August 23, 2022 • 25 mins
Today’s guests are producers Stephanie Lydecker and Jeff Shane.
A brutal murder in an upscale community leads investigators on a cross-country investigation that proves you need to be careful who you trust.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Falling in love is the best feeling in the world.
You see stars, you feel giddy, but sometimes that makes
you do crazy things, and sometimes that means murder. Just
because the story starts out with once upon a Time's
doesn't mean it ends happily ever after. Welcome to Crazy
and Love, a production of Katie Studios and I Heart Radio.
(00:25):
Today's guests are true crime producers Stephanie Laijicker and Jeff Shane.
Episode forty one, The Case of the Lookalike, The Polarizing Doctor,
and the Hammer. The year was two thousand and three
and Mark Sievers was on vacation in St. Petersburg, Florida.
(00:49):
As a traveling nurse, his job could be pretty stressful,
so little R and R was much needed. In between
time at the beach and poolside drinks. He met a
recently divorced doctor named Teresa. For the thirty five year old,
it was love at first sight. As a holistic doctor,
Teresa was outspoken and confident to her friends and family.
(01:10):
She was something special and Mark saw that right away.
After dating for some time, the pair got engaged to
honor how they met. Mark and Teresa got married on
a beach at sunset surrounded by loved ones. Teresa let
her hair fall curly and wore a stunning white dress.
She was the epitome of a glowing bride. Six months
(01:32):
after time the not the couple welcome their first daughter.
They built a large home around forty five minutes south
of Fort Myers in a safe community named Bonita Springs.
In two thousand seven, they had another little girl for
Mark and Teresa. It seemed like all of their dreams
were finally coming true. Here's Stephanie. Theresa found success as
(01:57):
a holistic doctor. She basically combined traditional and alternative medicine,
which healed people from all over the world who couldn't
find help elsewhere. She also made motivational speaking videotapes that
she would sell online, and with multiple sources of income,
she became the family's breadwinner. Mark helped manage the office
though when he took care of their two girls. And
(02:19):
perhaps she was so successful because Teresa was a fighter
and she would fight for her patients to receive the
best care possible. A fighter indeed stuff. Teresa was known
to have a really strong personality. She was considered pretty
polarizing from the people in her life. He either loved
her or you hated her. People described her as a dynamo.
She had a very short fuse, and this probably comes
(02:42):
from the fact that she really expected perfection from everyone.
She would even yell at patients who weren't following her orders.
Despite being a very small woman, she often had the
biggest personality in every room she stepped into. But what
really it came down to was it all came from
a place of wanting to help people. On June twenty nine,
(03:03):
dispatchers received a call nine one one, When is your emergency? Uh?
I had a friend's house. Uh, he's out of town
and I came here to check on his flight. And
she's down on the floor the sea. Her family had
been on vacation in Connecticut celebrating Teresa's mother's birthday, while
Mark stayed behind to continue the fund. Teresa had to
(03:24):
come home early to get to work Monday morning. When
she failed to arrive at the office, the staff texted Mark,
who contacted a friend to check on her. Here's audio
from the call. My friend. Uh, she's a doctor. I'm
a doctor. She came home last night. Her husband is
(03:46):
in Connecticut and she was supposed to go at nine o'clock.
They called me and I was on my way in
the work slice one by and she's down on the
s and there's hammer at the side and she's bashed
in the back of the head. And then knocked on
the front door and nobody answered, and the lights were on.
I could see her persons on the countertop and she
didn't answer at pound and pounding needed to keep goat
(04:07):
to get into the glass door. Glass door, and the
door leading to it was opened. One of the dogs
ran out. I don't know if he left un and uh,
and I walked and I just opened up the door,
walked in the door and you can have on the floor.
He's doing great, okay, okay. I did then know that
you're outside? The fire guys are here, okay, go yeah's dad.
(04:33):
So when the detectives arrived, their first thought was a
robbery gone wrong. Theresa had just gotten home and perhaps
a Robert didn't think anyone would be there, and she
had walked in on a crime being committed. What cops
noticed that kind of added to this theory was that
the home's alarm system wasn't on, and this all stemmed
from the fact that when the family was on vacation,
(04:53):
Mark had asked his mom to come over and feed
the family pets. When she arrived at the house, she
noticed that the alarm was off and had called her
son Mark to ask him about it, and he told
her not to worry about it. So perhaps the alarm
system got left off which allowed a Robert to break in, because,
as we know later that evening, Teresa was killed by
someone in the hall. The issue was that nothing was
(05:15):
missing in the house. Everything was in pristine condition, so
it didn't even look like a break in. Plus worth
noting this crime was absolutely brutal. Teresa had been beaten
to death with a hammer. She sustained severe head trauma,
and there was a ton of blood. It was clear
to detectives that this was not a quick and painless death.
