The victim sustained significant head trauma.
Her hair is basically caked in blood.
This is a very violent murder.
It shocked everybody.
She was a very successful doctor, with a husband, with children.
What happened? Who did it?
Who would wanna harm her?
[Cpt. David Lebid] We find out that our victim has a darker side.
An employee has been fired.
[Lebid] He has a significant criminal history.
[Lt. Michael Downs] The victim's husband
would bring some extra partners into the relationship.
Are one of these sexual partners jealous of the victim?
This is one of the most horrific crimes I've ever worked.
[narrator] Every day in North America, dozens of people are murdered.
The key to solving the toughest of these homicides
lies in the final 24 hours of the victim's life.
To crack the case, detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline,
the minutes and hours containing evidence
that can help unlock the mystery and catch the killer.
[seagulls squawking]
[narrator] Bonita Springs is a peaceful beachfront community
located in the Southwest of sunny Florida.
Bonita Springs is a middle city between Fort Myers and Naples.
Uh, it's right on the Gulf of Mexico.
It's this beautiful, quiet, peaceful place.
It's a paradise of palm trees, beautiful beaches.
It's a retirement area. It's a vacation area.
It's someplace where you wanna go when you feel safe with your family.
But in late June, 2015, there's a discovery of, uh,
of a local person who's been murdered.
We received a phone call through 911 dispatch.
And he sounded very scared. He sounded upset.
-[narrator] Sheriff's deputies respond to the call. -[sirens blaring]
Lieutenant Michael Downs is in charge of the investigation.
[Downs] When I arrive on the crime scene,
as I enter the residence, enter the kitchen, I look to my left,
and in-between the refrigerator and the island cabinets,
I can see the noticeably deceased remains of our victim.
There appears to be a small folding wallet laying on the floor.
[narrator] The victim is 46-year-old Dr. Teresa Sievers.
She was the mother of two young girls, and married to Mark Sievers.
Dr. Sievers was well known in her respective field of holistic medicine.
There were lots of, of articles about her,
with her picture, like, on the cover of magazines.
She was on her way to having her own TV show.
[Lebid] She, very personable, very, very attractive.
She wanted to help everyone, and truly, was loved by the community.
This is a murder of a very prominent person.
When I'm looking at the victim, I could see a large amount of blood.
Her, her hair is, is basically caked in blood.
So I would assume the victim's sustained significant head trauma.
And in the kitchen, I could see immediately on the floor a bloody hammer.
Uh, I can see that there's hair wrapped around the hammer,
and, uh, evidence of blood.
[narrator] Captain David Lebid also joins the high-profile case.
The way it appeared to me
is that the killer repeatedly hit her in the head with a hammer until she was dead.
This is a very brutal murder.
Why would somebody do this?
[narrator] To determine the motive,
investigators take a closer look at the home itself.
As I'm looking at the scene, there's a couple things that are unique.
Namely, I'm looking at the side garage door, and there's pry marks on the door.
It's a possibility that the perpetrator or perpetrators
may have entered through the garage.
It made me think that this could have been a robbery that went wrong.
Maybe somebody broke into the house,
uh, maybe the victim came home early, interrupted them.
[hammer thuds]
[narrator] Captain Lebid looks for additional evidence that might support that theory.
I started to work my way through the garage,
and I noticed that there was luggage that was left behind
that appeared to be from the victim.
And then, I saw her purse nearby,
but nothing seemed to be obviously missing.
[narrator] Even Teresa's wallet was left in her kitchen.
The folding wallet on the floor is placed a little bit too perfectly.
Uh, looking at the cards, they appear to be thumbed up instead of pulled out.
So the house is in disarray,
but not a house that has recently been ransacked,
or something consistent with, uh, what we would call a routine burglary.
[narrator] Detectives also find many untouched valuables in Teresa Sievers' home,
including firearms, ammunition, and over $40,000 cash in a safe.
So it made me wonder, is this staged to look like a robbery that went wrong?
Because if somebody really wanted to take property,
there'd be things that are missing.
This could be a planned, coordinated attack.
[narrator] While it's still unclear why Teresa was killed,
investigators believe they know how it happened.
[Downs] The victim had started removing luggage from the vehicle.
She leaves her luggage in the garage.
The altercation definitely happened within the kitchen.
The attacker moved in on her very quickly.
