A beautiful and brilliant medical doctor, Dr. Teresa Sievers, takes her family on a vacation trip to visit extended relatives with her husband and her two little girls.
Teresa comes home early, leaving family behind in Connecticut so she can go to work the next morning. Mark Sievers calls a co-worker of his wife to go to the home and check on her when she doesn't show up.
Dr. Teresa Sievers was found brutally bludgeoned, still wearing the outfit, complete with high-heeled shoes, she wore home from the airport Sunday night. The kitchen is covered in blood, a hammer by her side.
Husband Mark Sievers is ultimately charged with murder, accused of arranging for his childhood friend, Curtis Wayne Wright, to murder his wife.
Wright pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder, cooperating with prosecutors in Mark Sievers's trial. Sievers is convicted and now is appealing his death sentence.
Joining Nancy Grace to discuss the case:
- Ashley Willcott: Judge and trial attorney, Anchor on Court TV, www.ashleywillcott.com
- James Shelnutt: Attorney, served 27 years as Atlanta Metro Major Case Detective, SWAT Officer
- Bethany Marshall: Psychologist
- Dr. Tim Gallagher: Medical Examiner
- Amanda Hall: Reporter, WINK TV, Ft Myers, Florida
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Crime Stories with Nancy Greece. Well, it's Friday night, and
it is special. It's the tenth anniversary of a murder
that shot not just Southwest Florida, but beyond. Do you
recall the name doctor Teresa Severs, because I will never
(00:24):
forget it. Her husband, Mark Severs, and his high school buddy,
who was a doppelganger, get together and murder his wife,
the mother of their two little girls. She was everything,
just precious, cute as a button, a tiny, diminutive woman,
(00:44):
the mother of the two. She was a medical doctor. Listen.
She not only brought home the bacon, but fried it
up and put it on the table. You see what
I'm saying. She supported him. How did he repay her
by killing her? And believe it or not, Mark Severs,
the killer, now wants out of jail on appeal. Surprised,
(01:13):
I'm not, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I
want to thank you for being with us. He just
won't go away, will he? After evidence proved him guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt, Mark Severs now decides, Hey, I
want to get out of jail. He should have thought
about that before he had his wife murdered. In this
(01:34):
elaborate plan ridiculous. His main point of contention is Jimmy Rogers,
one of the convicted killers hired by Severs to murder
his wife. Now Jimmy Rogers claimed in an interview with
(01:56):
week Wink that there was no conspiracy and accused his
former friend Curtis Wayne Wright, the high school doppel ganger,
of lying during his plea deal testimony against husband Mark Severs. Now,
if you will recall the high school friend, now convicted felon,
(02:21):
Curtis Wayne Wright testified in court he and Rogers, the killer,
were hired by husband Mark Severs, and they were promised
a huge payout of life insurance money to kill Teresa Severs.
High school friend Curtis Wright said, doctor Severs arrived home
earlier than expected from an out of town trip, and
(02:43):
he and Rogers used a ball peen hammer to murder her,
this tiny little female doctor who had these gorgeous twin girls.
Quote from high school friend. I hit her with the hammer.
I actually think she thought I was Mark because she said,
(03:08):
why this is what happened to doctor Teresa Severs.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
H I at a friend's house. He's out of town
and I came here for second flight, and she's got
on the floor.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Okay, stand seraphone, stand line. Yes, okay, we're doing very well.
Good time. At the moment, we're going to connect you.
They're going to ask for the throne a fire here?
What did he addressed the emergency?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Two one zero three four Jarvis?
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
And is that a house for an apartment?
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Sir?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
The house?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I mean, exactly what happened my.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Friend us she's a doctor. I'm a doctor. She came
home last night. Her husband is in Connecticut, and she
was to school at nine o'clock. They called me, and
I was on my way in the works. I swung
by and she's done, and the hammer at the side
and she's dashed in the back of the head.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
You are hearing the nine to one one call from
a coworker, doctor Patrites, telling dispatch that his dear friend,
a beautiful mother of two girls, a beloved doctor who
practiced holistic medicine throughout that Florida region to many many women,
is dead on the floor. First thing I noticed, not
only the injuries to doctor Teresa. Seever's a tiny woman,
(04:41):
about four eleven or five feet tall. She's still wearing
the shoes the I call them stiletto's really high heel
she'd work as she was so short that she was
wearing the night before, the Sunday night before, she came
home from a family vacation with relatives to Connecticut, including
(05:01):
her husband and two little girls. That told me a
lot about the timeline. Seemingly she still had on her clothes.
She hadn't gone back to her bedroom to take a
bath or put on pj's. She was ambushed right as
she came home from the airport while someone following her.
Does someone know her flight plan? Or was it just
a burglary gone wrong? Let's start at the very beginning.
(05:23):
Take a listen to more of that nine one one
call weekly okay, yes.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Roy, sir, office for you on the way with you? Okay?
Speaker 5 (05:34):
Right?
Speaker 6 (05:34):
And so you said you're a doctor, Yes I am.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Okay, Are you with her now?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
I'm outside of the house. I don't know if there's
in the house, okay right?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
For how old?
Speaker 7 (05:44):
Is all right?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Sir? And is she a week?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
She's got one before? And those blood everywhere?
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Okay? All right? So I do have paramedics, fire department.
Also law enforcement is on the line with us. Okay,
they're going to be going out. Okay, Okay, it's a
point to stand on line one moment.
Speaker 6 (06:10):
I'm gonna think you're here because you know, I don't
know if there's still help.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Okay, all right, was right? It is the stand the
line I pick. A tariff office has questions and they're
going to conting you on what to do next. Okay, sure,
are you inside the resident instead?
Speaker 4 (06:27):
No, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I'm standing in the driveway.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Okay. And then when you walked in slave the house,
you said the blood was dryer.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
What did you say?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, half the blood is dry, half the blast.
Speaker 6 (06:35):
Is she cold dead?
Speaker 8 (06:36):
Cult?
Speaker 5 (06:37):
No?
Speaker 1 (06:37):
I can't help but analyze that nine to one one call.
And this co worker, doctor Petreati, seems very very calm.
I'm going to go to doctor Bethany Marshall's psycho analyst
joining us from l A. Can find it at doctor
Bethany Marshall dot com. Doctor Bethany I was the same
way in court, no matter what happened, at least in
front of a jury. I would stay extremely calm, even
(06:57):
once when a prisoner launched at me with a shank.
Didn't make it, by the way, But long story short,
not in other areas of my life. But I guess
when it's your duty and you're trained a certain way,
you just carry on. What do you make of the
nine one one call doctor Bethany, Well, Nancy, let me
tell you a little story.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
When I was doing your HLN show, I had a patient.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Who tried to kill herself.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
She overdosed on benzodiazepines.
Speaker 9 (07:25):
She called me up.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
She into like a sort of.
Speaker 9 (07:28):
A coma like state.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
I called nine one one, and my biggest fear was
that the nine one one call was going to be
played on the evening news.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
So I was very formal and how I reported it.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
I said, this is.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
Doctor Bethany Marshall, this is my license number, this is
where I got this call.
Speaker 9 (07:42):
This is the woman's I.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
Dress, here's her diagnosis, here are the benzodiazepines, the number
of pills she took on down the road. Because I
knew that that was a very formalized report, that this
could be played in court, this could be played on
the evening news. As I just said, so this is
the doctor who walks into a crime scene. The woman's
back of her head is bashed and she's still wearing
her stiletto shoes. He is the first one on the scene.
(08:06):
So yes, doctor Kim Gallagher is correct. You have to
be authoritative, you have to be calm in the midst
of the storm. But there's also this anxiety about how
you are going to come across as you report the incident.
