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‘I snapped’: In emotional testimony, Dover doctor says he killed wife during argument
Ingolf Tuerk, a former Dover surgeon, testified that he grabbed his wife by the neck during a heated argument at home in 2020.
A former Dover surgeon broke down on the stand Tuesday as he admitted to strangling his wife in 2020 and dumping her body in a local pond.
Ingolf “Harry” Tuerk, 63, recalled grabbing 45-year-old Kathleen McLean by the neck during a heated argument at their Dover home in May 2020. The couple had been drinking, and Tuerk alleged McLean smashed a glass over his head as they argued.
“I was scared to hell,” he recalled, adding, “I snapped. I kind of blacked out.”
Tuerk was adamant he did not intend to harm or kill his wife.
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“No,” he said through a sob. “Never.”
Tuerk has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in McLean’s death. His lawyer, Kevin Reddington, contends the killing wasn’t premeditated.
Reddington spent much of his opening statement last month introducing jurors to his client, from Tuerk’s upbringing in East Germany to his love of Harley-Davidson motorcycles and his medical career as the former chief of urology at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton.
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“Those hands saved hundreds of lives and took one,” Reddington said of Tuerk. “He knows it.”
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Putting McLean’s body in a pond, he added, was a “bad move; [Tuerk] should’ve called 911. Nevertheless, it was a panicked move.”
Tuerk describes aftermath of wife’s killing
Testifying in Norfolk Superior Court on Tuesday, Tuerk recalled the frantic moments after he grabbed McLean’s throat.
“She was not responsive. She was, you know, passed out,” he recalled. “And I asked her, ‘Katie, come on. Please, Katie, wake up. Please, Katie, wake up.’ … She didn’t wake up.”
Tuerk said he lifted McLean to the bed and attempted CPR, to no avail.
“I panicked,” he explained, adding, “One of the main thoughts that I do remember is that I can’t have her children find her.”
He described carrying McLean out of their home and driving her to a nearby pond, where he weighted her body down with rocks and put her in the water.
Tuerk said he later tried to kill himself and woke up hungover and confused in a hospital.
“I was shocked that I woke up,” he said. “I didn’t want to be there; I didn’t want to live.”
‘I just was in shock’
As they attempt to establish premeditation, prosecutors have highlighted Tuerk’s strained relationship with McLean.
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The couple met online in November 2017 and drunkenly married at a drive-thru chapel in Las Vegas two years later, Tuerk testified Tuesday. But the relationship had already begun to sour, he recalled, telling jurors he wanted a divorce and met with an attorney soon after the wedding.
When McLean discovered his communications with the attorney, he said, “As a result of that, she went to Dover police and filed for a restraining order.”
They eventually reconciled, and Tuerk returned home.
But McLean “wouldn’t let the past go, like she had agreed,” prosecutor Lisa Beatty alleged in her opening statement. “And so he [Tuerk] put his hands around her neck.”
Taking the stand again Wednesday, Tuerk argued he acted in self defense after McLean allegedly struck him with the glass.
“I reacted to the hit,” he testified. “I felt threatened. I defended myself.”
Tuerk said he was afraid of McLean, not physically but due to the power dynamics of their relationship. He also recalled answering investigators’ questions in an emotionally charged state of confusion following McLean’s death.
“It was a very traumatic event,” he said. “I just was in shock.”
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“The event was traumatic to you?” Beatty asked.
“Yeah. I didn’t like to cause the death of another human being,” Tuerk replied. “I spent all my life to save lives. So I was pretty much in shock myself with what happened, yes. I was extremely sorry, and guilty, and shameful about what happened.”
Later, he testified that he felt “guilty and ashamed” from the start.
“I wish I could make it all go away. I mean, in terms of having her return,” Tuerk said, adding, “I would love to bring her back.”
Jurors begin deliberations
As both sides delivered their closing arguments Wednesday afternoon, jurors were left to consider whether Tuerk acted in the heat of the moment or killed his wife in cold blood.
Prosecutor Elizabeth McLaughlin painted Tuerk as “methodical and detail-oriented,” suggesting he was “driven by greed” and wanted to ensure McLean wouldn’t get the house in Dover.
But Reddington suggested McLean was manipulative and schemed to gain control of Tuerk’s assets.
“This is all about money,” Reddington argued. “And she played him pretty darn good.”
He alleged Tuerk was defending himself after McLean purportedly hit him with the glass.
“How can anyone say he did not act in self defense?” Reddington demanded, later adding, “There’s no intent to kill; there’s an intent for self-preservation.”
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“This is not a murder,” he continued. “This is the end of a tragic human story.”
McLaughlin contended Tuerk “made a choice” to kill McLean.
“He had a choice to stop as she was fighting, and he did not,” McLaughlin argued. “In those moments, he made the choice to keep going and to kill Katie, and I suggest to you that is intent.”
Then, she argued, Tuerk disposed of his wife’s body “like a piece of trash.”
Watch Tuerk’s testimony:
Livestreams via WCVB.
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