Dr. Ingolf Tuerk is accused of strangling Kathleen McLean, 45, to death in their Dover home on the evening of May 14, 2020 and dumping her body, weighed down with two rocks, in a pond near their home in an affluent Boston suburb. The autopsy revealed McLean had a fractured hyoid bone, petechiae in both eyes, bruises on the neck and within the neck muscle, and bruising on the scalp and brain. The couple had recently dropped efforts to divorce each other. They were attempting to reconcile after a period that included McLean reporting Tuerk to police for physical abuse and Tuerk's suspicions that McLean was cheating on him. However, Tuerk claims that McLean died during a drunken fight between the two over their relationship. Tuerk claims that McLean 'hit him with a glass, striking him on the head and striking him in his forehead and came at him with arms outstretched'. He allegedly 'stood up and grabbed her and it was at this point that he realized that she went limp and that she had, indeed, passed away'. Tuerk was a urologist at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston until he was terminated in February 2020 over accusations of fraudulent billing to Medicaid. Tuerk agreed to pay $150,000 to resolve allegations that he caused his employer to inappropriately bill the state's Medicaid Program $31,000.