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When Monique Tepe divorced Michael McKee in 2017, she did what every expert says to do — she got out. She moved on, remarried, had children, and built a stable life in Columbus, Ohio with her husband Dr. Spencer Tepe. But according to an unsealed affidavit, the danger didn't end with the divorce. Witnesses told investigators McKee had threatened to kill Monique, told her she would always be his wife, and allegedly subjected her to strangulation and sexual violence during their marriage.
Court records allege that in the weeks before December 30, 2025, McKee surveilled the Tepe residence using a silver SUV outfitted with stolen Ohio and Arizona license plates. Surveillance footage allegedly captured him on the Tepe property during the Big Ten Championship weekend while the couple was in Indianapolis. Three weeks later, Spencer and Monique were found shot to death in their home. Their two children, ages four and one, were found alive.
This episode breaks down the neuroscience and psychology of sustained threat — how chronic fear changes brain chemistry, decision-making, and perception of danger. We examine why normalization of fear is one of the most misunderstood aspects of domestic violence and why the post-separation period is statistically the most lethal. We also look at the institutional blind spots that allowed McKee to allegedly move between four states, acquire and lose medical licenses, evade a process server, and remain unconnected to any domestic violence database.
Michael McKee has pleaded not guilty to all charges including aggravated murder and aggravated burglary. He is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
#MichaelMcKee #MoniqueTepe #SpencerTepe #TrueCrimeToday #DomesticViolencePsychology #NormalizationOfFear #ColumbusOhio #AggravatedMurder #SystemFailure #TrueCrimePodcast
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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

The Guthrie family spent seventeen days in a psychological vise — grieving a mother whose fate they don't know, while the internet decided they were suspects. Annie Guthrie was the last person to see Nancy alive. That made her a target. Her husband Tommaso was with her. That made him a target. Savannah posted emotional video appeals. Commenters debated whether her tears were real. It took until yesterday for Sheriff Chris Nanos to state publicly that every family member has been cleared — and to call the online accusations what they are: cruel.
On True Crime Today, psychotherapist Shavaun Scott breaks down the psychological dimensions of the Guthrie family's ordeal that go far beyond the missing person case itself. Scott — a licensed clinician with thirty years of experience in trauma recovery and forensic mental health — explains the concept of ambiguous loss, the sustained psychological torment of not knowing whether a loved one is alive or dead, and why research shows it can be more psychologically damaging than confirmed death.
She examines the specific trauma of public suspicion — what it does to a person's sense of self to be accused by thousands of strangers based on nothing but proximity to a timeline. She addresses the compounding effect of institutional helplessness: watching evidence get contaminated, footage take ten days to retrieve, DNA get sent to the wrong state for processing — all while the clock runs on your mother's survival — and having absolutely no power to make any of it go faster or better.
Scott also takes on the question most people don't want to hear: clearing someone's name doesn't clear the psychological record. The accusations live on in screenshots, archived threads, and the memories of people who never saw the follow-up. The family may carry the psychological weight of false suspicion long after the investigation closes — alongside whatever outcome the case itself delivers.
#NancyGuthrie #SavannahGuthrie #FamilyCleared #OnlineAccusations #AmbiguousLoss #GriefAndSuspicion #ShavaunScott #TrueCrimeToday #HiddenKillers #FamilyTrauma
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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

You saw the patterns. You recognized the cycle. Somewhere underneath all the hoping — you knew.
And you stayed anyway. Not because you were blind. Because the truth was unsurvivable.
Rob and Michele Reiner weren't naive people. Rob directed films for forty years. He knew how stories telegraph their endings. And yet he and Michele built frameworks that kept them tethered to a son who was destroying them.
Trust the professionals. Then: the professionals are wrong. Then: redemption through art. Then: he just needs more support.
Each framework had its own logic. Each one evolved when the last one failed. And each one kept them in the room.
The lies we tell ourselves follow patterns. "This time is different" — resetting after every relapse. "Nobody understands them like I do" — making yourself essential. "They didn't mean it" — reframing every cruelty as symptom. "If I stop, I'm the bad one" — turning your limits into betrayal.
