The Boston doctor who strangled his wife and dumped her body in a pond during a night of drinking in 2020 broke down and cried when he was convicted to the disgust of his in-laws.
Ingolf Tuerk’s head shot down as he began to weep when he was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter inside Norfolk Superior Court on Thursday, according to video by NBC Boston.
“He is guilty of voluntary manslaughter,” the jury foreperson announced.
Tuerk, the former head of urology at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, had been on trial for murdering his wife Kathleen McLean inside their suburban Boston home in May 2020.
The now-63-year-old admitted to drinking with McLean, 45, when a fight broke out and she allegedly smashed a wine glass over his head.
“I was scared to hell,” Tuerk told the court Tuesday. “I snapped. I kind of blacked out.”
McLean’s body was found in a pond in a wooded area near the couple’s home two days after she disappeared.
Tuerk confessed to the killing after his arrest, but claimed it was not intentional, adding he put rocks inside McLean’s pants to ensure her body would sink to the bottom of the pond.
“I walked through the yard and tried to look for something that may, you know, bring her down,” he said.
Tuerk’s lawyers framed their defense around the former surgeon protecting himself from his wife, claiming McLean had attempted to control her husband’s financial portfolio.
“This is all about money,” Kevin Reddington argued according to NBC Boston. “And she played him pretty darn good.”
“I suggest to you that he reacted. He was drunk… He defended himself. And the beauty of the law is that the government has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did not act in self defense.”
Prosecutors argued for a first-degree murder charge, claiming Tuerk tossed his wife out “like a piece of trash.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest it is not the heat of passion. It is not self-defense. It is motive to kill,” Assistant Norfolk District Attorney Lisa Beatty said in her closing statement.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 16, the fifth anniversary of when McLean’s body was found.
Tuerk faces up to 20 years in prison.
The couple had been together for two and a half years, first meeting on a dating app before eloping in Las Vegas in December 2019.
Friends of McLean said their relationship started having problems a month before their marriage when Tuerk reached a settlement with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office that accused him of falsely billing the state’s Medicaid program.
Tuerk paid $150,000 to resolve allegations that he caused his employer to bill MassHealth improperly.
“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 Boston Globe.
Tuerk had allegedly choked and cut his wife with scissors during repeated attacks.
He faced charges of abuse and a restraining order from McLean.
The couple ultimately reconciled on May 2 after McLean wrote in a court affidavit that she felt safe around her husband.
The hearing took a turn last year when it was revealed that Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor was involved in the case.
Proctor, an investigator for the agency, was fired from his post after he sent lewd text messages about Karen Read when he was the lead detective in the high-profile case.
Reddington filed several motions in court in August 2024 but was told he needed to file an affidavit to explain his need to read text messages from police during the investigation.