You you are the first responder, You're the person who's
going to be questioned, So how you make that verbal
report is extremely important.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
With me an all star panel today to break it down,
put it back together again, of course, in addition to
doctor Bethany Marshall with me, judge and trial lawyer anchor
Court TV Ashley Wilcott. You can find her at Ashley
Wilcott dot com. James Shelna twenty seven years Atlanta Metro
major k SWAT officer, now lawyer. But right now to
(08:49):
Amanda Hall, special guest joining us, investigative reporter from wi
in KTV Fort Myers, Florida, who has been on the
story since the get go. At the beginning, Amanda, let's
just take what we know. Tell me about the crime
scene for those of you just joining us, A stunning
development in the case of a murdered mom and doctor
(09:10):
doctor Teresa's severs remind those listeners that don't already know,
Amanda Hall, when cops came in, what did they find
at the scene, Nancy.
Speaker 7 (09:19):
When police came in in June of twenty fifteen, they
came inside the Severs home and they found blood in
the kitchen, and they found Teresa Sever's bludgeon to death
with the claw end of a hammer. Blood.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Amanda, Amanda, Amanda, Amanda Hall joining me, w I ink
when you say blood in the kitchen, I mean, you know,
this morning, I was chopping up green beans and I
have to chop the tips off every single one or
Lucy won't eat it, and I cut my finger.
Speaker 7 (09:51):
Okay, we're not talking about that kind of blood, Nancy.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
What do you mean by blood just a tiny drop?
Tell me the whole.
Speaker 7 (09:57):
Thing, Amanda, Nancy, there was so much bloo in there.
You know. When we have interviewed investigators and detective who
were initially on this case, some of them had never
seen anything like it. The amount of blood was stunning.
When you look at the report, seventeen crescent shaped cuts
(10:18):
to her head. I mean, she was bludgeoned over and
over and over and over, So you can just imagine
the amount of blood inside of that home.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
What else did they find, Amanda.
Speaker 7 (10:30):
The other thing they found was that the crime scene
was staged to make it look like a break in,
to make it look like a robbery. The thing is, Nancy.
They stuffed cash in different parts of the home, and
there was a whole cachet of guns that were untouched.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Crime stores with Nancy Grace. Do you know how when
you think a square a roach and then suddenly there
it is again? Same thing here husband Mark Severs. I
thought he was put away for life, but here he
is again. Now he wants to get out on appeal.
(11:15):
Let me just have a quick refresher on what happened
to the beautiful young mom of two, doctor Teresa Severs.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
The hammer's sitting next to her, and you had wrapped
it and didn't touch anything.
Speaker 6 (11:27):
No, I did not touch anything.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I touched her. I showok her a little bit.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
All right, one moment. You're doing really well.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
So the last time.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
You had seen her is what time?
Speaker 6 (11:38):
Probably too three weeks ago.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
When you said she returned today.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I don't know when she came back, but she was
supposed to go back. She was supposed to go to
work today at nine o'clock and her husband called me
from Connecticut to say she didn't shut up the work
and she not answered her phone, and he checked her.
He tried to call him, try calling. He's going to
call her mom, and he said she was slinging by?
Speaker 6 (12:02):
Can you sling by?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
And I knocked on the front door and nobody answered,
and the lights were on. I could see your persons
on the countertop and she didn't answer. I pounded, powdered,
and he gave me the key code to get into
the gloves oil for the glass door, and the doors
leading into it was opened that and uh, and I
walked in. I just opened up the door, walked in
the door, and she've been on the floor.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Welcome back, everybody. I'm Nancy Gray's. That is a nine
one one call of a coworker doctor patritis, who shows
up when this gorgeous young mom of two little girls.
Doctor Teresa's Savers, very well known in the Bonita Springs area,
practiced mostly with women and had a very holistic method
(12:44):
toward medicine, very and closer to the whole community. Never
turned a person away. Tiny, diminutive woman. I think she
was about four eleven And that's important because she always
wore high heels, okay to you know, give her a
little height, and she still had on her heels, or
at least one of them when she was found. Dad,
(13:07):
she just flown in from Connecticut. Her husband and children
still in Connecticut. And normally you look at the husband,
first husband, lover, boyfriend ex. He's in Connecticut with the children,
on a vacation with her family. It was only when
she didn't shru up to work that morning that coworkers
became concerned and went to her home again. I'm Nancy Grace.
(13:30):
This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.
And you know, Ashley Willcott, judge and trial lawyer, anchor
Court TV. Ashley Wilcott dot com. Ashley, you and I
both have a girl, and imagine two of them. You've
got two boys and a girl. I have a boy
and a girl. And John David is always just you know, happy,
(13:50):
go lucky, care free. You know, he just wants to
go outside and jump on the trampoline. He wants to
play with his friends on the computer. You know, nothing,
fai eat whatever I think? So where wouldever? I lay out?
And and't care if his hair is comb nothing, He's
just perfect. Girls are a whole nother ballgame, and you
need your mother, You need a loving guiding hand, somebody
(14:14):
that can say stand up, don't walk like a field hand,
and they don't get hurt. You're loving them, You're helping
them through all life's curveballs. These two little girls are
with dad at a Connecticut vacation with extended family. Their
mom is gone. I mean, how do you break something
like that to two little girls, Ashley, Yeah.
Speaker 10 (14:36):
You know, I don't know, Nancy, you can't even imagine,
because depending on the age, they don't even necessarily understand
what that means. And so every day they're going to
still look for their mom and wonder where their mom
is and try to grasp what it means that she's
literally gone forever. But the other thing that bothers me is,
of course, it happens that one spouse is somewhere with
(14:56):
the kids and the other spouse has to travel back
to work.
Speaker 6 (14:59):
But to me was the beginning of.
Speaker 10 (15:02):
The story to say, he's in Connecticut with the kids,
she's here at home, and it happens to then get
killed the first night. Does this mean anything or not?
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Take a listen to the questions the nine one one
operator poses to doctor Petredes.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Okay, and so you were there because they asked you
to take care of the house.
Speaker 11 (15:25):
Is that correct?
Speaker 6 (15:27):
Mark?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Her husband called me to say, please, can you check
on her because it's not like her not to show
up to work in you late?
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Okay? So, and I know you told me before. But
when after he called the chuck and his wife because
she wasn't at work.
Speaker 6 (15:48):
In parently talking one okay, gaging the code number he
founded a little you know, and you see the call
from work saying she was there. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Okay, that's fine.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
He's her office manager.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Oh, she's the office manager of his business.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Now he's the office manager of her medical pricis okay?
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Right there, we're getting a lot of clarification. Uh did
you hear that? To Amanda Hall, our special guest joining
us from w I in k Wink TV, Fort Myers,
this is in her backyard. So this is a common misconception.
The nine one one operators trying to figure out how
this calm, cool, collected coworker, a male co worker, happens
to show up at the home to find a dead body,
(16:37):
and he says that the husband Mark Severs out of
town far away, calls and says he found out she
wasn't at work and had him go over and check on.
Doctor Severs. His wife gives him the burglary code, the
burglar alarm code. Why would he know that because he's
the office manager. And at first you hear the nine
(16:57):
one one call operators say oh, she his office manager,
and he says, no, Amanda Hall, tell me, what's your
understanding is how did doctor Petridi's end up on the
same to find a dead body? Because I always look
at who finds the body and who calls nine on one,
because that tells me a lot. Circumstantially, she guess it
(17:18):
does Nancy.
Speaker 7 (17:19):
And the reason that he was there is because he
was called by her husband, Mark, Mark was alerted that
she hadn't shown up for work, which is very unlike her.
You know, Teresa flew home a day ahead of the
rest of the family just so that she could be
at work Monday morning. She had a late flight in
Sunday night and was to see patients Monday morning. So
(17:41):
when Monday morning rolled around and she wasn't there, the
staff called Mark, who ran the office, and said, hey,
we haven't. We haven't heard from doctor Severs. She's not here.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I wants to take a listen to what our friends
at ABC News says.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Severs return Florida alone, calling her husband to let him
know she'd arrived safely. When she didn't show up for
work Monday morning, worried colleagues called police, who discovered her body.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Hearing our friends there at local ABC, the crime scene overwhelming.
