Crime Stories with Nancy Grace
BIZARRE: BRIEF 'STARTER MARRIAGE' CLUE, DENTIST & WIFE MURDERS @ HOME, TOT KIDS ASLEEP
12 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In the case of a young dentist and his young wife murdered in their own home with their two little children in the home. to find mommy and daddy dead. Could they have even witnessed the murders? As of tonight, a murder-suicide has been ruled out, and I can tell you why.
It's not unusual angles of the bullets or their trajectory path. It's not that sophisticated because there's no weapon. The weapon's gone.
Chapter 2: What happened in the Tepe double homicide case?
They're both shot dead, one of them multiple times, possibly both. But there's no weapon there on the scene. So obviously somebody else did it. And tonight. A starter marriage? What does that have to do with a double homicide? You know what a starter marriage is, right? It's your first try. It's brief. It happened a long time ago. It doesn't really count. That's what you call a starter marriage.
So how does that factor into a double murder? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories, and I want to thank you for being with us.
There's a body. Our friend wasn't answering his phone. We just did a long shift. We just came here, and he appears dead.
The dentist and his wife gunned down children upstairs. There's a body. There's a body. There's a body inside? Yeah. If only I could reach through this camera and get my hands a little finger necklace for the dispatch officer that was taking these calls. Why am I angry? You'll see. Listen.
I guess I would like to ask for a wellness check on an individual at their home. This individual, Spencer, works with me, and he did not show up to work this morning, and we cannot get a hold of him or his family. He is always on time, and he would contact us if there is any issues whatsoever. And I just don't know how else to say this.
We're very, very concerned because this is very out of character. And we can't get in touch with his wife, which is probably the more concerning thing.
When Dr. Spencer Tepe doesn't show up for work at Athens Dental Depot in Columbus, Ohio, co-workers are so shocked they call their boss, the owner of Athens Dental, Dr. Mark Valrose. Valrose is on vacation in Florida, but Spencer not showing up is so unusual. Co-workers felt the need to let Valrose know.
Valrose tries to contact Spencer and failing at that, Tepe's wife, Monique, as she's even more predictable than her husband. Unable to reach either tepee, Valrose calls 911 in Columbus, Ohio at 9.03 a.m. requesting a wellness check.
Okay, Susan Hendricks joining me. Before I go to the whole panel, investigative reporter and author of Down the Hill, My Descent to the Double Murder in Delphi, which is the definitive book on the Delphi double murders of Abby and Libby. Susan, what you didn't hear in that snippet of the 911 call that I just played, you've got the co-worker going, this is really bizarre for him not to be here.
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Chapter 3: What evidence links Michael McKee to the murders?
That's where it starts with this woman.
Her job is not to have preconceived notions about what she believes. It's to answer the 911 calls and get help there. It appears she's bothered by it all. Downplaying what these people, friends of Monique and Spencer, are saying. We need help. Something is wrong.
And you know, Greg Morse joining me, veteran trial lawyer, criminal defense attorney at Morse Legal. He is the founder of that. He is the author of Untested on Amazon. Veteran trial lawyer. Greg, this is the deal. There's something called routine evidence. Not routine as in typical routine evidence. It's evidence of someone's routine.
For instance, if I go to Greg Morse and I look and instead of seeing you, I see an empty chair, I know something's very wrong. That's not your routine. You're always there and prepared, usually with a snarky comment, but you're prepared. So that would be highly unusual. And I would immediately try to find out what's wrong with Morse. See what I mean?
It's your routine from which you do not deviate. But this 911 is like, yeah, I'll send somebody when I got somebody.
Well, it's because it came in as a wellness check, not as a 911. There's an emergency right now. So that's probably why the 911 operator is.
you know puts it in the queue um for police to get out there and they may have been dealing with some other emergencies that's the unfortunate nature of the way the call came in it came in as a wellness check a lot of times wellness checks turn out fine so they probably didn't put a high priority on it at the time and that's because of the way the call came in so i don't know if it's 9-1-1's fault there um uh as much as it is the the nature of the type of call that came in
So, you know, everybody wants to have police respond.
You're right right now.
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Chapter 4: What was the nature of the Tepe's marriage and its impact?
Enjoy this moment. Savor it. I'm saying you're right based on that call alone. But it escalates. And maybe that's why I'm so angry because I know what's in the content of the rest of the 911 calls. And you might want to withhold judgment, Morse, because I can see a savvy defense attorney using the 911 dispatch's bad attitude and lack of urgency as part of a defense. But hold on.
I want you to hear more of the 911 call. Hey, Ron Bateman joining me, former homicide and undercover narc, former sheriff, author of a new book, Opposing Sides, Memoirs of a Drug Dealer and a Detective. Ron Bateman, thank you for being with us. Ron, it's got to drive you crazy when you hear
a disinterested 911 dispatch, because the time that they waste on a case could be the difference in life and death.
