A judge has granted an extension for closing arguments in Mark Sievers' latest appeal. State prosecutors and Mark Sievers' defense had 45 days to file written closing arguments. It was due a week from Monday, Dec. 15. November 19th, Sievers post conviction attorneys, Megan Montagno, Julissa Fontan and John LoBianco, filed a motion seeking the time extension. They cited the impending execution of another death row inmate they represent. Lee Circuit Judge Bruce Kyle granted the extension.
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. It's the tenth anniversary of
a murder that shot not just Southwest Florida, but beyond.
Do you recall the name doctor Teresa Sievers, because I
will never forget it. Her husband, Mark Severs, and his
(00:23):
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, the mother of the two. She was a
medical doctor. Listen. She not only brought home the bacon,
(00:47):
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? I mean, and believe
it or not, Mark Severs, the killer, now wants out
of jail on appeal. Surprised, I'm not. I'm Nancy Grace.
(01:11):
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
Sievers now decides, Hey, I want to get out of jail.
He should have thought about that before he had his
wife murdered in this elaborate plan. Ridiculous. His main point
(01:34):
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 Wee Wink that there was
no conspiracy and accused his former friend Curtis Wayne Right,
(02:00):
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, Curtis Wayne Wright,
testified in court he and Rogers, the killer, were hired
(02:22):
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 he
and Rogers used a ball peen hammer to murder her,
(02:45):
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,
why this is what happened to doctor Teresa Severs.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Uh, I at a friend's house. He's out of town,
and I came here the second flight and she's got
on the floor. The address.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Okay, sin Shonne, Yes, okay, you're doing very well.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Good job.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
A moment, we're going to connect you.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
We're going to ask for the.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Throat as fire. What if he addresses the emergency two
one zero three four Jarvis? Okay?
Speaker 1 (03:47):
And is that a house for an apartment?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So the house?
Speaker 5 (03:49):
I mean, exactly what happened.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
My friend us she's a doctor. I'm a doctor. She
came home last night. Her husband is in Connecticut, and
she was from the school nine o'clock. They called me,
and I was on my way in the works place,
swung by and she's done, and there's a hammer at
the side and she's dashed in the back of the head.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
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,
(04:36):
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
(04:56):
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 and put on pj's. She was ambushed right as
she came home from the airport. Was someone following her?
Does someone know her flight plan? Or was it just
a burglary gone wrong. Let's start at the very beginning.
(05:19):
Take a listen to more of that nine one one callely.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Okaym naky office for you on the way, okay.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
And so you said you're a doctor, I am, okay?
Speaker 6 (05:32):
Are you with her now?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I'm outside of the house. I don't know if there's anybody.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
In the house, okay, all right?
Speaker 5 (05:39):
For how old?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Is all right?
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Sir? And is she awake?
Speaker 7 (05:46):
She's got one before.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
The light everywhere?
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Okay?
Speaker 7 (05:56):
All right?
Speaker 8 (05:56):
So I do have paramedics, fire department, all the law
enforcement as the line with us.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Okay, they're going to be going out Okay, Okay, I
point you to stand the line one moment. I'm gonna
because you know, I don't know if this still help.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Okay, it was right.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It's a stand the line I take.
Speaker 7 (06:16):
The criff office has questions and they're going to comping you.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
On what to do next.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Okay, sure, Are you inside the resident instead? No, I'm not.
I'm standing in the driveway.
Speaker 7 (06:24):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
And then when you walked in, say the house, you
said the blood was dryer.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
What did you say?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, half the blood is dry, half the da is dead.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Cult No, I can't help but analyze that nine to
one one call. And this coworker, doctor PETREATI seems very
very calm. I'm want to go to doctor Bethany Marshall's
psycho analyst joining us from LA 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,
(06:52):
even 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 4 (07:13):
When I was doing your HLN show, I had a
patient who tried to kill herself.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
She overdosed on benzodiazepines.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
She called me up.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
She into like a sort of a coma like state.
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. So I was very formal
and how I reported it. I said, this is doctor
Bethany Marshall, this is my license number.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
This is where I got this call.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
This is the woman's I 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.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
As I just said, so, this.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Is the doctor who walks into a crime scene. The
woman's back of her head is bashed in, she's still
wearing her siletto shoes. He is the first one on
the scene. 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
(08:14):
report the incident. 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 (08:23):
With me an all star panel today to break it
down put it back together again, of course. In an
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
(08:44):
now to 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 and the case of a murdered mom and
(09:05):
doctor 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 8 (09:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Blood. Adams, 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 8 (09:46):
Okay, we're not talking about that kind of blood, Nancy.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
What do you mean by blood just a tiny drop?