But as Amanda Hall just told you, the crime scene
seemed staged because no money was taken. There was a
cash of guns there as well, Amanda Hall, I've never
known there to have been alleged any type of sex attack.
(18:33):
Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Correct?
Speaker 1 (18:34):
So she's bludgeoned dead in the kitchen and is my
understanding her pocketbook was there too, right, Amanda?
Speaker 10 (18:41):
Right?
Speaker 7 (18:42):
She came home, pulled into the garage and went from
the garage into the house and that's where.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
She was attacked. You know, my first thought that when
this happened was the burglar alarm. James Shelnutt and James,
I'm this is not a plug. But I'm coming out
with a book June called Don't Be a Victim, And
I had to research and I included this case, case
after case after case after case regarding burglar alarms locking
(19:10):
your doors. That night, that day I heard about doctor
Teresa Severs being murdered. My first question was, what about
a burglar alarm. It's hard for me to believe that
a medical doctor with an office manager, husband, and two
little babies to take care of doesn't have a burglar alarm.
I mean, you can get a burglar alarm for ninety
(19:31):
nine dollars that covers your whole house, and why wouldn't
they have a burglar alarm? Then I found out, James,
they did have a burglar alarm, and that was a
brain twister for me. James, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 12 (19:44):
And so from everything I've researched, the indicse that Mark
Severs had actually told, I believe it was either his
mother or her mother not to set the burglar alarm
because he was afraid that the pets may set the
alarm off.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Art Severs convicted and the murder of his wife, Teresa,
the mother of his children, wants Rogers Curtis Rogers to
testify for him and his attempt to get off death row. Hmmm,
did anybody think these two might be helping each other?
(20:20):
Has that dawned on anyone. Well, those two can plot
and plan and scheme all they want, gnashing their teeth
and twitching their tails. But this is what we learned
in court as to the death the murder of doctor Severs.
Severs was a popular fixture in her community. She had
(20:41):
the quality like a mother Teresa. She cared and she
had nothing more than love.
Speaker 7 (20:46):
If she had nothing else to offer, it would be
her care and her love for the patient.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Thinking about doctor Teresa Severs, and you were just hearing
about how she was often called mother Teresa because of
the way that she treated her patients in the community.
That was ABC News reporter Rina Nanan. But I want
you to take a listen to something very odd that
happened at the funeral.
Speaker 8 (21:11):
We were seeing her sisters on one side, and the
look that we were getting wasn't a look of sadness,
it was look of hatred.
Speaker 13 (21:24):
Frank Hayes and his wife Sandra say, the look didn't
just come from doctor Sever's sisters. They were getting the
same look from the grieving widower.
Speaker 8 (21:34):
I hugged him. What do you say, I said, Mark,
I am so sorry. I don't have words to say
to you, And he squeezed me so tight and nothing
came out of his mouth. Then Sandra hugged him. And
when Mark hugged Sandra, his teeth grinted and it wasn't
nothing of sorrow or sadness. The look was hatred that
(21:59):
I stepped back.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
I holy, you are hearing our friend. I know you
recognize that voice. Aaron Moriarty at CBS forty eight hours.
A look of hate at the funeral and doctor Bethany Marshall,
psychologist joining me out of la Doctor Bethany, it's not
that looking back, he concocted this at the time, he
said he recoiled and was shot at the look on
(22:23):
the husband's face. Why did he somehow blame her family?
Speaker 12 (22:29):
Why?
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Why would hatred be a part of a funeral. That's
the first thing after a death that's unsolved. You start
looking at the crime scene, then at the funeral.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
Nancy, can you imagine going to a funeral Teresa Severs's dad,
her husband's there. You expect him to be crying and grieving,
and instead he's looking at a.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Former employee with hatred.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
Tells me, first of all, he's worried about all the
wrong things, but he's been worried about all the wrong
things all along. He disarms the alarm because of the pets.
His wife's coming home alone, he stays behind.
Speaker 12 (23:05):
With the girls.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
If he's a real man, why not go home with
your wife and help facilitate her going back to work.
He's the office manager while she's out there seeing patients.
I mean, on the face of it, nothing wrong with that,
But he's sending her out to work while he's doing
the easy work behind the desk. I mean, all along
this whole story, this husband has.
Speaker 7 (23:25):
Never acted like a husband.
Speaker 5 (23:28):
So the fact that he is glaring hatefully at one
of the attendees of the funeral tells me that he's
actually trying. If he indeed is the one who did it,
he's trying to shift the blame onto somebody else.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Let me go to Amanda Hall, special guest joining us
from wi in KTV Fort Myers, Florida. Amanda, what do
we know about the husband? And yes, I know he
was in Connecticut at the time. What do we know
about Mark Severs? Where's he from? What's his deal?
Speaker 7 (23:56):
Well, we know that the two met while he was
a nurse and she was a new doctor practicing in
Saint Petersburg, Florida. We know that they married very quickly
had their first daughter shortly after they were married on
the beach. They had two girls, eleven and eight years
old at the time, and he became the office manager
(24:18):
of her practice, propping her up to do what she
did best, and that was treating people with a blend
of traditional medicine and holistic medicine. And he was really
the more of the caregiver for the two girls. Neighbors
said that they always saw him, you know, outside playing
with them and attending to the two daughters.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Where did you tell me he's from Amanda To start with,
Mark Severs grew.
Speaker 7 (24:43):
Up in a little small town in Missouri.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Hmm, okay, I want to go to doctor Tim Gallagher
medical examiner. I want you to describe if he could,
the wounds to doctor Sever's body. And again there was
no sex attack and no or burglary from her person
or the home.
Speaker 14 (25:03):
So her wounds were concentrated mostly on the back of
her head, so they were the crescent shaped impressions that
a hammer would make when they strike soft flesh. So
she had lacerations to the back of her head. Who
was extensive bleeding. There was a physical brain damage done.
(25:25):
The shards of the broken skull had penetrated into her
brain and there was massive bleeding.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
What did you just say about charge of the skull.
Speaker 14 (25:34):
Well, when the skull is broken, they're broken into very
sharp pieces. And as the attack continues, as the hammer
keeps now striking these pieces of bone, these loose pieces
of sharp bone are now being driven into the actual brain,
causing the tearing of the brain tissue and cutting of
(25:57):
the blood vessels as supply blood to the brain.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Trying to think about this massive attack on this tiny
woman and Amanda Hall, reporter w I in k TV
in Fort Myers, Amanda, most of the blows or to
the back of the head. Did she ever even get
a chance to fight back?
Speaker 7 (26:17):
No, Nancy, she didn't. You know, she rolled her suitcase
into an attack and ambush, So.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Her suitcase was still sitting there.
Speaker 7 (26:24):
Her suitcase was still in the garage. She had just
you know, walked in the door. Hadn't had a chance
to unpack anything, hadn't even had a chance to change
your clothes or do anything.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
This is telling me so much about the attack. James
shell Nutt twenty seven years Atlanta Metro major case swat
officer now lawyer James shell Nutt. Somebody. I mean, it's
no coincidence that somebody is right there in the kitchen
as she walks in from the garage, parts her car
in the garage, gets your suitcase out of the car,
(26:56):
still sitting there in the garage. She walks in the
kitchen in bam attack. Nothing stolen, nothing taken from her,
and on her pocketbook and on her cell phone, nothing
all that money they had hidden in various spots, the
guns that the husband kept, nothing taken, no sex attack.
But someone is lurking right there. She can't even get
(27:19):
past the kitchen. They're waiting for her to come through
that garage door.
