Michael McKee is named in an amended complaint filed Sept. 29, 2025 by a man who allegedly required emergency surgery after an 8-inch catheter broke off in his leg

Spencer and Monique Tepe; Michael David McKee

Spencer and Monique Tepe, Michael McKee.Credit : Schoedinger Funeral & Cremation Service; WIFR News/Pool Photo via AP

Three months before the deaths of Monique and Spencer Tepe, the man accused of murdering the couple was sued for medical malpractice.

Michael McKee allegedly oversaw a botched surgery at Las Vegas Surgical Associates during which an 8.6-inch catheter shard broke off in a patient’s leg, according to a copy of an amended complaint filed in Clark County Court and obtained by PEOPLE.

That amended complaint was filed on Sept. 29, 2025, and the patient’s lawyer spent over a month trying to track McKee down with no luck.

At one point, the process server tasked with delivering the complaint to McKee spoke with one of his co-workers about his whereabouts, according to a declaration of due diligence filed in the case, and was told: “[He] just disappeared.”

McKee’s location is no longer a secret.

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

Michael McKee court
Michael McKee in an Illinois courtroom on Jan. 12.
WBNS 10TV/YouTube
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McKee was arrested almost two weeks after the Tepes were killed inside their Columbus home on Dec. 30 — just days after their fifth wedding anniversary and as their two children, ages 4 and 1, were asleep in their bedrooms.

An arrest warrant filed in Franklin County Court on the day of McKee’s arrest claimed that detectives were “able to identify a suspect through neighborhood video surveillance” and then track that person to a vehicle “which arrived just prior to the homicides and left shortly after the homicides.”

They tracked McKee to Rockford, a city in Illinois located 450 miles away from Columbus.

McKee was working at OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center, a job he took after leaving Las Vegas and moving to Chicago.

That move happened sometime after May 2024, which is when the malpractice lawsuit was first filed against McKee’s Las Vegas employer.

Illinois state medical records show that McKee had been licensed to practice in the state starting in October 2024, and just this past July he purchased a penthouse apartment in Chicago for $400,00.

Then, in September, McKee was named in the amended complaint.

Monique Tepe and Spencer Tepe.
Monique and Spencer Tepe.
Courtesy of Rob Misleh
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 goes on to claim that the plaintiff suffered “numerous adverse sequelae” because 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 that the vascular surgeon had “just disappeared” and on Nov. 10, the plaintiff’s lawyer filed a motion asking the judge that he be able to serve McKee via publication.

The judge delayed hearing arguments on that motion — which would allow the plaintiff to identify McKee as being a defendant in the complaint in a legal journal in lieu of physically serving him the legal document — multiple times before finally approving the motion on Jan. 6, 2026, just four days before McKee’s arrest.

As of now, the case is set to go to trial in July 2027 with McKee as one of the defendants.

The plaintiff is seeking damages totaling over $50,000, and because neither Nevada or Illinois require doctors to be insured for medical malpractice, it is unclear if McKee would be covered if convicted or be forced to pay out of pocket.

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

Why prosecutors allege McKee killed his ex-wife more than eight years after their divorce is still a mystery, but more details are expected to be revealed once he makes that first appearance in an Ohio courtroom.