Ex-husband charged in Ohio couple’s double murder enters not guilty pleas
In this booking photo released by the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, Michael McKee is shown. (Franklin County Sheriff’s Office)
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — The surgeon accused of gunning down his ex-wife and her husband entered a not guilty plea at his first appearance in an Ohio courtroom on Friday.
Michael McKee faces four counts of aggravated murder and one count of aggravated burglary for allegedly shooting and killing his ex-wife, Monique Tepe, and her husband, dentist Spencer Tepe, at their Columbus home on Dec. 30, according to police and prosecutors.
McKee, who was taken into custody in Illinois, was booked into the James A. Karnes Corrections Center in Franklin County, Ohio, on Tuesday.
McKee appeared via video at Friday’s brief hearing and did not speak.
His defense attorney, Diane Menashe, told the court, “We acknowledge receipt, waive reading, enter not guilty pleas to all counts.”
“We would also waive bond at this time,” she added.
McKee and Monique Tepe were married in 2015 and divorced in 2017, according to divorce records obtained by ABC Columbus affiliate WSYX. They did not have any children together, according to the records.
Spencer and Monique Tepe married in December 2020, according to their obituary. The Tepes are survived by their two young children, who were found safe inside their home after the Dec. 30 killings.
“We just want justice,” the Tepes’ brother-in-law, Rob Misleh, told ABC News.
“We want this person that took so much from, not just us as a family, but so many more people. And obviously the kids, especially. We want this person to pay for what they did,” he said.
ABC News’ Josh Margolin and Jason Volack contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A major winter storm is making the post-Christmas travel extremely dangerous in parts of the Northeast, and the storm is set to bring the most snow to New York City in years.
The storm is also impacting flights. Nearly 800 flights have been canceled so far on Friday, with New York City’s three airports and the Detroit Metro Airport hit the hardest.
The storm first hit the Midwest. People in Wisconsin and Michigan are waking up to a layer of ice on the roads, so drivers should use extra caution.
On Friday morning, the freezing rain moves east into Pennsylvania and will cover the entire state throughout the day, making the roads extremely treacherous. An ice storm warning is in place for nearly 1 million people in parts of western Pennsylvania.
On the north side of this storm, where temperatures are cold enough to create snow instead of ice, heavy snowfall is expected in parts of New York, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, western Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
The snow will begin in western New York on Friday morning and reach New York City by 5 p.m. Friday.
The snow will be heavy at times and will greatly reduce visibility, making travel treacherous.
The snow will continue overnight, ending in New York City around 9 a.m.
New York City is forecast to get about 7 inches of snow — the most snow in nearly four years.
A winter storm warning in place for the tristate region. Six to 9 inches of snow is possible in upstate New York, with 10 inches possible in the Hudson Valley. Five to 8 inches is forecast for northern New Jersey, while Hartford, Connecticut, could get about 4 inches.
Philadelphia can expect 1 to 3 inches of a sleet and snow mix, along with a glaze of ice, making travel challenging on Friday night. Baltimore can also expect icy roads.
A memorial dedicated to the 19 children and two adults murdered on May 24,2022 during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School is seen on January 05, 2026 in Uvalde, Texas. Brandon Bell/Getty Images
(CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas) — A judge sided with defense lawyers on Thursday and is instructing jurors to completely disregard the testimony of a former teacher who is a key prosecution witness in the trial of former Uvalde, Texas, school police officer Adrian Gonzales.
Former teacher Stephanie Hale returned to the witness stand for an hour on Thursday in an effort to salvage her testimony, but defense lawyers ultimately argued that allowing her testimony to stand would endanger Gonzales’ right to a fair trial.
“There’s no doubt that this was crucial to the [defense] strategy,” Judge Sid Harle said. “I don’t think I have any choice, having denied the mistrial — other than to craft a remedy that will protect the due process rights and hopefully avoid any appellate review that would result in this case being reversed — so I am reluctantly going to instruct the jury to disregard her testimony in its entirety.”