In fact, it looked very personal. While the detectives were
(05:39):
looking at everyone in Teresa's life, like her office staff,
her patients, her manicurists, and her landscaper, the online web
sleuth community also kind of took on the case. Online
web sleuths are amateur, everyday men and woman who are
passionate about true crime and really investigate cases from the
comfort of their own homes. They've been known to have
(05:59):
a fair amount of success, and so according to this community,
there had actually been at least five holistic doctors across
the country who were found dead. Their thought was that
could someone have been targeting these men and women because
perhaps they had a cure for cancer or something else
that a big pharmaceutical company wouldn't want getting out. At
(06:20):
that time, police did not buy that. They were looking
at a disgruntled employee by the name of Sandra Hoskins. Now,
Sandra had been treated harshly by Teresa, apparently telling her
that she had very bad energy, and Sandra responded to
Teresa by calling her a bit. The relationship had soured,
and so much so that Sandra had been planning on
(06:40):
quitting her job the very Monday that Teresa was actually
found dead. The police also wanted to talk to the
person closest to Teresa, her husband Mark. For around three hours,
he spoke to detectives without an attorney. Let's take a listen,
appreciate has been something key read and tell her whatever
(07:01):
you're leaving going in dark at night, always have it
your finger on it. Your purse is ne any good.
If you carry a gun, you had your hand on it.
It doesn't be any good if it's not accessible. I
spoke to our financial advisor, who's a really good friend.
It's like a father to Teresa. He's also telling me
what I need to do. Stop crying, stop doing. We
(07:22):
have to do all these things, and I know it's
just I'm doing as much as I can as people
are telling me. I feel so I guess I feel pathetically,
but at the same time, there's so much going on.
It's hard that I could stop this. How do make
it all? Can you tell me when she died? I
(07:44):
need to know what she told you was, what happened
to this stage, we're still working on that. This is hard.
This is really should be nothing. We should say this
is because it's gonna help solve. Relaxed, starting yourself, trying
to focus. Okay, now talking about your relationship. Have you
(08:04):
guys been contemplating any kind of separation or divorce? Has
there been any marital problems? How about six months ago?
How about a year ago? And at one point Mark
had a moment alone and he completely broke down. Oh
(08:36):
helping do this pretty harrowing stuff. So really, at this point,
despite all of his crying and heartbreak. It looked like
he was one of the two biggest suspects in the case,
the former employee Sandra, and I suppose by default, the
husband Mark, which is very common. Typically when anybody has
(08:58):
murdered the first suspect, there's always their spouse or their
partner or their significant other. It's just stage one of
obviously starting an investigation, and you want to start ruling
people out as quickly as possible. That's a great point. Stuff.
And because remember Mark had actually been out of town
in Connecticut with the kids at the time of the murder,
(09:20):
so it was physically impossible that he would even be
able to kill his wife, but cops often assumed that
spouses have information or insight into the frame of mind
of the victim. In July, nearly a month after the
doctor was found dead in her home, the police got
a tip that had them looking in a completely new direction.
(09:43):
The tiptold investigators to take a closer look at a
man named Curtis Wainwright in small town, Missouri. According to
the tip, Curtis had been in Florida at the time
of the murders. So who was this man thousands of
miles away? Here's Jeff. As it turned out, Curtis was
actually Mark's childhood friend. The two men, both bald and
(10:06):
large in stature, looked more like identical twins than buddies.
They were also incredibly close. Mark would tell people Curtis
was his brother from another mother. He was at the
couple's wedding. Curtis was incredibly smart. He was his class
president and a whiz with technology. He would come down
to Florida to work on the Sabers computers in their
home and office. Two months before his wife's death, Mark
(10:29):
had traveled all the way to Missouri to be the
best man at Curtis's wedding. Curtis then had traveled down
to Florida to attend Teresa's funeral. But he also had
a bit of a dark side. He was a five
time convicted felon, and Curtis was also a person of
interest in missing person case. The tip also said that
Curtis hadn't been alone on that Florida trip. He was
(10:53):
allegedly with a friend from prison, a man named Jimmy Rogers.
Now Jimmy had a pretty interesting and relevant nick thing,
the Hammer, which of course we know was the weapon
that ultimately killed her. So the police went to talk
to both men and they denied every being in Florida.
This big tip, however, seemed like a dead end until
police noticed a car and Curtis's driveway. Inside the car
(11:16):
was a GPS device, which, you know, police were very
hopeful would shed some light on his whereabouts and that
that information could be used as potential evidence. But unfortunately
the GPS had been cleared. But we know how technology works.