True. And Mr. Morris does have a good point. It is a wellness check, which we get hundreds of a day and 99.9% of them turn out to be nothing whatsoever. So this is, and the empathy or the lack of empathy in her voice is a, I know it's troubling to the average person, but you got to understand what they deal with every single day.
And getting a wellness check call is much less dramatic than the other calls that they deal with nonstop. You know, someone being beaten, someone, you know, just got, you know, in a terrible car accident, they're pinned in a car. a wellness check that's put across like that the way the caller did is very matter of fact. So I understand why you could get upset because you know the outcome.
However, the outcome is not known by the dispatcher or the call taker at that point. It is in queue. My question would be, how long did it take for the response? If the response was two or three minutes, then that's normal in a non-emergency call. So Mr. Morris is pretty much right on the mark.
What's the emergency there? Our boss did not report to work. We haven't been able to get a hold of him for three hours. We are on site and we can hear. Okay, I just talked to somebody there. Okay, I'm just making sure somebody called.
Officers arrive at the Tepe residence at 9.22 a.m. Officers knock on the front door multiple times but get no response. Checking the door and windows, officers see no sign of disturbance. At the back door, officers again knock multiple times, no response. Repeating the process, officers fail to get a response and file the report in their logbook, no response.
Okay, there's so many places to go right there. Isn't it true, Susan Hendricks, that they first went to the wrong address?
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Chapter 5: How did the 911 dispatch respond to the wellness check?
Yes, and I watched the body cam footage, and, I mean, he was thorough. He was just at the wrong address. It was a mistake, a big mistake. I mean, it's just compounding as we listen to this and watch it unfold.
Listen to 911 one more time. Listen to this tiny snippet.
What's the emergency there? Our boss did not report to work. We haven't been able to get a hold of him for three hours. We are on site and we can hear. Okay, I just talked to somebody there. Okay, I'm just making sure somebody calls.
I mean, really? I just talked to somebody there. Like, stop bothering me. My nails are drying. Joseph Scott Morgan joining me, Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University. He is the author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. He is the star of a hit podcast series, Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan.
But most important, he is a death investigator with over 10,000 death scene evaluations under his belt of all the possibilities. You've got natural causes. You've got suicide. You have got accident. You've got unexplained. And, of course, you have homicide. And that's his job, 10,000 times plus determining COD cause of death. You know what?
When somebody's shot dead and they're bleeding out, one minute can make a difference in life and death, Joe Scott. Why?
Yeah, because you don't know if the person is in fact salvageable at that point in time. That's one of the big things about this, Nancy, is that there are a lot of unknowns involved in this. The one thing I know is that this individual that's taking the call is irritated by this because I'm not interested in your personal problems about how you just took a call from there. I could care less.
The appropriate response is, it's duly noted, we've got officers en route, okay? Beyond that, there has to be an urgency here to go back out and inspect this area. You've got people swarming over this house. And as we find out, of course, you've apparently got children in the house as well, which is a major problem here. And so this urgency or lack thereof, in hindsight,
You should treat this every single time out of the gate as if this is the most important thing on your plate as opposed to, well, I'm taking other calls from there.
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Chapter 6: What were the reactions of friends and coworkers to the situation?
Like in my field, we always say, listen to the patient, take them seriously, track with what they're saying. This is what the dispatcher should have done.
A co-worker of Spencer goes to the Tepe residence and calls 911, explaining Tepe is her boss and they haven't been able to get a hold of him. The caller tries to tell dispatch they can hear kids inside, but the dispatcher talks over the caller, telling her, I just talked to somebody there. The distraught co-worker apologizes, saying she was just making sure someone called.
Okay, we do have officers responding there. Do you know if he's been ill or anything like that? No, no, I was just with him yesterday.
Okay, so again, she's saying, hey, they're on the way. Maybe he's got the flu. Has he been ill? Okay, keep listening.
What's the emergency there, police or medical? Maybe both, I guess. I don't know. It looks like we already had a call out there. They knocked on the front door and back door multiple times, and there was no answer. Yeah, no answer. I can hear kids inside, and I swear I think I heard one yell. But we can't get in.
One of Spencer's friends goes to the Tepe home and calls 911 at 9.57 a.m. Dispatch tells the friend officers have already been to the location and knocked on doors and got no answer. The friend says, yeah, no answer. I can hear kids inside and I think I heard one yell.
Still disbelieving and it gets worse.
What's changed since the last person I talked to? There's a body, there's a body. There's a body inside? Yes. Okay, hold on one second. Let me get you on the line with the medic, okay? Stay on the line. He appears dead.