And then according to the medical examiner, the victim was struck at least 17 times.
It raises many questions for investigators.
Why use this amount of excessive force?
And the extremism seen in the nature of the bludgeoning
tells us a lot about the type of offender we're dealing with.
The injury to the victim was so significant,
it appeared there was something more behind it.
Some kind of emotion or some kind of drive to make sure,
yes, she is absolutely dead.
So, who did it?
We're trying to find any kind of evidence that could help explain who did this to her.
[Downs] We're collecting DNA. We're looking for fibers.
Um, especially on, uh, on the victim's body and clothing
that may have come from clothing that the killer may have been wearing.
[Lebid] In addition, we collected the hammer,
because we're gonna evaluate it for any kind of latent fingerprints
that could maybe identify who held it.
[narrator] Detectives notify the victim's husband, Mark Sievers,
that his wife has been murdered.
[Downs] When we first spoke to Mark Sievers, he was out of state.
So we have to wait for him to fly back into town.
[narrator] Mark was 1,300 miles North in Connecticut, visiting family.
Teresa had been with him.
But she had returned to Florida the day before she was murdered.
He was very upset, like almost anybody would be
when they find out the news that their, their spouse has been killed.
He wanted to know what happened.
And we couldn't answer a lot of his questions,
because we still didn't have a good timeline.
[narrator] To find the killer, detectives need to piece together
the last 24 hours of the victim's life.
[Lebid] Her husband, Mark, said to me
she came back to Bonita Springs, Florida, the night before,
in the late evening time, somewhere around 11:00.
She came back without her family,
because she was very dedicated to her job,
and knew she had to be up bright and early Monday morning to see her patients.
[Downs] Mark Sievers tells us that the victim text him,
uh, shortly after landing to let him know that she had landed safely
and was continuing home.
And that occurred, uh, at approximately 10:53 PM.
Based on the timeline that we're starting to build now,
we can say that his wife was murdered somewhere in between
June 28 in the late night hours
to June 29 before 9:00 AM.
And we know this because we received the 911 call at approximately 9:30.
[narrator] A call made by Dr. Sievers' neighbor, Dr. Petrities.
[Lebid] Teresa's husband Mark
was worried about his wife not showing up for work,
and wasn't answering her phone.
And that was not like her.
So he asked Dr. Petrities to please go by the house to go check on her.
We're very eager at this point to speak to Mr. Petrities,
because he just may be able to shed some kind of light on...
Maybe he saw somebody leaving the residence, maybe he saw something suspicious.
As we spoke with Dr. Petrities,
it occurred to all of us that this is one of our best suspects right now.
[Keira Stockdale] And that could be for a variety of reasons.
Sometimes, the killer is the person who places the call to 911.
Maybe they want to insert themselves into the investigation,
to try and control the narrative,
or control the information to protect themselves,
and conceal their identity as the killer.
[Downs] But the question is, if he is our suspect...
...why did he do this?
[hammer strikes repeatedly]
What is his motivation?
[narrator] Sheriff's investigators in Lee County, Florida
suspect that the neighbor, Dr. Mark Petrities,
could be Dr. Teresa Sievers' killer.
Dr. Petrities is a, a close friend of the victim.
And it's not unheard of when a suspect who actually does kill someone
takes the time to call 911 to report it to the police,
because they think they're clever enough to get away with it.
[Sheriff Carmine Marceno] So, very quickly, my detectives immediately interview him.
He was completely compliant.
He tells us everything that he knows.
While we're speaking with Dr. Petrities, uh, he's visibly upset.
His voice is elevated. He seems extremely concerned.
[narrator] To investigators, Dr. Petrities' story sounds plausible.
[Downs] So, we're leaning more towards him being a witness
than a suspect at this point in the investigation.
Does that necessarily rule him out 100%? No.
We're going to ask him for DNA swabs to check his clothing,
to check his bod... [stammering] for injuries and things of that nature.
But we're deciding that it's now time to start focusing in other avenues,
uh, of the investigation.
[narrator] News of Dr. Teresa Sievers' murder begins to spread
throughout the close-knit community of Bonita Springs.
[Mike Braun] It shocked everybody.
They don't know what happened. Nobody knows what happened.
So their imagination, of course, is running wild.
So there's an extreme pressure on Lee County Sheriff's Office to crack the case.