Detectives spent hours recovering data and luckily pulled up all
of the previous destinations and bingo, sure enough, it seemed that,
(11:38):
in fact, Curtis had driven one thousand one miles from
Missouri down to Florida. Yeah, this GPS device really showed
a true road trip from hell. On the morning of June,
two days before Teresa was killed, Curtis first stopped at
Jimmy's house. Next, the pair drove south all the way
to the Ciba residence and according to the g PS,
(12:00):
they arrived around six am. Detectives surmised the men probably
went into the home, turning the alarm system off at
six o nine am. Remember, Mark's mom was really confused
why the alarm system was off. When she went to
the house. Here's what cops told her. I wasn't there
at six o nine in the morning. He was six nine.
(12:22):
That's what we're trying to work. Oh my god. After
getting into the house, Curtis and Jimmy had some time
to kill literally, so they went to Walmart. The police
tracked down surveillance footage of the two men at the
store buying items like a lock pick set, black towels,
flushable wipes, and garbage bags. After doing this macab shopping,
the men drove to the beach to enjoy the Florida sun.
(12:44):
Can you imagine? And by the way, all of this
is trackable on a GPS system. But that wasn't all
the police were relying on. Jimmy a k a. The
Hammer had a girlfriend. Her name was Taylor's shoemaker, and
she was also talking to police. She told cops that
Jimmy had confessed to her. Have a listen, and you
still don't know anything about what happened yet, right? He
(13:05):
tells you that night, did your mom? Yeah, tells me
the next night and my mom I told him that
I knew. I didn't actually know. It was after you
guys came and I told him that I knew that
he had something to do with it, okay, and then
you And then he started asking questions like what I
know about and I'm like, well, I know you went
down and kill some night and then he said yeah.
(13:29):
And then, um, I took a guess at Mark five.
Let me said yeah, And you said when you said
Mark some way, we're talking about Teresa Severs, the doctor
that was killed. Yes, And then um I said did
you shoot her? And he said no? And I said
then how how did you kill her? And he made
(13:51):
his people little chocolate lady does and then said with
it he said, with a hammer? Yeah, okay. Taylor then
took the cops to the area where he said Jimmy
had her dispose of the bloody clothes, and sure enough,
the clothes were right where she said they would be.
With all the signs pointing towards Curtis and Jimmy as
the killers, the cops could close the case, but the
(14:11):
question remained, why did these two men so far away
killed Teresa Severs. Curtis Wainwright offered the full story in
exchange for a lesser sentence. Prosecutors offered him a plea
of second degree manslaughter with a twenty five year sentence.
It was a deal he could not refuse. We're going
to take a break. We'll be back in just a moment.
(14:48):
At Jimmy's trial, Curtis testified that he and Jimmy killed Teresa.
He also told the courtroom that he had offered Jimmy
ten dollars for his part in the murder. After two
days of deliberating, the jury found Jimmy guilty of second
degree murder and sends him to life in prison. But
(15:08):
what Curtis offered to prosecutors wasn't just testimony against Jimmy.
It was also a story that pointed the blame towards
his best friend and Teresa's husband, Mark. According to Curtis,
Mark had offered him a hundred thousand dollars to kill
his wife Teresa, and it all started two months before
the murder at Curtis's wedding, the one where Mark was
(15:30):
the best man. Curtis said that Mark was complaining of
marriage problems and suggested that Curtis killed Teresa to make
all of his problems go away. At first, Mark's idea
was that Curtis shoot her as she was leaving work.
Now to that. Curtis pointed out that he might accidentally
hurt someone else in the process, but Mark countered that,
saying that it would actually maybe work even better if
(15:51):
someone else died, because then the suspicion would be off
of him. Well, the cops had figured out Mark and
Theresa had serious money issues. They also discovered that Teresa
had a four million dollar life insurance policy against her.
This backed up everything Curtis had told them about the
marriage and financial issues that Mark had allegedly told him.
It's so predictable because an insurance policy with that amount
(16:15):
of money, I mean four million dollars is a large
life insurance policy. And sure enough, here we go. That
seems to be one of the motives. The police also
discovered one interesting thing. They said that Mark had been
communicating with Curtis via some kind of a burner phone.
On their regular phones, they would text like normal, but
when one of them said the word quote other then
(16:37):
they would switch to the burner phone. It was kind
of their code stuff. We've covered a fair amount of
true crime cases, and criminals always think they can get
around cops with things like burner phones and code words,
and they always get found out, no one is smarter
than the police in these situations, and that's what happened.
(16:58):
With all this information, the police had enough to arrest
Mark Severs for murder in February, grossly enough. As he
was being walked out of his house where his two
daughters waited for him, he had a noticeable smirk. The
press became obsessed with the lookalike friends turned murderers who
would now testify against each other in court. As the
(17:20):
trial started, Mike appealed jovial, laughing and smiling with his attorney,
but when Curtis took the stand, his disposition shifted. Here's
some audio from the trial. I think when we were
in high school, I think the relationship was it was
less deep, So the the confiding and part of it
(17:41):
really probably didn't happen until we got closed after that. Yeah,
Dr Severs and his daughters. Did you ever spend time
with them? Did? I didn't spend much time with all
of them together, but I spent quite a bit of
time with Mark and and the children. When we kind
(18:02):
of make exhausted that he told me that really the
only option that he had was for her to die.
