're doing this is because they really want to protect the integrity of the investigation just to make sure that there's no fuckery going on and that they actually have the right vehicle here.
- [30:42]
B
I feel like that information probably will come out this week. You know, understandably, I mean, police haven't said anything since they arrested him. This is. It still happened Today. So they have not had a press conference yet. They haven't said anything. They only released a very small amount of information which was essentially that they arrested him in Rockford based on surveillance footage of his car and himself in the area. So that is all they have said. And I'm very, I'm sure all of us are very interested in seeing what else they'll say.
- [31:14]
C
But a lot of people are also doing their own web sleuthing. They're doing a lot of digging. There is a 55 page document that talks about Monique and Michael's divorce. It explains all the assets that they shared, the money that they made, where they lived at the time, all of these things. So you can go read that if you can find it.
- [31:33]
B
Yeah, we included the highlights, but yeah, like you're saying their annual salary and the price of their home and all that stuff we didn't include because it's just not. Doesn't seem like it's relevant or at least not at this point because we still don't know what his motive is.
- [31:46]
C
Yeah, I mean, if it's, if it's a financial motive, then they probably will go into all of that.
- [31:51]
B
I know at the time that they got divorced, there was a debt that Monique had to her then husband, Michael.
- [31:58]
C
Yeah, it was like twelve hundred dollars or something.
- [32:00]
B
Yeah. And there was like a contingency on that debt where if she didn't pay it off by a certain amount of time, that interest would accrue.
- [32:08]
C
Yeah, I think it was 23% interest. And also she was meant to pay that debt off by July 1st, 2018.
- [32:15]
B
Yeah, I can't imagine he murdered her over $1200 seven years earlier. So. But yeah, this document does include a lot more about the financials and their assets of the divorce and their relationship. So if it turns out that assets were the motive, which is just hard for me to believe, we will. But clearly I don't know shit about shit because I didn't think he was guilty either. Yeah, then we'll include that in the next episode. In a statement released today, January 10th, the Tepe family said, quote, today's arrest represents an important step toward justice for Monique and Spencer. Nothing can undo the devastating loss of two lives taken too soon. But we are grateful to the city of Columbus Police Department, its investigators and assisting law enforcement community whose tireless efforts helped to capture the person involved. We thank the community for the continued support, prayers and compassion shown throughout this tragedy. As the case proceeds, we trust the justice system to hold the person responsible fully accountable. Monique and Spencer remain at the center of our hearts, and we carry forward their love. As we surround and protect the two children they leave behind, we will continue to honor their lives and the light they brought into this world. Tomorrow, on January 11, 2026, a celebration of life will be held for Monique and Spencer Tepe. Arlington, Ohio. Michael McKee has a hearing scheduled for Monday, January 12th, at 1:30pm local time. And we can only hope and wonder if an affidavit will be released this week, just like it was when we covered the story of Rebecca park last month. Make sure you guys are following us on socials. We do a lot of, like, videos and update posts on there, if you want. Like it. If you want to hear this news and these updates as they're coming in.
- [34:14]
C
Yeah, like real time.
- [34:15]
B
Yeah. For every case that we cover, honestly. So follow us. And then, of course, if there's enough to do an episode on it like there was today, we'll do that. Well, in our last episode, we stated that Spencer's cousin Audrey said it could be anyone. But now, according to a family source, they believed it was Michael McKee all along, but didn't want to speak on it publicly as not to interfere with the investigation, which is a really crazy.
- [34:44]
C
Detail that they kind of had their. Their suspicions from the jump.
- [34:48]
B
Yeah. Which means there must be a much bigger story here that even Monique and Spencer's families are aware of. So was he stalking Monique and or Spencer, Was he harassing them, maybe trying to get Monique back? Something I really wanted to try to find was whether or not Michael got married after he and Monique were together, what his relationship statuses are or have been.
- [35:15]
C
I guess he dating somebody, you know, over this past, like, eight and a half years that him and Monique weren't together.
- [35:21]
B
I saw a lot of rumors that he was married to a man at some point. I don't know if that's true. I don't know if people are talking about a different Michael McKee.
- [35:29]
C
Yeah, it could be. I think that's pure speculation at this point.
- [35:33]
B
I also saw on Reddit, somebody was like, Michael McKee was not married to a man. My source, I know him.
- [35:39]
C
Oh, okay. Well, there you go.
- [35:40]
B
So. But I just want to mention that for anybody else who has read that, because of course we're speculating motive, but there is so much to the story that we don't have so many pieces to the puzzle that we don't have access to.
- [35:53]
C
A couple of the things that I really wonder about this case is did Michael have Any sort of contact between his divorce with Monique until, you know, up until right now, you know, was there any contact between them? Like, had he run into them? Was he trying to speak with Monique over social medias or something like that? Like, you know what I mean?
- [36:16]
B
Like, I was wondering that too. I know neither of us could find socials for Michael McKee. Also, I found one Instagram account for Monique, but it's private and it didn't look like she used it. So it's really hard to dive into that and see if they were following each other, if they were friends on anything. But that's why I really wonder if he was stalking them or if there was an affair or maybe if Michael just couldn't let her go.