Tell me the whole.
Speaker 8 (09:52):
Thing, Amanda, Nancy, there was so much blood in there.
You know. When we have interviewed investigators and detective who
were in Anie 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
(10:14):
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 (10:23):
What else did they find, Amanda?
Speaker 8 (10:25):
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 (10:47):
Crime stores with Nancy Grace. You know how when you
think a squash approach 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. Let me just
(11:11):
have a quick refresher on what happened to the beautiful
young mom of two, doctor Teresa Severs.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Brahamm's sitting next to her, and you had wrapped it
and didn't touch anything.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
No, I did not touch anything. I touched her. I
shook her a little bit, all right, one moment.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
You're doing really well.
Speaker 6 (11:30):
So the last time you.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Had seen her, what time?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Probably too we sleeings go, can we?
Speaker 4 (11:36):
And you said she returned today.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I don't know when she came back, but she was
supposed to go. 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 call him, try calling, He's going to call her mom,
and he said she was swinging by? Can you sling by?
And I knocked on the front door and nobody answered,
(12:01):
and the lights were on. I could see your persons
on the countertop and she didn't answer. I poundered, 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 I walked in.
I just opened up the door, walked in the door,
and she've been on the floor.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
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 severs very well known in the Bonita Springs area.
Practiced mostly with women and had a very holistic method
(12:40):
toward medicine, very closely to the whole community. Never turned
a person away. Tiny, diminutive woman. I think she was
about four to eleven, and that's important because she always
wore high heels. Okay, and 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.
(13:02):
She just flown in from Connecticut. Her husband and children
still in Connecticut. Now normally you look at the husband, first, husband, lover,
boyfriend X. He's in Connecticut with the children, on a
vacation with her family. It was only when she didn't
show up to work that morning that coworkers became concerned
and went to her home again. I'm Nancy Grace. This
(13:26):
is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. And
you know, Ashley Wilcot, 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, go lucky,
(13:47):
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. Fail'll eat
whatever I fix, so where wouldever I lay out? Didn't
care if his heir's comb nothing. He's just perfect. Girls
are a whole nother ballgame, and you need your mother.
You need a loving guiding hand, somebody that can say
(14:10):
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, you.
Speaker 9 (14:31):
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
the kids and the other spouse has to travel back
(14:54):
to work. But this, to me was the beginning of
the story, to say, she's in Connecticut with the kids.
Speaker 7 (15:02):
She's here it home, and.
Speaker 9 (15:05):
It happens to then get killed the first night. Does
this mean anything or not?
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Take a listen to the questions the nine one one
operator poses to doctor Petredes.
Speaker 9 (15:16):
Okay, and so you were there because.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
They asked you to take care of the house.
Speaker 8 (15:21):
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Mark? 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 7 (15:33):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (15:33):
So, and I know you told him before.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
But when after he called the chuck and his wife because.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
She wasn't at work.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
In parently talking one okay, he gave me the code number.
He sounded a little, you know.
Speaker 7 (15:53):
And you see the call from work saying she wasn't there.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, I don't know that's playing. You know he's her
office manager.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
Why she's the office manager of his business.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
No, he's the office manager of her medical practis okay?
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Right there, We're getting a lot of clarification. 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 coworker happens to
show up at the home to find a dead body,
(16:32):
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
(16:52):
nine one call operators say oh, she's his office manager,
and he says, no, Amanda Hall, tell me, what's your
understanding is how did doctor Patriti'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.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
She guess it does Nancy.
Speaker 8 (17:14):
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
(17:37):
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 (17:49):
I want you to take a listen to what our
friends at ABC News says.
Speaker 10 (17:54):
Severs return to 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 (18:05):
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.
(18:28):
Is that correct?
Speaker 5 (18:29):
Correct?
Speaker 1 (18:29):
So she's bludgeoned dead in the kitchen and is my
understanding her pocket book was there too, righte, Amanda?
Speaker 7 (18:37):
Right?