Speaker 12 (27:25):
Yeah, all of this adds up to the fact that
you need to start looking at someone who is closely
connected to this victim. This is not something random. There's
too many coincidences. The coincidence about the husband, you know,
not flying back, the coincidence about the alarm not being set,
she walks into a house. There's no other motive evident
(27:46):
at that point. You start where you traditionally.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Start crime stories with Nancy Grace, husband turned killer. Mark
Severs Legal team is continuing their death sentence appeal as
a new hearing approaches. I thought he was gone. I
(28:11):
thought he would be in jail the rest of his
life until he got the death penalty. But no, he's back,
causing a stink recall. Severs was found guilty of hiring
two men, his high school buddy Curtis Wright aka doppel
Ganger they look exactly alike, and Jimmy Rogers, a neer Dowell,
to carry out a savage killing of his wife. They're
(28:35):
at the couple's homes and home in Benita Springs, Florida.
Why he didn't want to work like all of us
have to do. He wanted to pay out on her
four point four to three million dollar life insurance policy.
Wright was a longtime friend of Severs, as I mentioned before,
and Rogers. The two of them carried out the attack
(28:57):
while the husband, Mark Severs, made himself scared and gave
himself an alibi. M Well, I don't care what those
killers are planning behind bars. This is what I know
happened at trial.
Speaker 13 (29:10):
Crash bags, flushable web wipes, black towels, black shoes, and
a lock picking kit. They paid cash for their purchase
with a one hundred dollars bill.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Who in the hey are these two you're hearing CBS
Aaron Moriarty describing two guys, Curtis Wainwright and Jimmy Ray
Rogers coincidentally Curtis Wainwright, longtime friend of doctor Severs husband Mark.
Not only that, if you look at the two of
them side to side, they look like twin brothers. That
often joke that they're brothers from another mother. They look
(29:46):
identical to each other, and they grew up together and
went to high school together. What were they doing in town?
What were they doing near Teresa Sever's home? A real
red flag? As then raised Listen to Aaron Moriarty.
Speaker 13 (30:01):
When investigators uncovered five life insurance policies for Teresa totally
more than four million dollars, it was a red flag.
So was that trip Mark made to Missouri to be
Wainwright's best man. And as it turns out, the other suspect,
Jimmy Ray Rogers, was also a wedding guest. Taylor's shoemaker.
(30:23):
Jimmy's girlfriend claimed this was a murder for hire and
that Jimmy was supposed to be paid ten thousand dollars
eight months after Teresa Sivers was killed, Wayne Wright, facing
a possible death sentence, suddenly turned on his brother from
another mother.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
And he took a deal. You were hearing our friend
Aaron Moriarty straight out to Amanda Hall, reporter w I
in KTV Fort Myers. How did these three hook up?
Tell me the whole thing, Amanda Hall?
Speaker 7 (30:58):
Okay, Wayne Wright is a childhod friend. As you heard
of Mark Severs. They called themselves brothers from another mother,
but they really looked like real brothers. They looked like twins.
So Wainwright is getting married and Mark Severs is his
best man, and they started planning this while he was
(31:18):
there for the wedding. Mark is saying that his wife
is going to leave him and he's worried that he
can't pay to battle her for custody of their two daughters,
and that his only option is for Teresa to die,
and so he hires Wayne to do the job, says
he'll pay him one hundred thousand dollars from the insurance money,
(31:42):
and then Wayne brings in Jimmy the Rogers Hammer, a
man that he met while they were both serving time
in prison for other crimes. So Mark hires Wayne and
Wayne brings in the hammer.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Okay, now that's a heck of a nickname. You know.
I got to go to a shrink on that. Bethany
Marshall the Hammer.
Speaker 7 (32:02):
Well, it's interesting he.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
Called himself the hammer because that's what he used to
bludgeon the victim to death, and he did it quite aggressively,
quite maliciously. And Nancy, this was overkilled. When doctor Gallagher
was talking about shards of the skull in the brain,
I realized they could have hit her once and killed her.
They hit her multiple times. So Jimmy the Hammer has
(32:27):
this setishized interest in using a hammer on a woman.
Imagine what you want from that. But this is an
extremely aggressive man.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Amanda to backtrack, how many times does she bludgeon with
the hammer?
Speaker 7 (32:40):
Doesn't at least seventeen? We know from the autopsy report
that there were seventeen crescent shaped wounds to the back
of her head.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
To doctor Tim Gallagher, seventeen, I thought there were eighteen.
Speaker 14 (32:53):
Well, sometimes it's difficult to say exactly how many there
are when they're when the number is so high. A
lot of them are intersecting, and a lot of them
obscure the one underneath it so seventeen is probably a
very conservative number that they could definitively say, but often
it's quite more than that.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
I'm just just so repelled at this seventeen at least
seventeen blows to the back of her head with what
I understand is a claw hammer on this tiny, tiny
little lady. To Ashley Wilcott, judge and trial lawyer anchor
Court TV, Ashley, did you hear what Amanda Hall said that?
(33:33):
According to these two co defendants, of course, who knows
if they're telling the truth. They're shifting all the blame
to somebody else and off themselves. Look at him, not
at me. They say that at one of their weddings,
he basically said, we're going to split, We're going to
battle for custody. I have to kill her. Why not
just have joint custody, Ashley.
Speaker 9 (33:50):
Is not a great question that we continue to entertain
and on this show, because they're defendant after defendant chooses
to kill someone instead of getting a divorce or having
joint customer.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
You know, who knows why? You can't answer the why.
Speaker 9 (34:04):
You can only look at what is the evidence show
and going after the person that the evidence show did
such a terrible thing.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
You know, I'm just thinking through all of the evidence
to Amanda Hall, reporter wie K TV. As a former prosecutor,
you have to assess the witnesses and see their faults.
And here these two Curtis Wayne Wright, the childhood friend
of the husband Mark Sivers all the way through school together,
is an identical twin to Sivers and Jimmy Ray Rogers,
(34:36):
nicknamed the Hammer, just twenty nine years old. They're POC's
pieces of crap okay technical legal term. So why should
I believe them? What can you tell me about these two?
Speaker 7 (34:48):
Wayne Wright and Jimmy Rodgers are both eleven hundred miles
away from Benita Springs in a small town in the
middle of Missouri.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
And the way those two are.
Speaker 7 (35:00):
Connected was from a stint in prison, So that tells
you a little bit about the character and the kind
of people that they are. Jimmy Rodgers is rumored to
have been a hit man before. It's in fact, it's
something that he regularly bragged about, and that's why Wayne
ultimately brought him in because he was afraid he wouldn't
(35:22):
be able to go through with it, so he needed
a guy who has done it. Before and would do
it again, and he knew that he'd be the one
to actually kill her and go through with it.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
So fifty one year old Curtis Wayne Wright went to
school all the way through with Mark Savers childhood friends
in Missouri, and Savers moves to Florida, meets Teresa, they marry. Then,
when Mark Savers decides he needs a murder done and
he needs a hit man, Curtis Wayne Wright contacts Jimmy
(35:56):
Ray Rogers, who he met in jail twenty nine year
od Rogers aka the Hammer. Now, he would be so
easy for these two to blame Mark Severs to take
the heat off of them, But then enter another witness.
Speaker 13 (36:14):
Less than an hour later, in the early morning hours
of Monday, June twenty ninth, the GPS shows Jimmy and
Wayne on the highway headed northbound for the seventeen hour
drive back to Missouri. The electronic trail would eventually lead
detectives to Jimmy Ray Rogers' door. Just like Wayne, he
(36:36):
denied being involved, but when they pulled in, Jimmy's girlfriend Taylor,
what a story she had to tell.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
He hasd her to throw out parts of his cell
phone in a jumpsuit. What a couple of demons.
Speaker 10 (36:49):
You know.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
If the killer is the devil, these two are his minions.
Now we know that Curtis Wayne Right, the Childhood Brand,
pleads guilty to second degree murder. Then Rogers, so called
the Hammer, goes to trial and is convicted of second
(37:11):
degree murder. But the case against Mark Savers take a listen.