Um and he said that he needed to have her killed. Okay,
so on your wedding day, on your drive to pick
up we meet for your wedding, MS Receivers are telling
you that he wants to have his wife killed. Yes,
(18:25):
he asked me to help him. I mean, what kind
of help was he asking for? Was he asking you
to do it yourself? Or or what like? What kind
of help could he be possibly asking his friend for?
He it was pretty direct. He asked me to if
I could, I would kill her or take care of it.
(18:50):
And what did you what was your response when he
asked you to help him kill his wife? I was
surprised first, Um, I mean, are the two of you
that were the two of you that close? Mr? Wright?
That I mean Mr Sivers could ask you to kill
his wife and you would actually consider it? And yes,
(19:18):
I mean definitely the asking part question whether or not
actually a question whether or not actually doing it was
should have been part of the friendship. But let's just
say it shouldn't have been. Let's just say that. During
the trial, Curtis described in graphic detail the day he
murdered Theresa Sievers. As he was testifying, his former best
(19:39):
friend Mark was no longer smiling, but now crying. I
kicked that stand. The dog dish went fly and water
went everywhere. She jumped and started to turn towards me
and um. When she started to turn towards you, what
did you do? I had her hit her? Damn you
(20:02):
hit Dr Shivers with the hammer? Yes? Where did you
hit her in the head? The defense had a plan
to counter Curtis's story. According to the defense, Curtis was
gay and he was deeply in love with his best
friend Mark. He was jealous of Mark's perfect life with
Teresa and couldn't handle it anymore, so he decided to
(20:23):
kill Teresa. That way he could hopefully be with Mark.
Despite the fact that Mark had attended Curtis's wedding and
that's where the whole thing started. Mark's defense lawyer said
that he could feel a chemistry between the two men.
While the defense started to go in this direction, asking
Curtis if he had ever had sex with Mark, the
judge was not having any of it and shut down
(20:44):
the line of questioning pretty much immediately. This meant that
the defense had just lost their biggest theory. When the
prosecution and defense rested, the jury took just four hours
to deliberate and sure enough, Mark was found guilty of
first degree murder. Did hurry get this recommended death? Let's
(21:06):
stop here for another break. At the end of the trial,
Teresa's mother made a harrowing victims statement. The biggest loss
fought upon her two daughters, whom Teresa loved with all
(21:30):
her heart. These two girls have been robbed of their
remarkable mother, their home, their pets, their possessions, their family
and friends. Teresa will not be able to love and
guide them. She won't be there when they graduate high school,
(21:55):
or when they need their mother to kiss away tears
from their first heartbreak. She won't be able to impact
her wisdom and in life experiences. Her daughters will miss
their mother on every birthday and every holiday, On their
wedding day, and when they have children of their own,
(22:19):
they will spend the rest of their lives hoping to
hold on the memories of the mother they once knew
and trying to forget the nightmare she endured the last
days moments of her life. But my children have lost
the mother they want SNeW because a big part of
(22:45):
me died with her. June fifteen, While the Jerry suggested
Marc recy at the death sentence, there was one person
who felt Marks should be spared, his now teenage daughter.
She wrote a letter to the court saying that while
she currently wanted no relationship with her father, that if
(23:09):
in the future she changed her mind, sentencing him to
death would ensure she would never have the opportunity. Mark
also made a statement to the court. Here's a partial
recording of that although a jury found me guilty, I
am innocent of all charges, as I maintained since his
Haina's crime took place. I love my wife, Teresa and
(23:30):
her two daughters, Josie and Karmy, with all my heart.
Our girls have tragically lost their mommy, and now they're
about to lose her daddy as well. Therefore, I respectfully
asked the court for life is not to compound their
loss and suffering. I am grateful, however, that the court
(23:51):
can only determine my fate on earth. Well, my soul
is in God's hands, and God knows the truth. Although
I cannot feel remorse for something I had absolutely nothing
to do with, I am deeply saddened and forever heartbroken,
to say the very least, the Teresa was taken from us.
Teresa is my soul neat I will miss her and
(24:14):
chears her memories until we are reunited in heaven. Until then,
I will fight the s wrongful conviction until I improve
an innocent and set free to rejoin my family. When
it came time to decide Mark's faith, the judge hands
at him the death sentence. Mark Seevers is currently the
only person on Florida's death row who didn't physically kill anyone.
(24:36):
In January, he requested a new trial shameless plug. If
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(24:57):
at Katie Underscore Studio us. Crazy in Love is produced
by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Graves, and me Courtney Armstrong.
Editing and sound design by Jeff Ba. Crazy in Love
is a production of I Heart Radio and Katie Studios.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
(25:21):
your favorite shows. Stay safe, lovers,
Falling in love is the best feeling in the world.