Speaker 8 (18:37):
She came home, pulled into the garage and went from
the garage into the house and that's where she was attacked.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
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
in 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 your doors.
(19:06):
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 nine dollars
(19:27):
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.
Speaker 7 (19:37):
James, Yeah, absolutely, 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 (19:54):
Husband, Mark Severs convicted and the murder of his wife, Teresa,
the mother of his childre 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?
(20:15):
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.
Speaker 10 (20:33):
Severs was a popular fixture in her community.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
She had the quality like a mother Teresa.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
She cared and she had nothing more than love.
Speaker 8 (20:42):
If she had nothing else to offer, it would be
her care and her love for the patient.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
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, But I want you
to take a listen to something very odd that happened
at the funeral.
Speaker 11 (21:06):
We were seeing her sisters on one side, and the
look that we were getting wasn't a look of sadness.
It was a look of hatred.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Frank Pays 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 11 (21:29):
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. I
(21:54):
stepped back.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I said, Holy, you are hearing our friend. I know
you recognize that voice. Aaron Moriarty CBS forty eight hours.
A look of hate at the funeral and doctor Bethany
Marshall psychologists 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
(22:18):
on the husband's face. Why did he somehow blame her family? Why?
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 4 (22:36):
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 former employee with hatred.
It 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
(22:57):
the pets. His wife's coming home alone, he stays behind
with the girls. 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.
(23:17):
I mean, all along this whole story, this husband has never.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Acted like a husband.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
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 (23:36):
Let me go to Amanda Hall, special guest joining us
from wi 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 8 (23:51):
Well, we know that the two met while he was
a nurse and she was a new doctor practicing in
Saint Petersburg, Florida. 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 of her practice,
(24:15):
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 (24:34):
Where did you tell me he's from Amanda.
Speaker 8 (24:36):
To start with, Mark Severs grew up in a little
small town in Missouri.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Hmm, okay, I want to go to doctor Tim Gallagher
medical examiner. I want you to describe, if you could,
the wounds to doctor Sever's body. And again there was
no sex attack and no theft or burglary from her
person or the home.
Speaker 6 (24:59):
So her wound 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
(25:20):
the shards of the broken skull had penetrated into her
brain and there was massive bleeding.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
What did you just say about sharge of the skull.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
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
(25:52):
the blood vessels as supply blood to the brain.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I'm just trying to think about this massive attack on
this tiny woman and Amanda Hall reporter w I and
k TV in Fort Myer's Amanda most of the blows
or to the back of the head. Did she ever
even get a chance to fight back?
Speaker 8 (26:12):
No, Nancy, she didn't. You know, she rolled her suitcase
into an attack and ambush.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
So her suitcase was still sitting there.
Speaker 8 (26:20):
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 (26:31):
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,
(26:51):
still sitting there in the garage. She walks in the
kitchen and bam, she's attacked. Nothing stolen, nothing taken from her,
not her pocketbook, her selfhe 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.
(27:13):
She can't even get past the kitchen. They're waiting for
her to come through that garage door.
Speaker 7 (27:20):
Yeah, all of this adds up to the fact that
you need to start looking at someone who is closely
connected to this victim.
Speaker 6 (27:28):
This is not something random.
Speaker 7 (27:30):
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
at that point. You start where you traditionally start.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Crime stories with Nancy Grace, husband turned killer. Mark Saver's
legal team is can you their death sentence appeal as
a new hearing approaches. I thought he was gone. I
thought he would be in jail the rest of his
life until he got the death penalty. But no, he's back,
(28:12):
causing a stink recall. Severs was found guilty of hiring
two men, his high school buddy Curtis Right aka doppel
Ganger they look exactly alike, and Jimmy Rogers, a neer Dowell,
to carry out a savage killing of his wife there
at the couple's homes and home in Benita Springs, Florida.
(28:34):
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
while the husband, Mark Severs, made himself scarce and gave
(28:55):
himself an alibire. What those killers are planning behind bars?
This is what I know happened at trial.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Crash bags, flushable web wipes, black towels, black shoes, and
a lock picking kit. They paid cash for their purchase
with the one hundred dollars bill.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
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
(29:41):
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 listened to Aaron Moriarty.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
When investigators uncovered five life insurance Paula's 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.