Speaker 11 (37:16):
In the Circuit Court of the twentieth Judicial Circuit in
and for Lee County, Florida, Criminal Action, State of Florida
versus Mark D. Sivers, Case Number fifteen cf. Six seven
to three b verdict. We the jury find as follows
as to the defendant in this case count one first
degree murder. The defendant is guilty of first degree.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Murder, Mark Savers challenging his death sentence. Who do think it?
Speaker 7 (37:42):
Well?
Speaker 5 (37:43):
Me?
Speaker 12 (37:44):
For one?
Speaker 1 (37:45):
We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye friend,
Crime Stories with Nancy Greece. Well, it's Friday night, and
it is special. It's the tenth anniversary of a murder
that shot not just Southwest Florida, but beyond. Do you
recall the name doctor Teresa Severs, because I will never
(00:24):
forget it. Her husband, Mark Severs, and his high school buddy,
who was a doppelganger, get together and murder his wife,
the mother of their two little girls. She was everything,
just precious, cute as a button, a tiny, diminutive woman,
(00:44):
the mother of the two. She was a medical doctor. Listen.
She not only brought home the bacon, but fried it
up and put it on the table. You see what
I'm saying. She supported him. How did he repay her
by killing her? And believe it or not, Mark Severs,
the killer, now wants out of jail on appeal. Surprised,
(01:13):
I'm not, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I
want to thank you for being with us. He just
won't go away, will he? After evidence proved him guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt, Mark Severs now decides, Hey, I
want to get out of jail. He should have thought
about that before he had his wife murdered. In this
(01:34):
elaborate plan ridiculous. His main point of contention is Jimmy Rogers,
one of the convicted killers hired by Severs to murder
his wife. Now Jimmy Rogers claimed in an interview with
(01:56):
week Wink that there was no conspiracy and accused his
former friend Curtis Wayne Wright, the high school doppel ganger,
of lying during his plea deal testimony against husband Mark Severs. Now,
if you will recall the high school friend, now convicted felon,
(02:21):
Curtis Wayne Wright testified in court he and Rogers, the killer,
were hired by husband Mark Severs, and they were promised
a huge payout of life insurance money to kill Teresa Severs.
High school friend Curtis Wright said, doctor Severs arrived home
earlier than expected from an out of town trip, and
(02:43):
he and Rogers used a ball peen hammer to murder her,
this tiny little female doctor who had these gorgeous twin girls.
Quote from high school friend. I hit her with the hammer.
I actually think she thought I was Mark because she said,
(03:08):
why this is what happened to doctor Teresa Severs.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
H I at a friend's house. He's out of town
and I came here for second flight, and she's got
on the floor.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Okay, stand seraphone, stand line. Yes, okay, we're doing very well.
Good time. At the moment, we're going to connect you.
They're going to ask for the throne a fire here?
What did he addressed the emergency?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Two one zero three four Jarvis?
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
And is that a house for an apartment?
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Sir?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
The house?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I mean, exactly what happened my.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Friend us she's a doctor. I'm a doctor. She came
home last night. Her husband is in Connecticut, and she
was to school at nine o'clock. They called me, and
I was on my way in the works. I swung
by and she's done, and the hammer at the side
and she's dashed in the back of the head.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
You are hearing the nine to one one call from
a coworker, doctor Patrites, telling dispatch that his dear friend,
a beautiful mother of two girls, a beloved doctor who
practiced holistic medicine throughout that Florida region to many many women,
is dead on the floor. First thing I noticed, not
only the injuries to doctor Teresa. Seever's a tiny woman,
(04:41):
about four eleven or five feet tall. She's still wearing
the shoes the I call them stiletto's really high heel
she'd work as she was so short that she was
wearing the night before, the Sunday night before, she came
home from a family vacation with relatives to Connecticut, including
(05:01):
her husband and two little girls. That told me a
lot about the timeline. Seemingly she still had on her clothes.
She hadn't gone back to her bedroom to take a
bath or put on pj's. She was ambushed right as
she came home from the airport while someone following her.
Does someone know her flight plan? Or was it just
a burglary gone wrong? Let's start at the very beginning.
(05:23):
Take a listen to more of that nine one one
call weekly okay, yes.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Roy, sir, office for you on the way with you? Okay?
Speaker 5 (05:34):
Right?
Speaker 6 (05:34):
And so you said you're a doctor, Yes I am.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Okay, Are you with her now?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
I'm outside of the house. I don't know if there's
in the house, okay right?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
For how old?
Speaker 7 (05:44):
Is all right?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Sir? And is she a week?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
She's got one before? And those blood everywhere?
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Okay? All right? So I do have paramedics, fire department.
Also law enforcement is on the line with us. Okay,
they're going to be going out. Okay, Okay, it's a
point to stand on line one moment.
Speaker 6 (06:10):
I'm gonna think you're here because you know, I don't
know if there's still help.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Okay, all right, was right? It is the stand the
line I pick. A tariff office has questions and they're
going to conting you on what to do next. Okay, sure,
are you inside the resident instead?
Speaker 4 (06:27):
No, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I'm standing in the driveway.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Okay. And then when you walked in slave the house,
you said the blood was dryer.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
What did you say?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, half the blood is dry, half the blast.
Speaker 6 (06:35):
Is she cold dead?
Speaker 8 (06:36):
Cult?
Speaker 5 (06:37):
No?
Speaker 1 (06:37):
I can't help but analyze that nine to one one call.
And this co worker, doctor Petreati, seems very very calm.
I'm going to go to doctor Bethany Marshall's psycho analyst
joining us from l A. Can find it at doctor
Bethany Marshall dot com. Doctor Bethany I was the same
way in court, no matter what happened, at least in
front of a jury. I would stay extremely calm, even
(06:57):
once when a prisoner launched at me with a shank.
Didn't make it, by the way, But long story short,
not in other areas of my life. But I guess
when it's your duty and you're trained a certain way,
you just carry on. What do you make of the
nine one one call doctor Bethany, Well, Nancy, let me
tell you a little story.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
When I was doing your HLN show, I had a patient.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Who tried to kill herself.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
She overdosed on benzodiazepines.
Speaker 9 (07:25):
She called me up.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
She into like a sort of.
Speaker 9 (07:28):
A coma like state.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
I called nine one one, and my biggest fear was
that the nine one one call was going to be
played on the evening news.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
So I was very formal and how I reported it.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
I said, this is.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
Doctor Bethany Marshall, this is my license number, this is
where I got this call.
Speaker 9 (07:42):
This is the woman's I.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
Dress, here's her diagnosis, here are the benzodiazepines, the number
of pills she took on down the road. Because I
knew that that was a very formalized report, that this
could be played in court, this could be played on
the evening news. As I just said, so this is
the doctor who walks into a crime scene. The woman's
back of her head is bashed and she's still wearing
her stiletto shoes. He is the first one on the scene.
(08:06):
So yes, doctor Kim Gallagher is correct. You have to
be authoritative, you have to be calm in the midst
of the storm. But there's also this anxiety about how
you are going to come across as you report the incident.
You you are the first responder, You're the person who's
going to be questioned, So how you make that verbal
report is extremely important.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
With me an all star panel today to break it down,
put it back together again, of course, in addition to
doctor Bethany Marshall with me, judge and trial lawyer anchor
Court TV Ashley Wilcott. You can find her at Ashley
Wilcott dot com. James Shelna twenty seven years Atlanta Metro
major k SWAT officer, now lawyer. But right now to
(08:49):
Amanda Hall, special guest joining us, investigative reporter from wi
in KTV Fort Myers, Florida, who has been on the
story since the get go. At the beginning, Amanda, let's
just take what we know. Tell me about the crime
scene for those of you just joining us, A stunning
development in the case of a murdered mom and doctor
(09:10):
doctor Teresa's severs remind those listeners that don't already know,
Amanda Hall, when cops came in, what did they find
at the scene, Nancy.