You see stars, you feel giddy, but sometimes that makes
you do crazy things, and sometimes that means murder. Just
because the story starts out with once upon a Time's
doesn't mean it ends happily ever after. Welcome to Crazy
and Love, a production of Katie Studios and I Heart Radio.
(00:25):
Today's guests are true crime producers Stephanie Laijicker and Jeff Shane.
Episode forty one, The Case of the Lookalike, The Polarizing Doctor,
and the Hammer. The year was two thousand and three
and Mark Sievers was on vacation in St. Petersburg, Florida.
(00:49):
As a traveling nurse, his job could be pretty stressful,
so little R and R was much needed. In between
time at the beach and poolside drinks. He met a
recently divorced doctor named Teresa. For the thirty five year old,
it was love at first sight. As a holistic doctor,
Teresa was outspoken and confident to her friends and family.
(01:10):
She was something special and Mark saw that right away.
After dating for some time, the pair got engaged to
honor how they met. Mark and Teresa got married on
a beach at sunset surrounded by loved ones. Teresa let
her hair fall curly and wore a stunning white dress.
She was the epitome of a glowing bride. Six months
(01:32):
after time the not the couple welcome their first daughter.
They built a large home around forty five minutes south
of Fort Myers in a safe community named Bonita Springs.
In two thousand seven, they had another little girl for
Mark and Teresa. It seemed like all of their dreams
were finally coming true. Here's Stephanie. Theresa found success as
(01:57):
a holistic doctor. She basically combined traditional and alternative medicine,
which healed people from all over the world who couldn't
find help elsewhere. She also made motivational speaking videotapes that
she would sell online, and with multiple sources of income,
she became the family's breadwinner. Mark helped manage the office
though when he took care of their two girls. And
(02:19):
perhaps she was so successful because Teresa was a fighter
and she would fight for her patients to receive the
best care possible. A fighter indeed stuff. Teresa was known
to have a really strong personality. She was considered pretty
polarizing from the people in her life. He either loved
her or you hated her. People described her as a dynamo.
She had a very short fuse, and this probably comes
(02:42):
from the fact that she really expected perfection from everyone.
She would even yell at patients who weren't following her orders.
Despite being a very small woman, she often had the
biggest personality in every room she stepped into. But what
really it came down to was it all came from
a place of wanting to help people. On June twenty nine,
(03:03):
dispatchers received a call nine one one, When is your emergency? Uh?
I had a friend's house. Uh, he's out of town
and I came here to check on his flight. And
she's down on the floor the sea. Her family had
been on vacation in Connecticut celebrating Teresa's mother's birthday, while
Mark stayed behind to continue the fund. Teresa had to
(03:24):
come home early to get to work Monday morning. When
she failed to arrive at the office, the staff texted Mark,
who contacted a friend to check on her. Here's audio
from the call. My friend. Uh, she's a doctor. I'm
a doctor. She came home last night. Her husband is
(03:46):
in Connecticut and she was supposed to go at nine o'clock.
They called me and I was on my way in
the work slice one by and she's down on the
s and there's hammer at the side and she's bashed
in the back of the head. And then knocked on
the front door and nobody answered, and the lights were on.
I could see her persons on the countertop and she
didn't answer at pound and pounding needed to keep goat
(04:07):
to get into the glass door. Glass door, and the
door leading to it was opened. One of the dogs
ran out. I don't know if he left un and uh,
and I walked and I just opened up the door,
walked in the door and you can have on the floor.
He's doing great, okay, okay. I did then know that
you're outside? The fire guys are here, okay, go yeah's dad.
(04:33):
So when the detectives arrived, their first thought was a
robbery gone wrong. Theresa had just gotten home and perhaps
a Robert didn't think anyone would be there, and she
had walked in on a crime being committed. What cops
noticed that kind of added to this theory was that
the home's alarm system wasn't on, and this all stemmed
from the fact that when the family was on vacation,
(04:53):
Mark had asked his mom to come over and feed
the family pets. When she arrived at the house, she
noticed that the alarm was off and had called her
son Mark to ask him about it, and he told
her not to worry about it. So perhaps the alarm
system got left off which allowed a Robert to break in, because,
as we know later that evening, Teresa was killed by
someone in the hall. The issue was that nothing was
(05:15):
missing in the house. Everything was in pristine condition, so
it didn't even look like a break in. Plus worth
noting this crime was absolutely brutal. Teresa had been beaten
to death with a hammer. She sustained severe head trauma,
and there was a ton of blood. It was clear
to detectives that this was not a quick and painless death.