My phone starts ringing from all different people in the community,
asking what's going on.
But the truth is, I don't know exactly what we're facing.
But I know I have a killer that's on the loose, on the streets.
[Lebid] The pressure definitely increased.
But we don't really have a clue of who did this at all.
[narrator] For leads, sheriff's investigators start with Dr. Sievers' family.
Her husband Mark is flying back.
So Teresa's sister Annie Lisa offers to help.
[narrator] Annie Lisa isn't just Teresa's sister.
She was also Teresa's colleague at her clinic.
She informs us about the victim's medical practice,
and said that we may wanna talk to a former employee that works there
who she identified as Sandra.
And we find out that our victim has told Sandra to find a new job.
That's definitely a red flag,
because that could be a potential reason to murder somebody.
Disgruntled employees frequently make for strong initial persons of interest.
[Stockdale] Maybe they feel that they've been treated unfairly.
Maybe they hold a grudge.
And all of this could potentially lead to somebody
taking matters into their own hands to seek revenge.
Now, this was significant in the investigation.
It could definitely be something.
So we're definitely gonna wanna speak with Sandra.
[narrator] Sandra agrees to come into the Sheriff's office.
She admits she didn't get along with Dr. Sievers.
[Downs] Sandra's saying that the victim was sometimes hard to work with,
that the victim did have what was described as a strong personality.
[Marceno] She was this very dedicated woman,
and her business was very driven, very focused.
[narrator] But Sandra and her colleagues
saw a different side of Dr. Sievers in the office.
Dr. Sievers had a reputation in the office,
uh, as being somebody who when things didn't go quite her way,
or if she was in an irritable mood,
she would lash out at, uh, workers, at staff.
And it was, it was something that, uh, not anybody outside the office knew about.
[narrator] WHile Sandra clashed with her boss at work,
she says there's no way she would have harmed Dr. Sievers.
Sandra didn't really hold any ill will towards the victim.
Sandra's telling us that she couldn't have done anything to the victim,
because she was home during the time of
when we believe the offense had occurred.
So now, our alert level is starting to go down.
[narrator] But not for long.
Investigators discover that Sandra was close to another employee
who had trouble with Dr. Sievers:
Sandra's own husband, Frank.
[Braun] And we find out that he was also fired
shortly before all this had occurred.
Detectives had to wonder if Frank, uh, the employee that had been let go,
had a motive. Maybe he was trying to seek revenge.
[Marceno] We're looking at the pieces of the puzzle.
Is there a motive there for him to kill our victim?
[hammer strikes]
[multiple hammer strikes]
[narrator] A day after Dr. Teresa Sievers
is bludgeoned to death in her Florida home,
Lee County Sheriff's investigators turn their focus
to one of the doctor's ex-employees:
her former assistant manager, Frank.
Frank was working for the victim's medical practice
for approximately five years, and was fired
shortly before the murder that occurred.
So could this be the killer?
[Downs] Did you have anything to do with this victim's death?
Frank had an alibi, uh, saying that, uh, he was home with his wife...
...at the time of the murder.
[narrator] Frank also corrects investigators about something else.
It wasn't Teresa Sievers who fired him.
It was her husband, Mark Sievers.
We find out that Mark told Frank that basically, they needed somebody,
uh, with a little bit more, uh, experience medically.
[narrator] But Frank knew Mark's wife, Dr. Sievers,
was really behind the firing.
Nothing in that clinic happened without Teresa Sievers' say-so.
[Downs] He's saying that when dealing with the victim,
it's either her way or the highway.
And Frank is telling us that the victim would constantly, uh,
berate and belittle, er, her husband, Mark Sievers.
Not only personally, but in front of other people.
It was definitely a surprise.
[narrator] Sheriff's investigators press Frank for more details
on how Teresa Sievers treated her husband.
Things would even get so petty as, uh, Frank recalling, uh,
one time where the victim took issue with the way Mark Sievers, uh,
took the garbage out.
So Frank is painting a picture of, of what'd you call kind of a darker side of the victim.
And you realize very quickly, this marriage has its issues.
Their marriage has problems.
[narrator] Investigators take a closer look at Mark Sievers.
We're gonna have to talk to Mark Sievers
about what this marriage was actually like.
[narrator] Just back from Connecticut, the widowed husband and father
appears distraught to investigators.