Speaker 7 (09:19):
When police came in in June of twenty fifteen, they
came inside the Severs home and they found blood in
the kitchen, and they found Teresa Sever's bludgeon to death
with the claw end of a hammer. Blood.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Amanda, Amanda, Amanda, Amanda Hall joining me, w I ink
when you say blood in the kitchen, I mean, you know,
this morning, I was chopping up green beans and I
have to chop the tips off every single one or
Lucy won't eat it, and I cut my finger.
Speaker 7 (09:51):
Okay, we're not talking about that kind of blood, Nancy.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
What do you mean by blood just a tiny drop?
Tell me the whole.
Speaker 7 (09:57):
Thing, Amanda, Nancy, there was so much bloo in there.
You know. When we have interviewed investigators and detective who
were initially on this case, some of them had never
seen anything like it. The amount of blood was stunning.
When you look at the report, seventeen crescent shaped cuts
(10:18):
to her head. I mean, she was bludgeoned over and
over and over and over, So you can just imagine
the amount of blood inside of that home.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
What else did they find, Amanda.
Speaker 7 (10:30):
The other thing they found was that the crime scene
was staged to make it look like a break in,
to make it look like a robbery. The thing is, Nancy.
They stuffed cash in different parts of the home, and
there was a whole cachet of guns that were untouched.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Crime stores with Nancy Grace. Do you know how when
you think a square a roach and then suddenly there
it is again? Same thing here husband Mark Severs. I
thought he was put away for life, but here he
is again. Now he wants to get out on appeal.
(11:15):
Let me just have a quick refresher on what happened
to the beautiful young mom of two, doctor Teresa Severs.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
The hammer's sitting next to her, and you had wrapped
it and didn't touch anything.
Speaker 6 (11:27):
No, I did not touch anything.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I touched her. I showok her a little bit.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
All right, one moment. You're doing really well.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
So the last time.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
You had seen her is what time?
Speaker 6 (11:38):
Probably too three weeks ago.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
When you said she returned today.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I don't know when she came back, but she was
supposed to go back. She was supposed to go to
work today at nine o'clock and her husband called me
from Connecticut to say she didn't shut up the work
and she not answered her phone, and he checked her.
He tried to call him, try calling. He's going to
call her mom, and he said she was slinging by?
Speaker 6 (12:02):
Can you sling by?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
And I knocked on the front door and nobody answered,
and the lights were on. I could see your persons
on the countertop and she didn't answer. I pounded, powdered,
and he gave me the key code to get into
the gloves oil for the glass door, and the doors
leading into it was opened that and uh, and I
walked in. I just opened up the door, walked in
the door, and she've been on the floor.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Welcome back, everybody. I'm Nancy Gray's. That is a nine
one one call of a coworker doctor patritis, who shows
up when this gorgeous young mom of two little girls.
Doctor Teresa's Savers, very well known in the Bonita Springs area,
practiced mostly with women and had a very holistic method
(12:44):
toward medicine, very and closer to the whole community. Never
turned a person away. Tiny, diminutive woman. I think she
was about four eleven And that's important because she always
wore high heels, okay to you know, give her a
little height, and she still had on her heels, or
at least one of them when she was found. Dad,
(13:07):
she just flown in from Connecticut. Her husband and children
still in Connecticut. And normally you look at the husband,
first husband, lover, boyfriend ex. He's in Connecticut with the children,
on a vacation with her family. It was only when
she didn't shru up to work that morning that coworkers
became concerned and went to her home again. I'm Nancy Grace.
(13:30):
This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.
And you know, Ashley Willcott, judge and trial lawyer, anchor
Court TV. Ashley Wilcott dot com. Ashley, you and I
both have a girl, and imagine two of them. You've
got two boys and a girl. I have a boy
and a girl. And John David is always just you know, happy,
(13:50):
go lucky, care free. You know, he just wants to
go outside and jump on the trampoline. He wants to
play with his friends on the computer. You know, nothing,
fai eat whatever I think? So where wouldever? I lay out?
And and't care if his hair is comb nothing, He's
just perfect. Girls are a whole nother ballgame, and you
need your mother, You need a loving guiding hand, somebody
(14:14):
that can say stand up, don't walk like a field hand,
and they don't get hurt. You're loving them, You're helping
them through all life's curveballs. These two little girls are
with dad at a Connecticut vacation with extended family. Their
mom is gone. I mean, how do you break something
like that to two little girls, Ashley, Yeah.
Speaker 10 (14:36):
You know, I don't know, Nancy, you can't even imagine,
because depending on the age, they don't even necessarily understand
what that means. And so every day they're going to
still look for their mom and wonder where their mom
is and try to grasp what it means that she's
literally gone forever. But the other thing that bothers me is,
of course, it happens that one spouse is somewhere with
(14:56):
the kids and the other spouse has to travel back
to work.
Speaker 6 (14:59):
But to me was the beginning of.
Speaker 10 (15:02):
The story to say, he's in Connecticut with the kids,
she's here at home, and it happens to then get
killed the first night. Does this mean anything or not?
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Take a listen to the questions the nine one one
operator poses to doctor Petredes.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Okay, and so you were there because they asked you
to take care of the house.
Speaker 11 (15:25):
Is that correct?
Speaker 6 (15:27):
Mark?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Her husband called me to say, please, can you check
on her because it's not like her not to show
up to work in you late?
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Okay? So, and I know you told me before. But
when after he called the chuck and his wife because
she wasn't at work.
Speaker 6 (15:48):
In parently talking one okay, gaging the code number he
founded a little you know, and you see the call
from work saying she was there. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Okay, that's fine.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
He's her office manager.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Oh, she's the office manager of his business.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Now he's the office manager of her medical pricis okay?
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Right there, we're getting a lot of clarification. Uh did
you hear that? To Amanda Hall, our special guest joining
us from w I in k Wink TV, Fort Myers,
this is in her backyard. So this is a common misconception.
The nine one one operators trying to figure out how
this calm, cool, collected coworker, a male co worker, happens
to show up at the home to find a dead body,
(16:37):
and he says that the husband Mark Severs out of
town far away, calls and says he found out she
wasn't at work and had him go over and check on.
Doctor Severs. His wife gives him the burglary code, the
burglar alarm code. Why would he know that because he's
the office manager. And at first you hear the nine
(16:57):
one one call operators say oh, she his office manager,
and he says, no, Amanda Hall, tell me, what's your
understanding is how did doctor Petridi's end up on the
same to find a dead body? Because I always look
at who finds the body and who calls nine on one,
because that tells me a lot. Circumstantially, she guess it
(17:18):
does Nancy.
Speaker 7 (17:19):
And the reason that he was there is because he
was called by her husband, Mark, Mark was alerted that
she hadn't shown up for work, which is very unlike her.
You know, Teresa flew home a day ahead of the
rest of the family just so that she could be
at work Monday morning. She had a late flight in
Sunday night and was to see patients Monday morning. So
(17:41):
when Monday morning rolled around and she wasn't there, the
staff called Mark, who ran the office, and said, hey,
we haven't. We haven't heard from doctor Severs. She's not here.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I wants to take a listen to what our friends
at ABC News says.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Severs return Florida alone, calling her husband to let him
know she'd arrived safely. When she didn't show up for
work Monday morning, worried colleagues called police, who discovered her body.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Hearing our friends there at local ABC, the crime scene overwhelming.
But as Amanda Hall just told you, the crime scene
seemed staged because no money was taken. There was a
cash of guns there as well, Amanda Hall, I've never
known there to have been alleged any type of sex attack.
(18:33):
Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Correct?
Speaker 1 (18:34):
So she's bludgeoned dead in the kitchen and is my
understanding her pocketbook was there too, right, Amanda?
Speaker 10 (18:41):
Right?