(30:19):
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 Severs was killed, Wayne Wright facing
a possible death sentence, suddenly turned on his brother from
another mother, and he took a deal.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
You were hearing our friend Aaron Moriarty straight out to
Amanda Hale, reporter w I in KTV Fort Myers. How
did these three hook up? Tell me the whole thing,
Amanda Hall.
Speaker 8 (30:53):
Okay, Wayne Wright is a childhood friend. As you heard
of Mark Seavers. They called themselves brothers from another mother,
but they really looked like real brothers. They looked like twins.
So wain Wright is getting married and Mark Severs is
his best man, and they started planning this while he was.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
There for the wedding.
Speaker 8 (31:16):
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, and then
(31:38):
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 (31:51):
Okay, now, that's a heck of a nickname, you know.
I got to go to a shrink on that. Doctor
Bethany Marshall the Hammer.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Well, it's interesting he called himself the hammer because 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
(32:21):
Jimmy the Hammer has 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 (32:31):
Amanda to backtrack, how many times does she bludgeon with
the hammer?
Speaker 8 (32:35):
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 (32:45):
To doctor Tim Gallagher, seventeen, I thought they were eighteen.
Speaker 6 (32:48):
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 (33:05):
I'm just just so repelled at this seventeen at least
seventeen blows to the back of her head with what
I understand as 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
(33:28):
that 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 gonna split, We're going to battle
for custody. I have to kill her. Why not just
have joint custody? Ashley, you know, not.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
A great question that we continue to entertain and on
this show, because they're defendant after defendant chooses to.
Speaker 9 (33:51):
Kill someone instead of getting a divorce or having joint custody.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
You know, who knows why? You can't answer the why
you can own?
Speaker 9 (34:00):
We look at what is the evidence show and going
after the person that the evidence show did such a
terrible thing, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Just thinking through all of the evidence. To Amanda Hall,
reporter w in KTV. 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, nicknamed
(34:32):
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 8 (34:44):
Wayne Wright and Jimmy Rodgers are both eleven hundred miles
away from Benita Springs in a small town in the
middle of Missouri. And the way those two are 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
(35:06):
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 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 (35:27):
So fifty one year old Curtis Wayne Wright went to
school all the way through with Mark Severs childhood friends
in Missouri, and Savers moves to Florida, meets Teresa. They marry. Then,
when Mark Severs decides he needs a murder done and
he needs a hit man, Curtis Wayne Wright contacts Jimmy
(35:51):
Ray Rogers, who he met in jail, twenty nine year
old Rogers aka the Hammer. Now it would be it's
so easy for these two to blame Mark Severs to
take the heat off of them, but then enter another witness.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
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.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Hour drive back to Missouri.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
The electronic trail would eventually lead detectives to Jimmy Ray Rogers' door.
Just like Wayne, he denied being involved, but when they
pulled in Jimmy's girlfriend Taylor, what a story she had
to tell. He has her to throw out parts of
his cell phone in a jumpsuit.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
What a couple of demons. You know, if the killer
is the devil, these two are his minions. Now we
know that Curtis Wayne Right, the childhood friend, pleads guilty
to second degree murder. Then Rogers, so called the Hammer,
(37:03):
goes to trial and is convicted of second degree murder.
But the case against Mark Savers take a listen.
Speaker 12 (37:11):
In the Circuit Court of the twentieth Judicial Circuit in
for Lee County, Florida, Criminal Action State of Florida versus
Mark D. Sivers, Case Number fifteen CF. Six seven to
three B verdict, Will 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 (37:33):
Murder Mark Savers challenging his death sentence.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
A judge is granted an extension for closing arguments. In
Mark Savers's latest appeal, State prosecutors and Mark severs defense
had forty five days to file written closing arguments. It
was due a week from Monday, December fifteenth. Mark seivers
mother and stepmother testified in court at his October thirteenth
appeal hearing. Jimmy Ray Rogers, one of Sever's conveyed accomplices,
(38:01):
also maintains sever is innocent. November nineteenth, Sever's post conviction
attorneys filed emotion seeking the time extension. They cited the
impending execution of another death row inmate. They represented. Lee
Circuit Judge Bruce Kyle granted the extension. January thirteenth is
(38:21):
the new thirty day deadline. Jimmy Ray Rogers is also
appealing his conviction. According to Jimmy Ray Rogers, Curtis Wayne
Wright worked in the Severs Benita Springs home doing computer
work as well as painting jobs. According to Rogers, Wright
asked him if he wanted to drive to Florida, speaking
of the trip for weeks, Rogers said after a nineteen
(38:43):
hour drive, they parked in the Severs driveway, but no
one was home. Rogers says Wright had a traumatic brain
injury years before, which causes him to get dates and
times mixed, so they drove to the beach. When they
came back, Teresa Severs was home. Rogers said, Wayne explained
he messed up the times, but they argued as Teresa
(39:04):
told them they were a week early. All three walked
into the garage, which Teresa Severs closed behind them. The
argument continued as she unloaded a van with Right, becoming frustrated,
trying to hold his temper, Rogers says, then Teresa's Severs
said she would fire right. Right, then grabbed a hammer
and hit her. He says she survived the initial attack
(39:26):
near their deep freezer and ran into the kitchen. Right
chased her. Rogers says he chased two, yelling for Right
to stop. He says in the kitchen he saw Right
swinging Teresa Severs to the ground, holding her by her hair.
