The Boston doctor, who strangled his wife to death on a drinking night in 2020 and dumped himself in the pond, broke and cried as he felt a sense of in-laws.
Ingolf Tuelk's head shot down Thursday as he began crying when he committed a crime of involuntary manslaughter in Norfolk Superior Court. Video by NBC Boston.
“He is guilty of voluntary manslaughter,” the ju judge announced.
Tuelk, the urology director at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Brighton, was on trial for murdering his wife, Kathleen McLean, at his suburban Boston home in May 2020.
The now 63-year-old admitted to drinking with McLean, 45.
“I was scared of hell,” Tude told the court on Tuesday. “I snapped. I made it a bit black.”
McLean's body was found in a pond in a wooded area near the couple's home two days after she disappeared.
Chuelk confessed to her murder after her arrest, but insisted that it was not intentional, placing a rock inside MacLean's pants so that her body sinks to the bottom of the pond.
“I walked through the garden and tried to find something that might take her down,” he said.
Tuerk's lawyers surrounded the defenses around a former surgeon who defended herself from her wife, claiming that McLean tried to control her husband's financial portfolio.
“It's all about money,” Kevin Redington claimed, according to NBC Boston. “And she played him pretty good.”
“I suggest that he responded. He was drunk… he defended himself. And the beauty of the law is that it must prove beyond the reasonable doubt that the government did not act in self-defense.”
Prosecutors pleaded first-degree murder charges, claiming that Chuelk had thrown his wife “like garbage.”
“Women and gentlemen, I recommend it not a heat of passion. It's not self-defense. It's a motive to kill,” Norfolk Assistant District Attorney Lisa Beatty said in her final statement.
The sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 16th, the fifth anniversary of the discovery of McLean's body.
Chuek has faced up to 20 years in prison.
The couple had been together for two and a half years and first met on a dating app before they eloped in Las Vegas in December 2019.
McLean's friends said their relationship began to have problems a month before their marriage.
Tuerk has paid $150,000 to resolve allegations that it improperly claimed MassHealth from its employer.
“The slow deterioration in his career as a doctor and surgeon comes when he began to become more violent,” said Larry Corcoran, a friend of McLean. Boston Gloves.
Tuerk is said to have suffocated his wife with scissors during repeated attacks and cut off her.
He faced charges of abuse and restraining orders from McLean.
The couple finally settled on May 2nd after MacLean wrote in a court affidavit that he felt safe around her husband.
Last year, the hearing came in as it was revealed that Massachusetts police officer Michael Proctor was involved in the incident.
Proctor, an agency investigator, was fired from his post after texting a thread about Karen Reed when he was the chief detective in a famous case.
Reddington filed several claims in court in August 2024, but was told he would need to file an affidavit to explain his need to read a text message from police during the investigation.