Speaker 7 (18:42):
She came home, pulled into the garage and went from
the garage into the house and that's where.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
She was attacked. You know, my first thought that when
this happened was the burglar alarm. James Shelnutt and James,
I'm this is not a plug. But I'm coming out
with a book June called Don't Be a Victim, And
I had to research and I included this case, case
after case after case after case regarding burglar alarms locking
(19:10):
your doors. That night, that day I heard about doctor
Teresa Severs being murdered. My first question was, what about
a burglar alarm. It's hard for me to believe that
a medical doctor with an office manager, husband, and two
little babies to take care of doesn't have a burglar alarm.
I mean, you can get a burglar alarm for ninety
(19:31):
nine dollars that covers your whole house, and why wouldn't
they have a burglar alarm? Then I found out, James,
they did have a burglar alarm, and that was a
brain twister for me. James, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 12 (19:44):
And so from everything I've researched, the indicse that Mark
Severs had actually told, I believe it was either his
mother or her mother not to set the burglar alarm
because he was afraid that the pets may set the
alarm off.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Art Severs convicted and the murder of his wife, Teresa,
the mother of his children, wants Rogers Curtis Rogers to
testify for him and his attempt to get off death row. Hmmm,
did anybody think these two might be helping each other?
(20:20):
Has that dawned on anyone. Well, those two can plot
and plan and scheme all they want, gnashing their teeth
and twitching their tails. But this is what we learned
in court as to the death the murder of doctor Severs.
Severs was a popular fixture in her community. She had
(20:41):
the quality like a mother Teresa. She cared and she
had nothing more than love.
Speaker 7 (20:46):
If she had nothing else to offer, it would be
her care and her love for the patient.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Thinking about doctor Teresa Severs, and you were just hearing
about how she was often called mother Teresa because of
the way that she treated her patients in the community.
That was ABC News reporter Rina Nanan. But I want
you to take a listen to something very odd that
happened at the funeral.
Speaker 8 (21:11):
We were seeing her sisters on one side, and the
look that we were getting wasn't a look of sadness,
it was look of hatred.
Speaker 13 (21:24):
Frank Hayes and his wife Sandra say, the look didn't
just come from doctor Sever's sisters. They were getting the
same look from the grieving widower.
Speaker 8 (21:34):
I hugged him. What do you say, I said, Mark,
I am so sorry. I don't have words to say
to you, And he squeezed me so tight and nothing
came out of his mouth. Then Sandra hugged him. And
when Mark hugged Sandra, his teeth grinted and it wasn't
nothing of sorrow or sadness. The look was hatred that
(21:59):
I stepped back.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
I holy, you are hearing our friend. I know you
recognize that voice. Aaron Moriarty at CBS forty eight hours.
A look of hate at the funeral and doctor Bethany Marshall,
psychologist joining me out of la Doctor Bethany, it's not
that looking back, he concocted this at the time, he
said he recoiled and was shot at the look on
(22:23):
the husband's face. Why did he somehow blame her family?
Speaker 12 (22:29):
Why?
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Why would hatred be a part of a funeral. That's
the first thing after a death that's unsolved. You start
looking at the crime scene, then at the funeral.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
Nancy, can you imagine going to a funeral Teresa Severs's dad,
her husband's there. You expect him to be crying and grieving,
and instead he's looking at a.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Former employee with hatred.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
Tells me, first of all, he's worried about all the
wrong things, but he's been worried about all the wrong
things all along. He disarms the alarm because of the pets.
His wife's coming home alone, he stays behind.
Speaker 12 (23:05):
With the girls.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
If he's a real man, why not go home with
your wife and help facilitate her going back to work.
He's the office manager while she's out there seeing patients.
I mean, on the face of it, nothing wrong with that,
But he's sending her out to work while he's doing
the easy work behind the desk. I mean, all along
this whole story, this husband has.
Speaker 7 (23:25):
Never acted like a husband.
Speaker 5 (23:28):
So the fact that he is glaring hatefully at one
of the attendees of the funeral tells me that he's
actually trying. If he indeed is the one who did it,
he's trying to shift the blame onto somebody else.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Let me go to Amanda Hall, special guest joining us
from wi in KTV Fort Myers, Florida. Amanda, what do
we know about the husband? And yes, I know he
was in Connecticut at the time. What do we know
about Mark Severs? Where's he from? What's his deal?
Speaker 7 (23:56):
Well, we know that the two met while he was
a nurse and she was a new doctor practicing in
Saint Petersburg, Florida. We know that they married very quickly
had their first daughter shortly after they were married on
the beach. They had two girls, eleven and eight years
old at the time, and he became the office manager
(24:18):
of her practice, propping her up to do what she
did best, and that was treating people with a blend
of traditional medicine and holistic medicine. And he was really
the more of the caregiver for the two girls. Neighbors
said that they always saw him, you know, outside playing
with them and attending to the two daughters.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Where did you tell me he's from Amanda To start with,
Mark Severs grew.
Speaker 7 (24:43):
Up in a little small town in Missouri.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Hmm, okay, I want to go to doctor Tim Gallagher
medical examiner. I want you to describe if he could,
the wounds to doctor Sever's body. And again there was
no sex attack and no or burglary from her person
or the home.
Speaker 14 (25:03):
So her wounds were concentrated mostly on the back of
her head, so they were the crescent shaped impressions that
a hammer would make when they strike soft flesh. So
she had lacerations to the back of her head. Who
was extensive bleeding. There was a physical brain damage done.
(25:25):
The shards of the broken skull had penetrated into her
brain and there was massive bleeding.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
What did you just say about charge of the skull.
Speaker 14 (25:34):
Well, when the skull is broken, they're broken into very
sharp pieces. And as the attack continues, as the hammer
keeps now striking these pieces of bone, these loose pieces
of sharp bone are now being driven into the actual brain,
causing the tearing of the brain tissue and cutting of
(25:57):
the blood vessels as supply blood to the brain.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Trying to think about this massive attack on this tiny
woman and Amanda Hall, reporter w I in k TV
in Fort Myers, Amanda, most of the blows or to
the back of the head. Did she ever even get
a chance to fight back?
Speaker 7 (26:17):
No, Nancy, she didn't. You know, she rolled her suitcase
into an attack and ambush, So.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Her suitcase was still sitting there.
Speaker 7 (26:24):
Her suitcase was still in the garage. She had just
you know, walked in the door. Hadn't had a chance
to unpack anything, hadn't even had a chance to change
your clothes or do anything.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
This is telling me so much about the attack. James
shell Nutt twenty seven years Atlanta Metro major case swat
officer now lawyer James shell Nutt. Somebody. I mean, it's
no coincidence that somebody is right there in the kitchen
as she walks in from the garage, parts her car
in the garage, gets your suitcase out of the car,
(26:56):
still sitting there in the garage. She walks in the
kitchen in bam attack. Nothing stolen, nothing taken from her,
and on her pocketbook and on her cell phone, nothing
all that money they had hidden in various spots, the
guns that the husband kept, nothing taken, no sex attack.
But someone is lurking right there. She can't even get
(27:19):
past the kitchen. They're waiting for her to come through
that garage door.
Speaker 12 (27:25):
Yeah, all of this adds up to the fact that
you need to start looking at someone who is closely
connected to this victim. This is not something random. There's
too many coincidences. The coincidence about the husband, you know,
not flying back, the coincidence about the alarm not being set,
she walks into a house. There's no other motive evident
(27:46):
at that point. You start where you traditionally.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Start crime stories with Nancy Grace, husband turned killer. Mark
Severs Legal team is continuing their death sentence appeal as
a new hearing approaches. I thought he was gone. I
(28:11):
thought he would be in jail the rest of his
life until he got the death penalty. But no, he's back,
causing a stink recall. Severs was found guilty of hiring
two men, his high school buddy Curtis Wright aka doppel
Ganger they look exactly alike, and Jimmy Rogers, a neer Dowell,
to carry out a savage killing of his wife. They're
(28:35):
at the couple's homes and home in Benita Springs, Florida.
