The star Boston surgeon who authorities say killed his wife had been accused of abusing her for months before her death — including by choking her and cutting her with scissors, according to a report.
Ingolf Tuerk, 58, was already facing charges that he repeatedly attacked Kathleen McLean, 45, before he was taken into custody for her murder Saturday, The Boston Globe reported.
But earlier this month, the couple seemed to have reconciled, with McLean asking for a restraining order she’d secured against Tuerk to be vacated and saying she didn’t want to pursue criminal charges.
“I feel safe and would like to bring my family back together with my husband,” McLean wrote in a May 2 court affidavit obtained by the paper.
“My goal is to salvage our family including reuniting with my husband as father and stepfather to my children.”
The former head of urology at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton is the father of two teenage boys who live with his ex-wife. McLean, a Reiki master and teacher, has three children who live with their father.
The couple had been together for two-and-a-half years when they eloped Dec. 14 to Las Vegas, after Tuerk surprised her with a marriage license, the report said.
Friends said their relationship began to hit the rocks in November, when Tuerk reached a settlement agreement with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office after he faced accusations of falsely billing MassHealth.
Tuerk agreed to pay $150,000 to resolve allegations that he caused his employer to improperly bill the state’s Medicaid Program for portions of surgical procedures that never took place or office visits he didn’t attend or supervise, according to the attorney general’s office.
“The slow deterioration of his career as doctor and surgeon is when he started getting more violent,” Larry Corcoran, a friend of McLean’s, told the paper.
In February, Tuerk was formally terminated from Steward Medical Group, which operates St. Elizabeth Medical Center. He hadn’t seen or treated patients for more than a year.
By that month, McLean was planning to file for divorce from her husband, she told Dover police on Feb. 3, according to a police report obtained by the Globe.
Source: NYPost