- [36:42]
C
Well, as we talked about, they knew each other since like the first grade. So maybe it's something like, you know, he just really couldn't let her go. He had known her his whole life. Maybe he was just stuck to that fact. But the thing that's weird here is that usually when we see these cases, stalking cases or whatever, which I'm not even saying it's a stalking case at this point, but usually when we see cases like this, it appears that the perpetrator usually does something within like a year or two. It's just so surprising to me that an almost an entire decade went by and then now he decides to do something.
- [37:20]
B
Or maybe he has been doing things. Like in the Kristeel Krug case, sure, she was reporting a stalker months before she was killed. So maybe police felt like it was him because there was record of stalking or there was record of contact. And I'm sure if the family believe that he could have done it, they said, hey, police detectives, look at this. We think it's him. Because xyz, like they had to have a reason. It wouldn't just be like, oh, this guy that she was married to. If they all thought that, or at least if some of them thought it, they had. There had to be a story there.
- [37:56]
C
Well, there might actually be something deeper here because it does appear that Michael and Monique were in contact this past year because there was another hearing regarding something with their finalized divorce in June and September of 2025. So basically, there is a court document page from Franklin County, Ohio, tied to the divorce between Monique Sabotersky and Michael McKee that was originally filed back in 2007, 2017, and legally closed years ago. And obviously this is something we know because they closed that divorce in June of 2017. So basically, even when a divorce is finished, the case file stays in the court system permanently, and it can briefly be reopened for limited or technical reasons without undoing the original divorce. Now, this docket in particular shows that in mid-2025, the court scheduled and then rescheduled a hearing connected to the old divorce case. Now, importantly, the docket does not explain why the hearing was requested, who requested it, or what specific issue the court was planning to address. All it shows is that a hearing was placed on the calendar, it was postponed, formally noticed to both parties by mail, and then it was moved to a later date, again, September of 2025. There are no rulings listed and no outcomes described. So we're not exactly sure what happened with it yet.
- [39:28]
B
Yeah, one of the most confusing parts of this document is that the hearing is labeled using a court shorthand that includes the word custody. So at first glance, that sounds like child custody, which immediately raises a bunch of questions because there is no public indication that Monique and Michael had any children together. Even her obituary, written by family, says that she had two kids, four and one via Spencer. However, the document itself contains no references to minor children, parenting time, child support, or any of the language that normally appears in an actual custody dispute. And in Ohio domestic relations courts, labels like this are often standardized internal categories used by clerks, and they don't always reflect the everyday meaning of that word that is custody. So, basically, the word custody appearing here does not by itself mean that children are involved.
- [40:29]
C
And I want to say that one of our listeners made a comment about, oh, well, maybe that's the reason why Michael didn't harm the children in this attack. You know, maybe they were his kids or something like that. But that doesn't appear to be be true. Obviously, there's some speculation about this document and some suspicion there, but obviously, the word custody, as you just said, does not mean that it's related to children.
- [40:54]
B
I mean, that would be a super crazy twist. But for now, the most responsible way to understand the record is that it reflects administrative court activity, not hidden family details or proof of a custody battle. Anything beyond that would be total speculation. And the document itself does not support those conclusions anyway.
- [41:15]
C
Yeah, and, you know, on top of this, everything that we just said, it is an interesting fact to know that there was a hearing scheduled for September of 2025, given the fact that they were just murdered, you know, in December of 2025, maybe there's some sort of connection between that hearing and what happened on December 30th.
- [41:38]
B
Yeah, I think we would be very interested to know more about this because of that small three month gap between September and December because they were both supposed to appear. So that means that they would have seen each other if that did indeed happen in September. And what was it about? Did it have anything to do with his potential motive for murdering them? There. There's so much underneath here that has not been released. There is a GoFundMe raising money to help provide stability and care for their children and the immediate family members who are supporting them during this time, which we will link in the description of this episode for anybody who wants to donate alongside us. And of course, again, like we keep saying, we will update you guys as we see more news on this. But for now, we are glad that their families can get a small morsel of closure knowing that the person who is likely responsible is behind bars. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West.
- [42:50]
C
Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. Make sure that you check out the GoFundMe for the Tepe children. It's very important. You know we are going to donate, so if you want to as well, please do so. Also, head on over to our socials. Like Daphne said earlier, it's a great place to get updated on cases like this because we're going to keep up to date with all of it. We're going to be making videos and posts. Yeah. So go check it out if you want to see photos from this episode.
- [43:17]
B
Yes. And just so you guys know, we were going to record the Tuesday episode today, but we dropped everything to do all this research and digging into the updates on this story. So instead of bringing you guys a new episode on Tuesday, we will probably do another small update episode because I imagine we will be learning more on Monday after Michael's hearing. But that is just where our heads are at right now. We have a crazy new case coming for you guys at least then on Friday instead. So stay tuned, keep listening to Going west and thank you guys so much.
- [43:51]
C
All right, guys. So for everybody out there in the.
- [43:53]
B
World, don't be a stranger. My name is special Agent Rebecca Henderson.
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A
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There was an explosion at a top secret prison. Some of the most infamous killers broke free.
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