Why he didn't want to work like all of us
have to do. He wanted to pay out on her
four point four to three million dollar life insurance policy.
Wright was a longtime friend of Severs, as I mentioned before,
and Rogers. The two of them carried out the attack
(28:57):
while the husband, Mark Severs, made himself scared and gave
himself an alibi. M Well, I don't care what those
killers are planning behind bars. This is what I know
happened at trial.
Speaker 13 (29:10):
Crash bags, flushable web wipes, black towels, black shoes, and
a lock picking kit. They paid cash for their purchase
with a one hundred dollars bill.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Who in the hey are these two you're hearing CBS
Aaron Moriarty describing two guys, Curtis Wainwright and Jimmy Ray
Rogers coincidentally Curtis Wainwright, longtime friend of doctor Severs husband Mark.
Not only that, if you look at the two of
them side to side, they look like twin brothers. That
often joke that they're brothers from another mother. They look
(29:46):
identical to each other, and they grew up together and
went to high school together. What were they doing in town?
What were they doing near Teresa Sever's home? A real
red flag? As then raised Listen to Aaron Moriarty.
Speaker 13 (30:01):
When investigators uncovered five life insurance policies for Teresa totally
more than four million dollars, it was a red flag.
So was that trip Mark made to Missouri to be
Wainwright's best man. And as it turns out, the other suspect,
Jimmy Ray Rogers, was also a wedding guest. Taylor's shoemaker.
(30:23):
Jimmy's girlfriend claimed this was a murder for hire and
that Jimmy was supposed to be paid ten thousand dollars
eight months after Teresa Sivers was killed, Wayne Wright, facing
a possible death sentence, suddenly turned on his brother from
another mother.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
And he took a deal. You were hearing our friend
Aaron Moriarty straight out to Amanda Hall, reporter w I
in KTV Fort Myers. How did these three hook up?
Tell me the whole thing, Amanda Hall?
Speaker 7 (30:58):
Okay, Wayne Wright is a childhod friend. As you heard
of Mark Severs. They called themselves brothers from another mother,
but they really looked like real brothers. They looked like twins.
So Wainwright is getting married and Mark Severs is his
best man, and they started planning this while he was
(31:18):
there for the wedding. Mark is saying that his wife
is going to leave him and he's worried that he
can't pay to battle her for custody of their two daughters,
and that his only option is for Teresa to die,
and so he hires Wayne to do the job, says
he'll pay him one hundred thousand dollars from the insurance money,
(31:42):
and then Wayne brings in Jimmy the Rogers Hammer, a
man that he met while they were both serving time
in prison for other crimes. So Mark hires Wayne and
Wayne brings in the hammer.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Okay, now that's a heck of a nickname. You know.
I got to go to a shrink on that. Bethany
Marshall the Hammer.
Speaker 7 (32:02):
Well, it's interesting he.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
Called himself the hammer because that's what he used to
bludgeon the victim to death, and he did it quite aggressively,
quite maliciously. And Nancy, this was overkilled. When doctor Gallagher
was talking about shards of the skull in the brain,
I realized they could have hit her once and killed her.
They hit her multiple times. So Jimmy the Hammer has
(32:27):
this setishized interest in using a hammer on a woman.
Imagine what you want from that. But this is an
extremely aggressive man.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Amanda to backtrack, how many times does she bludgeon with
the hammer?
Speaker 7 (32:40):
Doesn't at least seventeen? We know from the autopsy report
that there were seventeen crescent shaped wounds to the back
of her head.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
To doctor Tim Gallagher, seventeen, I thought there were eighteen.
Speaker 14 (32:53):
Well, sometimes it's difficult to say exactly how many there
are when they're when the number is so high. A
lot of them are intersecting, and a lot of them
obscure the one underneath it so seventeen is probably a
very conservative number that they could definitively say, but often
it's quite more than that.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
I'm just just so repelled at this seventeen at least
seventeen blows to the back of her head with what
I understand is a claw hammer on this tiny, tiny
little lady. To Ashley Wilcott, judge and trial lawyer anchor
Court TV, Ashley, did you hear what Amanda Hall said that?
(33:33):
According to these two co defendants, of course, who knows
if they're telling the truth. They're shifting all the blame
to somebody else and off themselves. Look at him, not
at me. They say that at one of their weddings,
he basically said, we're going to split, We're going to
battle for custody. I have to kill her. Why not
just have joint custody, Ashley.
Speaker 9 (33:50):
Is not a great question that we continue to entertain
and on this show, because they're defendant after defendant chooses
to kill someone instead of getting a divorce or having
joint customer.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
You know, who knows why? You can't answer the why.
Speaker 9 (34:04):
You can only look at what is the evidence show
and going after the person that the evidence show did
such a terrible thing.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
You know, I'm just thinking through all of the evidence
to Amanda Hall, reporter wie K TV. As a former prosecutor,
you have to assess the witnesses and see their faults.
And here these two Curtis Wayne Wright, the childhood friend
of the husband Mark Sivers all the way through school together,
is an identical twin to Sivers and Jimmy Ray Rogers,
(34:36):
nicknamed the Hammer, just twenty nine years old. They're POC's
pieces of crap okay technical legal term. So why should
I believe them? What can you tell me about these two?
Speaker 7 (34:48):
Wayne Wright and Jimmy Rodgers are both eleven hundred miles
away from Benita Springs in a small town in the
middle of Missouri.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
And the way those two are.
Speaker 7 (35:00):
Connected was from a stint in prison, So that tells
you a little bit about the character and the kind
of people that they are. Jimmy Rodgers is rumored to
have been a hit man before. It's in fact, it's
something that he regularly bragged about, and that's why Wayne
ultimately brought him in because he was afraid he wouldn't
(35:22):
be able to go through with it, so he needed
a guy who has done it. Before and would do
it again, and he knew that he'd be the one
to actually kill her and go through with it.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
So fifty one year old Curtis Wayne Wright went to
school all the way through with Mark Savers childhood friends
in Missouri, and Savers moves to Florida, meets Teresa, they marry. Then,
when Mark Savers decides he needs a murder done and
he needs a hit man, Curtis Wayne Wright contacts Jimmy
(35:56):
Ray Rogers, who he met in jail twenty nine year
od Rogers aka the Hammer. Now, he would be so
easy for these two to blame Mark Severs to take
the heat off of them, But then enter another witness.
Speaker 13 (36:14):
Less than an hour later, in the early morning hours
of Monday, June twenty ninth, the GPS shows Jimmy and
Wayne on the highway headed northbound for the seventeen hour
drive back to Missouri. The electronic trail would eventually lead
detectives to Jimmy Ray Rogers' door. Just like Wayne, he
(36:36):
denied being involved, but when they pulled in, Jimmy's girlfriend Taylor,
what a story she had to tell.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
He hasd her to throw out parts of his cell
phone in a jumpsuit. What a couple of demons.
Speaker 10 (36:49):
You know.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
If the killer is the devil, these two are his minions.
Now we know that Curtis Wayne Right, the Childhood Brand,
pleads guilty to second degree murder. Then Rogers, so called
the Hammer, goes to trial and is convicted of second
(37:11):
degree murder. But the case against Mark Savers take a listen.
Speaker 11 (37:16):
In the Circuit Court of the twentieth Judicial Circuit in
and for Lee County, Florida, Criminal Action, State of Florida
versus Mark D. Sivers, Case Number fifteen cf. Six seven
to three b verdict. We the jury find as follows
as to the defendant in this case count one first
degree murder. The defendant is guilty of first degree.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Murder, Mark Savers challenging his death sentence. Who do think it?
Speaker 7 (37:42):
Well?
Speaker 5 (37:43):
Me?
Speaker 12 (37:44):
For one?
Speaker 1 (37:45):
We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye friend,
Host
Nancy Grace
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