[Mark Sievers] Good, good. Good.
[Lebid] At this point in the investigation, he's not a suspect.
[Braun] Mark's alibi is solid.
He's in Connecticut at the time of Teresa's murder.
[Lebid] One of the things I asked Mark was,
how is your personal life going with Teresa?
Do you guys have problems?
[Lebid] Mark's telling me that sometimes
he upsets the victim, but everything's good.
And he was very upset.
[narrator] Captain Lebid steps out of the room for a moment,
but Mark Sievers keeps on talking.
[crying, hyperventilating]
Mark seemed to put on a show, talking to Teresa, apologizing,
"If only I was home with you."
"I could have prevented this." Just very dramatic things.
And I don't wanna diminish how people grieve.
It almost seemed like a dinner theatre performance.
[narrator] The captain returns to ask
what can be a difficult question for a recent widower:
Did he or Teresa have any extramarital affairs?
And Mark said to me, "What do you mean by extramarital?"
[Lebid] No, you're... No, no, no, you're trying... You're...
[Lebid] That's what we're here for.
[Mark Sievers] Again, I can't...
So, I could kind of tell that Mark was playing word games with me.
So I asked Mark directly, are you guys swingers?
So Mark started to tell me about how...
...they would bring some extra partners into their relationship sometimes.
According to Mark, and in addition to, um,
them mutually bringing another party into the relationship,
he would also have his own
romantic relationships with other women.
And by his admission,
would report these instances back to Teresa later.
[narrator] Any one of these multiple lovers
are potential suspects.
So do one of these sexual partners
or somebody involved in this romantic relationship,
are they now jealous of the victim?
[Lebid] This could be a very
explainable reason why the homicide occurred.
So this seemed to be a viable lead to pursue.
[narrator] Eager for investigators
to identify possible suspects in his wife's murder,
Mark hands them his phone.
Looking at the contents of Mark Sievers' phone
there is potentially multiple sexual partners,
and this basically opens up the flood gates.
We went from having a very limited scope
to a ton of information to process.
[narrator] But just as sheriff's investigators
begin sifting through Mark's long list
of lovers in Florida,
the receive a random call from a police chief
1,100 miles north in Mt. Vernon, Illinois.
[Downs] And he tells us that he has an acquaintance
that, uh, thinks she may have information pertaining to this case.
[narrator] Florida investigators waste no time.
They fly north for a face to face
with a woman who claims to know something.
We meet with our witness, Rose.
Rose...
...seemed very sincere,
seemed like a very honest person.
But you can see there is that little bit of hesitation.
She's not really sure if she wants to speak with us.
There's a lot of fear.
People may fear retaliation.
If they come forward, would they be next?
Could they be victimized in the same way?
So it takes a big risk and tremendous courage
often times in these cases for someone to come forward.
[Downs] It took a little bit of reassurance,
and like any good person would do,
Rose, uh, decided to give us a statement.
[Lebid] Rose tells us a story about her friend, Angie.
And Angie is extremely upset because she's a newlywed,
and within the first two months of this new marriage,
her husband has to take a last-minute trip to Florida,
and he won't let her go along this trip.
She can't even call him because he left his cell phone behind.
[narrator] Angie's husband drove down at the end of June,
the same timeframe in which Dr. Sievers was murdered.
But without a connection to the victim,
a coincidental trip isn't enough
to make Angie's husband a suspect.
So Rose says, "Well, on top of that,
he's close family friends with your victim,
Teresa."
He actually helped set up their IT network.
for their business,
and he's best friends with your victim's husband.
[narrator] The man's name is Curtis Wayne Wright.
He's an ex-con living 40 minutes outside of St. Louis, Missouri.
Curtis Wayne Wright has multiple prior cases against him.
He's on probation.
So now we have a guy who's a suspect
being in Florida during the weekend of the homicide.
And he knew the victim.
The pieces are starting to fall into place.
[narrator] 12 weeks after the murder
of Dr. Teresa Sievers in Florida,
Lee County sheriff's investigators
head to Hillsboro, Missouri
in pursuit of the prime suspect,
Curtis Wayne Wright.
We immediately responded to the area where
Curtis Wayne Wright lives in Missouri
and meet with the local law enforcement
to make a plan to go see Mr. Wright in person.
We want to see what Curtis Wright is about.
