Relationships
Relationships[]
Stottlemeyer had at least one brother, whom he claimed served during the Vietnam War when interrogating a member of the Lightning Brigade, Ron Abrash, regarding a kidnapping case.
At an unknown point, he was married to another woman, although they later had an annulment. Stottlemeyer later married his second wife, Karen, a documentary filmmaker, to which he was married to her for 20 years. Although it wasn't clear on when he married he indicated that they knew each other "Since they were kids" which was said when he found out about Karen getting hurt in the car accident. They separated frequently, though Leland never stopped loving her. A turning point for his relationship with Monk came when Karen was seriously injured in a car accident and put into a coma. Though she recovered, he had a brief taste of the pain and loss that Monk lived with every day, and became far more sympathetic to his attachment to his late wife. (At the end of the episode, Leland tells Monk "Don't ever lose that watch."). Apparently, Stottlemeyer was reluctant to admit publically that he and his wife were having marital problems. When Monk was hired by the Governor to investigate an assassination attempt, Monk asked Stottlemeyer a question that indicated he was having problems with his marriage; Stottlemeyer denied it only to ask Monk privately how he figured it out.
Stottlemeyer had two sons with Karen: Jared and Max.
In 2006, Stottlemeyer was told by another officer that he was sleeping with Karen. Stottlemeyer punched that officer in a fit of rage, and had to attend anger management therapy. He ordered Karen tailed, and saw her meeting with a man. As it turned out, the man was a lawyer, and she was filing for a divorce.
A year later, he began dating realtor Linda Fusco. Their relationship bloomed, and Stottlemeyer was planning to propose to Linda during their trip to Hawaii, but on the eve of their departure, Monk regretfully proved that Linda had murdered her business partner. She was arrested, and Stottlemeyer later threw the engagement ring into the ocean (saying it was "nothing – just a rock.") Also, his brief relationship with Linda Fusco, and presumably his trying to find another fiance, caused him to have a falling out with one of his sons, exemplified when his son deliberately skipped school to go to a rock festival and did not wish to return with his dad.
Two years later, he met and fell in love with reporter T.K. Jensen. After dating for several months, they were married in a simple ceremony on the beach.