Then Wright struck Teresa Severs with the hammer over and over.
Right then said the pair needed to make the murder
(39:46):
look like a burglary gone wrong. Rogers said he feared
for his life and did not alert authorities.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
We wait as just as unfals. Goodbye friend
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Zero.
Crime Stories with Nancy Greece. It's the tenth anniversary of
a murder that shot not just Southwest Florida, but beyond.
Do you recall the name doctor Teresa Sievers, because I
will never forget it. Her husband, Mark Severs, and his
(00:23):
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, the mother of the two. She was a
medical doctor. Listen. She not only brought home the bacon,
(00:47):
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? I mean, and believe
it or not, Mark Severs, the killer, now wants out
of jail on appeal. Surprised, I'm not. I'm Nancy Grace.
(01:11):
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
Sievers now decides, Hey, I want to get out of jail.
He should have thought about that before he had his
wife murdered in this elaborate plan. Ridiculous. His main point
(01:34):
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 Wee Wink that there was
no conspiracy and accused his former friend Curtis Wayne Right,
(02:00):
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, Curtis Wayne Wright,
testified in court he and Rogers, the killer, were hired
(02:22):
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 he
and Rogers used a ball peen hammer to murder her,
(02:45):
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,
why this is what happened to doctor Teresa Severs.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Uh, I at a friend's house. He's out of town,
and I came here the second flight and she's got
on the floor. The address.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Okay, sin Shonne, Yes, okay, you're doing very well.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Good job.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
A moment, we're going to connect you.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
We're going to ask for the.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Throat as fire. What if he addresses the emergency two
one zero three four Jarvis? Okay?
Speaker 1 (03:47):
And is that a house for an apartment?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So the house?
Speaker 5 (03:49):
I mean, exactly what happened.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
My friend us she's a doctor. I'm a doctor. She
came home last night. Her husband is in Connecticut, and
she was from the school nine o'clock. They called me,
and I was on my way in the works place,
swung by and she's done, and there's a hammer at
the side and she's dashed in the back of the head.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
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,
(04:36):
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
(04:56):
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 and put on pj's. She was ambushed right as
she came home from the airport. Was someone following her?
Does someone know her flight plan? Or was it just
a burglary gone wrong. Let's start at the very beginning.
(05:19):
Take a listen to more of that nine one one callely.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Okaym naky office for you on the way, okay.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
And so you said you're a doctor, I am, okay?
Speaker 6 (05:32):
Are you with her now?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I'm outside of the house. I don't know if there's anybody.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
In the house, okay, all right?
Speaker 5 (05:39):
For how old?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Is all right?
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Sir? And is she awake?
Speaker 7 (05:46):
She's got one before.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
The light everywhere?
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Okay?
Speaker 7 (05:56):
All right?
Speaker 8 (05:56):
So I do have paramedics, fire department, all the law
enforcement as the line with us.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Okay, they're going to be going out Okay, Okay, I
point you to stand the line one moment. I'm gonna
because you know, I don't know if this still help.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Okay, it was right.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It's a stand the line I take.
Speaker 7 (06:16):
The criff office has questions and they're going to comping you.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
On what to do next.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Okay, sure, Are you inside the resident instead? No, I'm not.
I'm standing in the driveway.