We want to know what's in his house,
and then we find out that Curtis Wright
may have a firearm within his residence,
and Curtis Wright is not legally allowed to own a firearm.
[narrator] Missouri authorities obtain
a search warrant for Curtis Wright's residence.
[Lebid] Because he potentially may have a firearm inside,
we're using a special operations SWAT team
to make entry into this house.
[narrator] The building is secured without incident...
...and Curtis Wayne Wright is taken into custody
wearing just his shorts.
Lee County investigators question him
at the sheriff's office in Missouri.
If Curtis did kill his former boss,
law enforcement will need more than suspicion
to charge him.
Police may be looking to see
how does he respond to questions?
What's his body language,
and is he capable of this type of crime?
[Lebid] As I'm speaking with Curtis Wayne Wright,
he's being very cooperative with me,
he's telling me a lot about his life,
and his history of how he knows Mark Sievers.
His friendship with Mark Sievers
goes back to middle school.
[Downs] And Curtis tells us he does have
a very close relationship with our victim,
and then he also tells us that he does work on
the medical practice's computers.
[narrator] Captain Lebid asks Curtis
if he was yet another disgruntled employee
at Teresa Sievers' clinic.
Curtis tells us he had no issue with the victim,
uh, whether it was professional or personal.
He said everything was fine,
and really didn't give any indication that he would want to hurt her.
[narrator] But as the interview continues,
and Captain Lebid gathers more background,
He's struck by something peculiar.
[Lebid] I realized that his physical appearance
is similar to Mark Sievers.
[Marceno] They look almost identical.
They both wear the same type of glasses,
they shave the same way with
the mustache goatee.
Identical appearance to the point where
when you see them in pictures,
where Curtis Wayne Wright and Mark Sievers are at a wedding,
you can't tell them apart.
We're thinking to ourselves, well, this is interesting.
[narrator] It's more than just interesting.
Given the suspect's identical look
to the victim's husband,
investigators now wonder if Curtis Wayne Wright
was more than just an employee to the swinging couple.
But he doesn't give any kind of indication
of any kind of romantic relationship
or anything like that with our victim.
He basically laid it out to just a very close family friend.
[narrator] But if Curtis didn't harm Dr. Sievers as he claims,
then where did he go for the three days
he left from his home in Missouri.
We're asking him, "Did you go to Florida
during these dates,
from the 27th to the 29th of June in 2015?"
Curtis told the detectives he was not in Florida
at the time of Teresa's murder.
[Downs] He said he has a slew of medical issues, and that he was home.
He had not even been down to Florida
for approximately a year and a half.
[narrator] If his story is true, it will mean
another dead end in the investigation.
[Downs] So now we need to think to ourselves...
"Is Curtis lying to us,
or is Rose either lying to us
or not 100% sure about what she told us?"
[narrator] Investigators find the answer
from Curtis's own mother-in-law.
And her proof is sitting right in Curtis' driveway.
[Downs] She tells us something very interesting.
Curtis Wright rented a vehicle on June 26th,
went to Florida and returned on June 29th.
Our victim was murdered during that timeframe.
And for us, this is a win
because now we have somebody firsthand
who says, "Yes, this man definitely went to Florida
around the time of the murder."
So it gives us a little bit more of a push,
uh, to try and collect further evidence against Curtis Wright.
[narrator] To confirm whether or not
Curtis drove this vehicle to Florida,
investigators need to look inside,
especially at the odometer.
[Lebid] We obtained a warrant for the vehicle
and ended up searching that car.
In that car, very notably, was a Garmin GPS.
[narrator] While there aren't enough miles on the cars odometer
for a trip to Florida and back...
...Curtis' personal Garmin
could hold the key to his whereabouts
on the weekend Dr. Sievers was murdered.
We were really hopeful that it was gonna give us evidence
that would further explain this case.
When we look at the GPS,
everything's erased.
Even though we didn't find anything initially on the GPS,
we were still hopeful that some of our digital forensics personnel
would be able to
find something on the device that wasn't readily accessible.
[narrator] While forensic technicians
attempt to recover Curtis' Garmin GPS data,
investigators uncover something they didn't anticipate.
As we're evaluating the records for this car
that we seized in the driveway for Curtis Wayne Wright,
we found that there was also another car rented by him,
just before the homicide.
There was not one rental car, but two.