In fact, it looked very personal. While the detectives were
(05:39):
looking at everyone in Teresa's life, like her office staff,
her patients, her manicurists, and her landscaper, the online web
sleuth community also kind of took on the case. Online
web sleuths are amateur, everyday men and woman who are
passionate about true crime and really investigate cases from the
comfort of their own homes. They've been known to have
(05:59):
a fair amount of success, and so according to this community,
there had actually been at least five holistic doctors across
the country who were found dead. Their thought was that
could someone have been targeting these men and women because
perhaps they had a cure for cancer or something else
that a big pharmaceutical company wouldn't want getting out. At
(06:20):
that time, police did not buy that. They were looking
at a disgruntled employee by the name of Sandra Hoskins. Now,
Sandra had been treated harshly by Teresa, apparently telling her
that she had very bad energy, and Sandra responded to
Teresa by calling her a bit. The relationship had soured,
and so much so that Sandra had been planning on
(06:40):
quitting her job the very Monday that Teresa was actually
found dead. The police also wanted to talk to the
person closest to Teresa, her husband Mark. For around three hours,
he spoke to detectives without an attorney. Let's take a listen,
appreciate has been something key read and tell her whatever
(07:01):
you're leaving going in dark at night, always have it
your finger on it. Your purse is ne any good.
If you carry a gun, you had your hand on it.
It doesn't be any good if it's not accessible. I
spoke to our financial advisor, who's a really good friend.
It's like a father to Teresa. He's also telling me
what I need to do. Stop crying, stop doing. We
(07:22):
have to do all these things, and I know it's
just I'm doing as much as I can as people
are telling me. I feel so I guess I feel pathetically,
but at the same time, there's so much going on.
It's hard that I could stop this. How do make
it all? Can you tell me when she died? I
(07:44):
need to know what she told you was, what happened
to this stage, we're still working on that. This is hard.
This is really should be nothing. We should say this
is because it's gonna help solve. Relaxed, starting yourself, trying
to focus. Okay, now talking about your relationship. Have you
(08:04):
guys been contemplating any kind of separation or divorce? Has
there been any marital problems? How about six months ago?
How about a year ago? And at one point Mark
had a moment alone and he completely broke down. Oh
(08:36):
helping do this pretty harrowing stuff. So really, at this point,
despite all of his crying and heartbreak. It looked like
he was one of the two biggest suspects in the case,
the former employee Sandra, and I suppose by default, the
husband Mark, which is very common. Typically when anybody has
(08:58):
murdered the first suspect, there's always their spouse or their
partner or their significant other. It's just stage one of
obviously starting an investigation, and you want to start ruling
people out as quickly as possible. That's a great point. Stuff.
And because remember Mark had actually been out of town
in Connecticut with the kids at the time of the murder,
(09:20):
so it was physically impossible that he would even be
able to kill his wife, but cops often assumed that
spouses have information or insight into the frame of mind
of the victim. In July, nearly a month after the
doctor was found dead in her home, the police got
a tip that had them looking in a completely new direction.
(09:43):
The tiptold investigators to take a closer look at a
man named Curtis Wainwright in small town, Missouri. According to
the tip, Curtis had been in Florida at the time
of the murders. So who was this man thousands of
miles away? Here's Jeff. As it turned out, Curtis was
actually Mark's childhood friend. The two men, both bald and
(10:06):
large in stature, looked more like identical twins than buddies.
They were also incredibly close. Mark would tell people Curtis
was his brother from another mother. He was at the
couple's wedding. Curtis was incredibly smart. He was his class
president and a whiz with technology. He would come down
to Florida to work on the Sabers computers in their
home and office. Two months before his wife's death, Mark
(10:29):
had traveled all the way to Missouri to be the
best man at Curtis's wedding. Curtis then had traveled down
to Florida to attend Teresa's funeral. But he also had
a bit of a dark side. He was a five
time convicted felon, and Curtis was also a person of
interest in missing person case. The tip also said that
Curtis hadn't been alone on that Florida trip. He was
(10:53):
allegedly with a friend from prison, a man named Jimmy Rogers.
Now Jimmy had a pretty interesting and relevant nick thing,
the Hammer, which of course we know was the weapon
that ultimately killed her. So the police went to talk
to both men and they denied every being in Florida.
This big tip, however, seemed like a dead end until
police noticed a car and Curtis's driveway. Inside the car
(11:16):
was a GPS device, which, you know, police were very
hopeful would shed some light on his whereabouts and that
that information could be used as potential evidence. But unfortunately
the GPS had been cleared. But we know how technology works.
Detectives spent hours recovering data and luckily pulled up all
of the previous destinations and bingo, sure enough, it seemed that,
(11:38):
in fact, Curtis had driven one thousand one miles from
Missouri down to Florida. Yeah, this GPS device really showed
a true road trip from hell. On the morning of June,
two days before Teresa was killed, Curtis first stopped at
Jimmy's house. Next, the pair drove south all the way
to the Ciba residence and according to the g PS,
(12:00):
they arrived around six am. Detectives surmised the men probably
went into the home, turning the alarm system off at
six o nine am. Remember, Mark's mom was really confused
why the alarm system was off. When she went to
the house. Here's what cops told her. I wasn't there
at six o nine in the morning. He was six nine.