Nick destroyed their guesthouse. Admitted to gaming rehab. Convinced his father to make a movie where Rob was the villain for trying to help. And the narrative held: he's sick, not bad.
These lies aren't weakness. They're survival. Stories the brain constructs when reality becomes unbearable.
Rob said at that party he was petrified of his son. That's not denial. That's a man who sees the truth and is trying to survive it. Knowing and accepting are different things. You can know something in your bones and still not act — because acting means letting go.
The question isn't "how could I be so blind?" It's "what was I protecting myself from seeing?"
The answer: that you were powerless to save someone who wasn't interested in being saved.
Forgive yourself for the lies. They were the only tools you had.
#RobReiner #NickReiner #MicheleSingerReiner #ReinerCase #TrueCrimeToday #TrueCrime #Denial #AddictionFamily #Codependency #FamilyTragedy
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Two and a half weeks into the Nancy Guthrie disappearance, the investigation has been buried under a mountain of noise that shows no sign of clearing. At least one ransom communication has been confirmed fraudulent — leading to the federal arrest of a California man with no connection to the case. Additional ransom notes demanding cryptocurrency remain unverified. A live-broadcast detention near the border produced no charges. A SWAT raid two miles from the home produced no arrests. And the DNA evidence from a glove found miles from the crime scene — the lead that generated the most public hope — came back today with no CODIS match and no connection to the DNA recovered at the property.
On True Crime Today, psychotherapist Shavaun Scott analyzes the psychological ecosystem of a contaminated case. Scott has worked in forensic mental health for over thirty years and understands what happens when chaos overwhelms an investigation from every direction. She examines the psychology of people who fabricate ransom demands in stranger kidnappings, the corrosive effect of evidence contamination on investigator morale and public confidence, and the psychological phenomenon of dramatic investigative action that produces zero results.
She also addresses a dimension of the noise that rarely gets discussed: the chilling effect on real witnesses. When a person of interest is stopped, searched, and broadcast nationally — then cleared and released — what happens to the next person who might have genuine information but doesn't want their life turned inside out on camera? At what point does the volume of public participation tip from asset to liability?
This is an examination of how noise, spectacle, and dysfunction can become the primary obstacles in a case where time is the one thing a missing 84-year-old woman doesn't have.
#NancyGuthrie #SavannahGuthrie #GuthrieNoise #BungledEvidence #FalseTips #CaseContamination #ShavaunScott #TrueCrimeToday #HiddenKillers #TucsonCase
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The Nancy Guthrie investigation just revealed something the headlines buried. The DNA from a glove found two miles from her home does not match the DNA recovered inside her property. That's two different people. The glove that dominated this week's coverage may have zero connection to this crime.
The property DNA is the real story. Partial and possibly mixed, it's now in the forensic investigative genetic genealogy pipeline — the same process that ended the Golden State Killer manhunt and identified the Idaho college murders suspect. Parabon NanoLabs' CeCe Moore says she's extremely hopeful and notes that the potential DNA mixture is actually more compelling because it's consistent with a violent encounter.
On today's episode, we also dismantle the cartel theory that refuses to die on social media. Its foundation is simple geography — Tucson sits sixty miles from Mexico. That's it. Law enforcement sources told NewsNation the case shows no signs of cartel involvement. Former FBI agents see no operational indicators of organized crime. The suspect on camera is alone, on foot, dressed head to toe in Walmart gear, carrying a cheap backpack, and failed to disable a doorbell camera. Nineteen days later, no one has made direct contact with the family or delivered proof of life. Cartels don't operate this way.
The genetic genealogy clock is now ticking. When it delivers a result, the cartel theory either gets its first piece of supporting evidence or it dies on the data. Right now, the data says amateur. The data says local. The data says alone.
#NancyGuthrie #TrueCrimeToday #GuthrieCase #GeneticGenealogy #CartelTheory #SavannahGuthrie #NancyGuthrieDNA #TucsonKidnapping #ForensicGenealogy #TrueCrime
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