[narrator] Investigators aren't sure what it means
if anything.
Luckily for us, we're able to track this vehicle down,
and, uh, we want to look at the mileage
'cause we want to see how far he traveled.
Looking at the odometer usage on this rental vehicle,
we learned that Curtis Wright traveled a total of 2,703 miles,
which was consistent with a trip from his house in Hillsboro, Missouri
down to Bonita Springs, Florida,
which is our murder scene,
and then back to his hometown in Hillsboro, Missouri.
[narrator] The rental car's mileage is strong evidence,
but not nearly enough to press charges.
It's not a smoking gun because now
we know he put the mileage on the car,
but we don't know where he went
[narrator] Investigators catch a break
when technicians examining Curtis Wayne Wright's Garmin GPS
recover erased data.
It shows the exact route Curtis drove to Florida
in his second rental car.
[Downs] When we're looking at this GPS data,
we can see that
Curtis Wright actually typed in the victim's address
in Bonita Springs, Florida.
And we know this GPS started to follow that route.
[narrator] Captain Lebid now knows Curtis Wayne Wright
has been lying to him.
He had been in Florida
around the time of Teresa's murder.
[narrator] Curtis Wayne Wright had the opportunity to kill his former boss.
But another question remains,
what motivation might he have had to kill her?
[narrator] Curtis Wayne Wright is the prime suspect
in the murder of his former employer,
Dr. Teresa Sievers.
Curtis' Garmin GPS places him at Dr. Sievers' Florida home
on the day of the murder.
Then investigators find another surprise
saved inside his Garmin.
[Lebid] A personal email address was used
to log into it.
Fortunately for us,
that personal address
actually was a person's real name.
[narrator] An unknown man, named Jimmy Rodgers.
They find out that Jimmy Ray Rodgers
was a convicted felon.
He had been in federal prison
for guns.
He actually met Curtis Wayne Wright
while they were both at the same federal detention facility.
Curtis Wayne Wright says to me,
"Jimmy Rodgers frequently referred to himself as Jimmy the Hammer."
That's interesting to us
because Teresa was murdered with a hammer.
We're thinking that Jimmy Rodgers
is now a potential player
in helping Wayne facilitate this murder.
[narrator] Investigators are able to track down Jimmy Rodgers,
and they bring him in for questioning.
[Downs] We speak to Jimmy Ray Rodgers,
and he denies any involvement,
he denies ever going to Florida.
He says he does not know the victim,
and he was not with Wayne Wright at all.
[narrator] But investigators don't have to take the ex-con's word for it.
Jimmy's live-in girlfriend, Taylor Shomaker,
reaches out to law enforcement with her own story to tell.
She believes Jimmy has a critical part
in this murder of Dr. Sievers.
[Lebid] His girlfriend, Taylor Shomaker,
she had everything to lose, but she spoke with us.
She told us that Jimmy Ray Rodgers
had her dispose of evidence for him.
Luckily for us, uh, Ms. Shomaker
said that she could take us to these alleged items
that she disposed of for Jimmy Rodgers.
He had her throw out a blue jump suit
[narrator] With her help, police are able to retrieve the garment.
This is a huge piece of evidence that we recovered.
He disposed of a suit that he wore
potentially during the commission of a murder
[narrator] But unless Dr. Sievers' DNA
is found on the jumpsuit,
it's just Taylor's word against Jimmy's.
Investigators need more to hold him.
They turn to the GPS data from Curtis' trip to Florida.
So as we're processing all this GPS data,
we were able to see they were both at
a local Walmart down here in near Bonita Springs, Florida.
[narrator] Investigators screen video
from the Walmart security cameras.
[Downs] And wouldn't you know it,
right on video walking in
is Curtis Wayne Wright and Jimmy Ray Rodgers.
They buy trash bags,
a black backpack, a lock pick set.
Now these are items that you don't buy
going on vacation to Florida.
This is something that you're gonna use
to break into a house, to clean up a crime scene.
[narrator] Two months after Dr. Teresa Sievers was killed in her home,
Lee County sheriff's investigators
now have enough evidence
to file charges against the murderous pair.
[Downs] Now that they're taken into custody,
we speak to them separately.
Here's your chance to exonerate yourself.
He denied being inside the house
and blamed Jimmy Rodgers for murdering Teresa Sievers.
Eventually...