There you hear the dispatch say, what's new? What's changed since the last person I talked to? And the friend says, there's a body inside. And the friend is crying. And 911 says, there's a body. And the friend's crying and says, yeah. And 911, Amy, is like, bye. And hooks him over to a medic. Did you hear that, Joe Scott?
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Chapter 7: What details emerge from the investigation into the crime scene?
I know they were killed between 2 and 5. That's what I believe now, 2 and 5 a.m., But can you imagine it? Because we believe the husband was shot at least twice with a nine. Can you imagine the damage done to his body? The wife shot once, we believe. Same weapon. Finding that and the children are there. They had to break in. They had to get into the home themselves instead of police doing it.
And as I re-listened to it, what a great group of friends. They're not impatient saying, where the heck are you? We've been calling. No, they take matters into their own hands. And you could almost sense that he's saying something in code to the dispatcher, meaning, no, it's a body, meaning it's the young girl nearby, the four-year-old, because he's not saying Spencer. He's not saying Monique.
Maybe she would think mommy and daddy. It was just, I mean, the friends, so close-knit, and you could tell just by listening to those calls.
I'm sure it's something instinctive, especially once you have children, but when I hear a child crying, it just puts me on edge. I've got to get to the child. I've got to find out what's happening with the child. That never goes away once you have children and you hear a baby crying. I wanted to hear the baby crying in the background and the friend crying on the phone.
What's changed since the last person I talked to? There's a body, there's a body. There's a body inside? Yeah. Okay, hold on one second. Let me get you on the line with the medic, okay? Stay on the line. He appears dead.
I just played you a snippet of that 911 call where the friends finally, since the cops don't show up and dispatch is giving them the runaround, they break into the home. They go into the home to discover the two dead bodies of their dear friend and co-worker, their boss and his wife. I want you to hear the rest of that call.
What's changed since the last person I talked to? There's a body. There's a body. There's a body inside? Yes. Okay, hold on one second. Let me get you on the line with the medic, okay? Stay on the line. He appears dead. There's a body. Our friend wasn't answering his phone. We just did a wellness check. We just came here, and he appears dead. Okay.
He's laying next to his bed, off of his bed, and there's blood. I can't get closer to see more than that. Okay, so you can tell he's obviously not breathing or anything? Yeah, yeah. Is it like, how do I, like, how do I, like, you know, does he look like... It doesn't look like all the blood. I can't, I can't look. Okay, all right. I understand.
Okay, I'm learning something new right there. Ron Bateman joining us, former homicide and undercover narc and author of Opposing Size. Ron, killed in their beds because it says he's off, he's lying next to his bed, off of his bed. So the perp shoots them in their sleep between 2 and 5 a.m.
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Chapter 8: How did the police track the suspect's movements?
It's really tragic and I really feel sorry for the kids that they're going to have to deal with this the rest of their life. At least the four-year-old probably will and the coworkers. And yeah, the whole thing is sad. And I got to talk about dispatchers. The turnover rate for dispatchers in police departments is incredibly high because of the...
the numerous hours that they work because of lack of staff, they have to work automatic overtime. I'm married to a former dispatcher. I've heard it. I know all about it. I know about the downfalls of their, their empathy that they, some of them lack.
Some of them are very, it's, you know, it's a, it's a job that they treasure and they, they speak to every person like it's their family member, but some of them are just cold and just relay that empathy. I don't give a crap attitude like this dispatcher did. Competency is everywhere, and definitely with the high turnover rate of dispatchers, it's prevalent.
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Susan Hendricks, I'm learning something about the home and about the murders. They were killed. It's an eerie echo of the Rob Reiner and Michelle Singer Reiner murders, where prosecutors allege their own son murdered them in their sleep. I disagree.
I think they woke up during it because there's multiple wounds to them, suggesting to me at least that they fought back. That said, here, the friend says he's off the bed. Is the bedroom downstairs or upstairs? Did the stalker, did the killer know where the bedroom was? Did he have to sneak around the house? And I say he because statistically, based on this scenario, a guy did it.
Do you know, when you look at the homes, do we have a photo of the home? It's an up and down. Do we know if the bedroom is on the bottom or the top?
The bedroom's on the third floor, Nancy, and you bring up an excellent point. There were two ways to look at this home. It was for sale recently, so it was on a website, real little website. Also, it's in our wedding video.
The video you're seeing of the home is from our friends at WSYX ABC6. So you're saying, you said the first floor or the third floor, assuming there's a basement. First or third, where is the bedroom? Third. Because looking at it, I only see two floors. Does that mean there's a basement? Is that what you're saying?
Yeah, I'm assuming you kind of walk down into the bottom floor. I looked at this home on the real estate websites and I could see exactly where everything was.
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