A Dover doctor, Massachusetts, accused of killing his wife five years ago, was convicted on Thursday of voluntary homicide.
Ingolf Tuerk was also accused of first degree murder in Kathleen Mclean’s death, whom he is accused of strangling and throwing in a pond. But the jury found him guilty of the minor position of voluntary homicide in the first degree.
It is scheduled to be sentenced on May 16.
“Essentially, he is leaving without Scottish,” said Richard Mclean, Kathleen’s brother. “It is a shame that everything has taken to reach this point for five years, get extremely disappointed.”
McLean’s family says he is not receiving justice, and that Tuerk came out with his with the murder.
“Basically, it drives along the road and throws a piece of garbage out the window,” said Richard McLean. “That is what did my sister. What person does that deserve?”
The closing arguments had been presented on Wednesday.
Defensor lawyer Kevin Reddington argued in his closing that the murder was not premeditated, as prosecutors have said. He said the night was the culmination of the McLean plan to obtain control of money and nut assets.
“This is money,” said Reddington. “And she played it quite well.”
“I suggest that he reacted. He was drunk … He defended himself. And the beauty of the law is that the government has to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that did not act in self -defense.”
“There is no intention to kill,” Reddington added. “There is an intention for self -conservation.”
The district prosecutor of the Norfolk assistant, Lisa Beatty, began her final argument when describing the scene of Mclean’s death and how Tuerk eliminated her body “as a piece of garbage.”
She said Tuerk did not kill McLean in self -defense or broke into the heat of the moment, as Reddington suggested. “I would suggest that it was the opposite. It was great, it was calm, it was collected.”
Beatty said Tuerk was worried about losing his money and home, and that he didn’t want to divorce again.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest that it is not the heat of passion. It is not an own defense. It is a reason to kill.”
He pointed out that he would have been aware, fighting him while he strangled her. And after the murder, he did not try to resurrect her or call 911. Instead, prosecutors said, he weighed with rocks and left her body in a pond.
Prosecutors said the 63 -year -old Urologist admitted what he had done to the Police. In the stand on Tuesday, he did not denied the charges, but said that his actions were not premeditated.
The couple met in an online appointment application and married in Las Vegas. Tuerk testified that he had been drinking and did not really remember his wedding in a drive-thru chapel.
“I really remember. I just remember that she was a woman, that’s the only thing I remember, who talked to us, and the next morning, they told me she was married,” he said.
They lived together in Dover with children of different marriages. Tuerk was forced to move after McLean, 45, received a restriction order against him. They reconciled during the pandemic and moved back to the house they shared.
They were drinking a night in the spring of 2020 and Tuerk said he hit him in the head with a glass. He said it was when he strangled her.
“I passed out,” he said at the stage.
Originally from Eastern Germany, Tuerk was arrested at a Didham hotel and taken to a hospital, where the police say he told them that he put his wife’s body in a pond after the fight in his room.
Tuerk told the jury how his wife’s body floated towards the surface.
“I walked through the patio and tried to look for something that, you know, knocked it down,” he testified.
The trial began on March 27 at the Superior Court of Norfolk.