Before instructing the jury, the judge personally thanked Hale for her testimony and emphasized that she was not at fault.
“I want to emphasize that you did absolutely nothing wrong. It’s not on you,” the judge said. “I want to tell you, just from personal experience, memories of traumatic events change.”
When Hale was on the stand Thursday, defense attorney Jason Goss attempted to point out that her original account — provided to state investigators four days after the May 2022 shooting — differed from what she told the jury on Tuesday.
“Seeing a shooter, and being shot at, are important details, you would agree with that?” Goss said.
“It depends on who you are,” she responded. “I don’t know. I guess possibly.”
Gonzales, who was one of nearly 400 law enforcement officers to respond to the Robb Elementary School mass shooting, is charged with 29 counts of child endangerment for allegedly ignoring his training during the botched police response.
Gonzales has pleaded not guilty. His legal team says he did all he could to help students and maintains he’s being scapegoated.
If convicted on all counts, Gonzales could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Nineteen students and two teachers were killed in the shooting. Investigations faulted the police response and suggested that a 77-minute delay in police mounting a counterassault could have contributed to the carnage.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
A memorial dedicated to the 19 children and two adults murdered on May 24, 2022 during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School is seen on January 06, 2026 in Uvalde, Texas. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Editor’s note: Some of the testimony described below is extremely graphic.
(UVALDE, Texas) — As the sound of gunshots got closer to Room 111 in Robb Elementary School, former fourth-grade teacher Arnulfo Reyes testified that all he could do was tell his students to get under their desks, stay quiet and close their eyes.
“I had told them to close their eyes, because I didn’t want them to see if something bad was going to happen,” Reyes testified Monday at the trial of former Uvalde, Texas, school police officer Adrian Gonzales.
Prosecutors allege Gonzales, who is charged with child endangerment, did not follow his training and endangered the 19 students who died and an additional 10 surviving students. Gonzales has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers argue he is being unfairly blamed for a broader law-enforcement failure that day. It took 77 minutes before law enforcement mounted a counterassault to end the May 2022 rampage.
In excruciating detail, Reyes recounted the tragic moments when gunman Salvador Ramos shot and wounded him and shot and killed all 11 children in his classroom.
Reyes said he fell to the ground after he was struck by gunfire. Then, the shooter “came around and he shot the kids,” Reyes testified, maintaining his composure.
After the first series of gunshots, Reyes testified that a student in a nearby classroom mistook Ramos for police.
“A student from that classroom said, ‘Officer, come in here. We’re in here,'” Reyes testified. “And I heard he walked over there, and I heard more shooting.”
As Reyes lay on the ground bleeding from wounds to his arm and back, he said the shooter returned to his classroom and noticed he was still alive.
“He came and he tried to taunt me. He got some of my blood and splashed it on my face,” he said.
Reyes acknowledged that his sense of time from the shooting was unclear.
“I’m not sure how long, I just know it felt like forever,” he said, adding that all he could do in those moments was pray.
“I just closed my eyes real tight and just waited for everything to be over,” he said.
During cross-examination, defense lawyer Nico LaHood tried to deflect some blame from Gonzales, suggesting Reyes was at least partially at fault for leaving his classroom door unlocked the morning of the shooting.
Reyes will be back on the stand on Tuesday.
Though Reyes did not mention Gonzales by name during Monday’s testimony, the former teacher offered the jury one of the most graphic accounts of the shooting.
Former acting Dallas District Attorney Messina Madson told ABC News that prosecutors are likely attempting to use emotional testimony to emphasize the scope of the tragedy and to argue that someone other than the shooter should bear responsibility for the tragedy.
“This is an unusual way to apply this law, and so from an overall point of view of what the district attorney’s office is trying to do is say this is a tragedy,” Madson said. “This is a terrible, horrible thing that happened, and it is so horrible that not only do we have to mourn it, but somebody is criminally responsible, besides the person who pulled the trigger.”