(12:22):
That's what we're trying to work. Oh my god. After
getting into the house, Curtis and Jimmy had some time
to kill literally, so they went to Walmart. The police
tracked down surveillance footage of the two men at the
store buying items like a lock pick set, black towels,
flushable wipes, and garbage bags. After doing this macab shopping,
the men drove to the beach to enjoy the Florida sun.
(12:44):
Can you imagine? And by the way, all of this
is trackable on a GPS system. But that wasn't all
the police were relying on. Jimmy a k a. The
Hammer had a girlfriend. Her name was Taylor's shoemaker, and
she was also talking to police. She told cops that
Jimmy had confessed to her. Have a listen, and you
still don't know anything about what happened yet, right? He
(13:05):
tells you that night, did your mom? Yeah, tells me
the next night and my mom I told him that
I knew. I didn't actually know. It was after you
guys came and I told him that I knew that
he had something to do with it, okay, and then
you And then he started asking questions like what I
know about and I'm like, well, I know you went
down and kill some night and then he said yeah.
(13:29):
And then, um, I took a guess at Mark five.
Let me said yeah, And you said when you said
Mark some way, we're talking about Teresa Severs, the doctor
that was killed. Yes, And then um I said did
you shoot her? And he said no? And I said
then how how did you kill her? And he made
(13:51):
his people little chocolate lady does and then said with
it he said, with a hammer? Yeah, okay. Taylor then
took the cops to the area where he said Jimmy
had her dispose of the bloody clothes, and sure enough,
the clothes were right where she said they would be.
With all the signs pointing towards Curtis and Jimmy as
the killers, the cops could close the case, but the
(14:11):
question remained, why did these two men so far away
killed Teresa Severs. Curtis Wainwright offered the full story in
exchange for a lesser sentence. Prosecutors offered him a plea
of second degree manslaughter with a twenty five year sentence.
It was a deal he could not refuse. We're going
to take a break. We'll be back in just a moment.
(14:48):
At Jimmy's trial, Curtis testified that he and Jimmy killed Teresa.
He also told the courtroom that he had offered Jimmy
ten dollars for his part in the murder. After two
days of deliberating, the jury found Jimmy guilty of second
degree murder and sends him to life in prison. But
(15:08):
what Curtis offered to prosecutors wasn't just testimony against Jimmy.
It was also a story that pointed the blame towards
his best friend and Teresa's husband, Mark. According to Curtis,
Mark had offered him a hundred thousand dollars to kill
his wife Teresa, and it all started two months before
the murder at Curtis's wedding, the one where Mark was
(15:30):
the best man. Curtis said that Mark was complaining of
marriage problems and suggested that Curtis killed Teresa to make
all of his problems go away. At first, Mark's idea
was that Curtis shoot her as she was leaving work.
Now to that. Curtis pointed out that he might accidentally
hurt someone else in the process, but Mark countered that,
saying that it would actually maybe work even better if
(15:51):
someone else died, because then the suspicion would be off
of him. Well, the cops had figured out Mark and
Theresa had serious money issues. They also discovered that Teresa
had a four million dollar life insurance policy against her.
This backed up everything Curtis had told them about the
marriage and financial issues that Mark had allegedly told him.
It's so predictable because an insurance policy with that amount
(16:15):
of money, I mean four million dollars is a large
life insurance policy. And sure enough, here we go. That
seems to be one of the motives. The police also
discovered one interesting thing. They said that Mark had been
communicating with Curtis via some kind of a burner phone.
On their regular phones, they would text like normal, but
when one of them said the word quote other then
(16:37):
they would switch to the burner phone. It was kind
of their code stuff. We've covered a fair amount of
true crime cases, and criminals always think they can get
around cops with things like burner phones and code words,
and they always get found out, no one is smarter
than the police in these situations, and that's what happened.
(16:58):
With all this information, the police had enough to arrest
Mark Severs for murder in February, grossly enough. As he
was being walked out of his house where his two
daughters waited for him, he had a noticeable smirk. The
press became obsessed with the lookalike friends turned murderers who
would now testify against each other in court. As the
(17:20):
trial started, Mike appealed jovial, laughing and smiling with his attorney,
but when Curtis took the stand, his disposition shifted. Here's
some audio from the trial. I think when we were
in high school, I think the relationship was it was
less deep, So the the confiding and part of it
(17:41):
really probably didn't happen until we got closed after that. Yeah,
Dr Severs and his daughters. Did you ever spend time
with them? Did? I didn't spend much time with all
of them together, but I spent quite a bit of
time with Mark and and the children. When we kind
(18:02):
of make exhausted that he told me that really the
only option that he had was for her to die.