...I think it occurred to
Curtis Wayne Wright
that if he didn't tell the truth,
that there would be no opportunity
for him to maybe receive a lesser sentence.
[Downs] Curtis Wright said that
he wanted to give us the details about what happened.
Curtis Wayne Wright finally admitted
to striking the victim multiple times in the head
and then Jimmy Rodgers took over.
[narrator] Investigators now know each man's part
in killing Teresa Sievers.
But one big question still remains.
It's still not clear
why Curtis Wayne and Jimmy killed Teresa.
[narrator] To find out, the team takes a closer look
at Curtis Wayne Wright's phone records.
One name pops out.
[Downs] Mark Sievers...
...the victim's husband.
Curtis Wayne Wright explained that
he was solicited to do this murder
by his best friend, Mark Sievers.
That in itself was a shock.
[Lebid] This was a huge breakthrough.
We asked Curtis Wayne Wright,
"Why? Why would Mark Sievers ask you to kill his wife?"
Curtis Wayne Wright explained that
they had a very troubled marriage,
and Mark believed that the victim was getting ready to leave him...
...that she had a TV show
that she was about to start producing,
and Mark truly believed that when this took off,
that he would be down and out without anything.
[narrator] Mark called on his lifelong friend,
Curtis Wayne Wright, to solve his problem.
[Lebid] Mark believes that
by asking Curtis to kill the victim,
Wayne Wright would easily be able to find somebody
because of who he spent time with.
And Jimmy Rodgers got a fairly significant criminal past,
um, some of which is violent.
[narrator] Mark Sievers also promised to pay his friend,
once Teresa was dead.
Mark had a significant amount of life insurance on the victim,
somewhere around $5.8 million.
So Mark would pay around $50,000 to $100,000
for this homicide.
At this point in the investigation,
we had significant information from Curtis Wayne Wright.
We had very compelling testimonial evidence
from Taylor Shomaker.
We had the GPS information
that showed them traveling down.
We had significant cell phone text messages
between Mark Sievers and Curtis Wayne Wright.
[narrator] With all the pieces now in place,
investigators can finally put together
Teresa Sievers' final 24 hours.
[Braun] On June 27th, Wayne picks up Jimmy
in a rental car in Missouri and they drive to Florida.
On June 28th at 11:06 AM,
surveillance cameras at a local Walmart
show Jimmy and Curtis
buying several suspicious items.
On that same date between 3 and 4 PM,
Mark Sievers drops his wife, our victim, off at the airport
to fly home to Bonita Springs, Florida.
[Braun] At 6:09 PM on June 28th,
Curtis and Jimmy gain access to the Siever home in Bonita Springs,
using a passcode on the alarm
that Mark had given them.
[Lebid] At 10:53, Mark Sievers hears from his wife,
says she's landed safely,
she's gonna get something to eat
and is leaving the parking garage.
At approximately 11:00 PM,
our two suspects are in the garage.
The victim arrives home, pulls into the garage
and starts moving her luggage out.
Wayne follows the victim into the house,
grabs a hammer on his way in.
As he's on his way in, he bumps the dog bowl,
causing the victim to turn around.
And Curtis Wayne Wright began to strike her repeatedly.
Shortly after, Jimmy Rodgers took over
and began to hit the victim
again and again.
At approximately 11:19 PM,
the victim was killed due to blunt force trauma.
Jimmy and Wayne take out her wallet,
thumb through it, leave it on the floor.
They rummage through the victim's luggage in the garage
to further create that false narrative
that this was a robbery gone wrong.
They create pry marks on the garage exterior door
to make it look like somebody broke in.
And on June 29th,
Wayne and Jimmy drive back to Missouri.
[narrator] At trial,
Lee County sheriff's investigators' work pays off.
[Lebid] In December of 2019,
Jimmy Rodgers was convicted of second-degree murder
and sentenced to life in prison.
In February of 2020,
Curtis Wayne Wright
is found guilty of second-degree murder...
...and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
[narrator] Teresa Sievers' husband, Mark,
is also tried and convicted of first degree murder
and conspiracy to commit murder.
[Lebid] And on January 3rd, 2020.
Mark Sievers was sentenced to death.
This is one of the most horrific crimes I've ever worked...
...not only because the level of violence...
...but because the level of trust
that was violated...
...between two people that called themselves family.