A once-prominent vascular surgeon now accused of a brutal double murder in Ohio was actively evading a medical malpractice lawsuit in the months before the killings, with process servers describing him as having “disappeared,” according to newly obtained court documents. Dr. Michael McKe, 33, stands accused of fatally shooting his ex-wife, Mon’nique Teply, and her husband, Spencer Teply, inside their Columbus home on December 30th.
Columbus police have formally classified the attack as an act of domestic violence. McKe, the ex-husband of Mon’nique, was arrested in Illinois last weekend. Authorities allege his vehicle was captured on neighborhood surveillance arriving at and fleeing from the Teply residence around the time of the murders. Multiple weapons were recovered from his Chicago apartment, with police stating a preliminary ballistic link ties one to the homicides.
The emerging portrait of McKe reveals a stark dichotomy between a meticulously constructed professional life and a personal existence marked by abrupt disintegration. New details focus on a malpractice lawsuit filed in Las Vegas, where McKe previously worked for Las Vegas Surgical Associates. The suit, filed in May 2024, names McKe as a defendant related to a July 2023 procedure.
The lawsuit alleges a physician’s assistant under McKe’s supervision incorrectly placed a catheter during a treatment for a vascular condition, causing an 8.6-inch portion to break off inside a patient. McKe is implicated for allegedly failing to properly train the PA. The legal complaint itself is not the primary focus of investigators, but rather McKe’s alleged conduct in response to it.
Court records detail a series of failed attempts to serve McKe with the amended lawsuit, beginning in September 2025βexactly three months before the Ohio murders. A process server’s log indicates a first attempt on September 30th at a Las Vegas address yielded no answer. The server returned the next day, noting a television was heard inside before being shut off, but no one came to the door.
By October 9th, the search grew more desperate. The server spoke with a Dr. Peter Caravella at Las Vegas Surgical Associates, who stated he had “no idea where Dr. Michael McKe is now.” Caravella added, “He just disappeared.” Subsequent attempts at other addresses proved futile, with one woman at a provided location stating she did not know McKe.
The attorney who filed the lawsuit told local media the address given by the surgical group for McKe was “a π»πΆππ address.” He noted the extreme unusualness of a vascular surgeon, a professional at the “bottom of the list” of likely murder suspects, evading service in such a manner. McKe’s Nevada medical license had expired in June 2025.
This period of evasion coincides with McKe’s relocation to Illinois. At the time of his arrest, he was living in a luxury condominium in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood and working at OSF St. Anthony Medical Center in Rockford. A neighbor described him as pleasant but often solitary, expressing shock at the πΆπππππΆππΎπΈππ.
McKe’s journey to this point was, by academic and professional metrics, exemplary. A standout student and athlete from Zanesville, Ohio, he graduated from The Ohio State University College of Medicine in 2014. He married Mon’nique Saboturski in 2015, and the couple moved to Virginia for his surgical residency.
The marriage dissolved quickly. Mon’nique filed for divorce in Ohio in May 2017, citing incompatibility; it was finalized weeks later. Court records suggest she had left McKe at least six months prior. Following the divorce, their paths diverged dramatically. Mon’nique rebuilt her life, meeting dentist Spencer Teply online. They married in late 2020, had two young children, and were described by family as a joyful, loving couple.
McKe, meanwhile, continued his medical training with a fellowship in Maryland before his stints in Las Vegas and Illinois. While Mon’nique’s life became centered on family, McKe’s appeared increasingly isolated and professionally fraught. Spencer Teply’s brother-in-law, Rob Mistla, revealed that Mon’nique had spoken of her ex-husband in deeply negative terms.
“She never called him by name. She would just call him her ex-husband… and just how much of a monster he was to be honest,” Mistla told Law&Crime. He described McKe as “emotionally abusive and ππ½πππΆππππΎππ,” noting that the experience “changed her as a person.”
The juxtaposition is chilling. As McKe allegedly vanished from his professional obligations in Las Vegas, Mon’nique and Spencer were building a life in Columbus. Their children, ages four and one, were home during the attack but unharmed; they are now in the care of family.
Legal analysts highlight the extreme irregularity of McKe’s disappearance from his practice. “Not common at all,” said trial attorney Patrick Provenzal. “You have a physician in the prime of his career… For all of those things to not be true in this case where no one knows where he’s at, he’s not insured, and he’s giving π»πΆππ addressesβreally, really, really unusual.”
The potential intersection of his professional crisis and the alleged premeditated violence is a key line of inquiry. Police tracked McKe’s alleged route from Illinois to Ohio and back using video surveillance before his arrest near his workplace in Rockford. He has waived extradition and is awaiting transport to Ohio to face two counts of aggravated murder.
In his initial court appearance, McKe’s public defender indicated he will plead not guilty. The discovery of the suspected murder weapon, if conclusively linked, would present a formidable challenge for the defense. Experts suggest the case may pivot less on guilt and more on the defendant’s mental state and mitigating factors, especially given Ohio’s potential for the death penalty in aggravated murder cases.
A since-deleted Facebook post from an individual claiming to be a family member of McKe expressed shock, calling the πΆπππππΆππΎπΈππ “totally out of character” and asking for prayers for “all parties.” The post pondered, “It makes me sad to think what kind of headspace he was in if he did this.”
As the community mourns a couple remembered as the “life of the party,” the investigation continues to trace the unraveling of a man who spent 15 years training to save lives, only to be accused of taking two in a act police say was rooted in domestic violence. The legal proceedings will now work to connect the dots between a vanished surgeon in Las Vegas and the accused killer in an Illinois jail.