Um and he said that he needed to have her killed. Okay,
so on your wedding day, on your drive to pick
up we meet for your wedding, MS Receivers are telling
you that he wants to have his wife killed. Yes,
(18:25):
he asked me to help him. I mean, what kind
of help was he asking for? Was he asking you
to do it yourself? Or or what like? What kind
of help could he be possibly asking his friend for?
He it was pretty direct. He asked me to if
I could, I would kill her or take care of it.
(18:50):
And what did you what was your response when he
asked you to help him kill his wife? I was
surprised first, Um, I mean, are the two of you
that were the two of you that close? Mr? Wright?
That I mean Mr Sivers could ask you to kill
his wife and you would actually consider it? And yes,
(19:18):
I mean definitely the asking part question whether or not
actually a question whether or not actually doing it was
should have been part of the friendship. But let's just
say it shouldn't have been. Let's just say that. During
the trial, Curtis described in graphic detail the day he
murdered Theresa Sievers. As he was testifying, his former best
(19:39):
friend Mark was no longer smiling, but now crying. I
kicked that stand. The dog dish went fly and water
went everywhere. She jumped and started to turn towards me
and um. When she started to turn towards you, what
did you do? I had her hit her? Damn you
(20:02):
hit Dr Shivers with the hammer? Yes? Where did you
hit her in the head? The defense had a plan
to counter Curtis's story. According to the defense, Curtis was
gay and he was deeply in love with his best
friend Mark. He was jealous of Mark's perfect life with
Teresa and couldn't handle it anymore, so he decided to
(20:23):
kill Teresa. That way he could hopefully be with Mark.
Despite the fact that Mark had attended Curtis's wedding and
that's where the whole thing started. Mark's defense lawyer said
that he could feel a chemistry between the two men.
While the defense started to go in this direction, asking
Curtis if he had ever had sex with Mark, the
judge was not having any of it and shut down
(20:44):
the line of questioning pretty much immediately. This meant that
the defense had just lost their biggest theory. When the
prosecution and defense rested, the jury took just four hours
to deliberate and sure enough, Mark was found guilty of
first degree murder. Did hurry get this recommended death? Let's
(21:06):
stop here for another break. At the end of the trial,
Teresa's mother made a harrowing victims statement. The biggest loss
fought upon her two daughters, whom Teresa loved with all
(21:30):
her heart. These two girls have been robbed of their
remarkable mother, their home, their pets, their possessions, their family
and friends. Teresa will not be able to love and
guide them. She won't be there when they graduate high school,
(21:55):
or when they need their mother to kiss away tears
from their first heartbreak. She won't be able to impact
her wisdom and in life experiences. Her daughters will miss
their mother on every birthday and every holiday, On their
wedding day, and when they have children of their own,
(22:19):
they will spend the rest of their lives hoping to
hold on the memories of the mother they once knew
and trying to forget the nightmare she endured the last
days moments of her life. But my children have lost
the mother they want SNeW because a big part of
(22:45):
me died with her. June fifteen, While the Jerry suggested
Marc recy at the death sentence, there was one person
who felt Marks should be spared, his now teenage daughter.
She wrote a letter to the court saying that while
she currently wanted no relationship with her father, that if
(23:09):
in the future she changed her mind, sentencing him to
death would ensure she would never have the opportunity. Mark
also made a statement to the court. Here's a partial
recording of that although a jury found me guilty, I
am innocent of all charges, as I maintained since his
Haina's crime took place. I love my wife, Teresa and
(23:30):
her two daughters, Josie and Karmy, with all my heart.
Our girls have tragically lost their mommy, and now they're
about to lose her daddy as well. Therefore, I respectfully
asked the court for life is not to compound their
loss and suffering. I am grateful, however, that the court
(23:51):
can only determine my fate on earth. Well, my soul
is in God's hands, and God knows the truth. Although
I cannot feel remorse for something I had absolutely nothing
to do with, I am deeply saddened and forever heartbroken,
to say the very least, the Teresa was taken from us.
Teresa is my soul neat I will miss her and
(24:14):
chears her memories until we are reunited in heaven. Until then,
I will fight the s wrongful conviction until I improve
an innocent and set free to rejoin my family. When
it came time to decide Mark's faith, the judge hands
at him the death sentence. Mark Seevers is currently the
only person on Florida's death row who didn't physically kill anyone.
(24:36):
In January, he requested a new trial shameless plug. If
you're enjoying Crazy and Love, leave us a review and
listen to season three of our hit series The Piked
and Massacre. New episodes there every Wednesday wherever you get
your podcasts, and don't forget to follow us on Instagram
(24:57):
at Katie Underscore Studio us. Crazy in Love is produced
by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Graves, and me Courtney Armstrong.
Editing and sound design by Jeff Ba. Crazy in Love
is a production of I Heart Radio and Katie Studios.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
(25:21):
your favorite shows. Stay safe, lovers,
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