Speaker 7 (06:24):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
And then when you walked in, say the house, you
said the blood was dryer.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
What did you say?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, half the blood is dry, half the da is dead.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Cult No, I can't help but analyze that nine to
one one call. And this coworker, doctor PETREATI seems very
very calm. I'm want to go to doctor Bethany Marshall's
psycho analyst joining us from LA 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,
(06:52):
even 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 4 (07:13):
When I was doing your HLN show, I had a
patient who tried to kill herself.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
She overdosed on benzodiazepines.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
She called me up.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
She into like a sort of a coma like state.
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. So I was very formal
and how I reported it. I said, this is doctor
Bethany Marshall, this is my license number.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
This is where I got this call.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
This is the woman's I 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.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
As I just said, so, this.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Is the doctor who walks into a crime scene. The
woman's back of her head is bashed in, she's still
wearing her siletto shoes. He is the first one on
the scene. 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
(08:14):
report the incident. 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 (08:23):
With me an all star panel today to break it
down put it back together again, of course. In an
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
(08:44):
now to 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 and the case of a murdered mom and
(09:05):
doctor 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 8 (09:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Blood. Adams, 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 8 (09:46):
Okay, we're not talking about that kind of blood, Nancy.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
What do you mean by blood just a tiny drop?
Tell me the whole.
Speaker 8 (09:52):
Thing, Amanda, Nancy, there was so much blood in there.
You know. When we have interviewed investigators and detective who
were in Anie 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
(10:14):
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 (10:23):
What else did they find, Amanda?
Speaker 8 (10:25):
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 (10:47):
Crime stores with Nancy Grace. You know how when you
think a squash approach 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. Let me just
(11:11):
have a quick refresher on what happened to the beautiful
young mom of two, doctor Teresa Severs.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Brahamm's sitting next to her, and you had wrapped it
and didn't touch anything.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
No, I did not touch anything. I touched her. I
shook her a little bit, all right, one moment.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
You're doing really well.
Speaker 6 (11:30):
So the last time you.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Had seen her, what time?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Probably too we sleeings go, can we?
Speaker 4 (11:36):
And you said she returned today.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I don't know when she came back, but she was
supposed to go. 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 call him, try calling, He's going to call her mom,
and he said she was swinging by? Can you sling by?
And I knocked on the front door and nobody answered,
(12:01):
and the lights were on. I could see your persons
on the countertop and she didn't answer. I poundered, 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 I walked in.
I just opened up the door, walked in the door,
and she've been on the floor.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
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 severs very well known in the Bonita Springs area.
Practiced mostly with women and had a very holistic method
(12:40):
toward medicine, very closely to the whole community. Never turned
a person away. Tiny, diminutive woman. I think she was
about four to eleven, and that's important because she always
wore high heels. Okay, and 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.
(13:02):
She just flown in from Connecticut. Her husband and children
still in Connecticut. Now normally you look at the husband, first, husband, lover,
boyfriend X. He's in Connecticut with the children, on a
vacation with her family. It was only when she didn't
show up to work that morning that coworkers became concerned
and went to her home again. I'm Nancy Grace. This
(13:26):
is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. And
you know, Ashley Wilcot, 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, go lucky,
(13:47):
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. Fail'll eat
whatever I fix, so where wouldever I lay out? Didn't
care if his heir's comb nothing. He's just perfect. Girls
are a whole nother ballgame, and you need your mother.
You need a loving guiding hand, somebody that can say
(14:10):
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, you.
Speaker 9 (14:31):
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
the kids and the other spouse has to travel back
(14:54):
to work. But this, to me was the beginning of
the story, to say, she's in Connecticut with the kids.
Speaker 7 (15:02):
She's here it home, and.
Speaker 9 (15:05):
It happens to then get killed the first night. Does
this mean anything or not?
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Take a listen to the questions the nine one one
operator poses to doctor Petredes.
Speaker 9 (15:16):
Okay, and so you were there because.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
They asked you to take care of the house.
Speaker 8 (15:21):
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Mark? 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 7 (15:33):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (15:33):
So, and I know you told him before.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
But when after he called the chuck and his wife because.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
She wasn't at work.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
In parently talking one okay, he gave me the code number.
He sounded a little, you know.
Speaker 7 (15:53):
And you see the call from work saying she wasn't there.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, I don't know that's playing. You know he's her
office manager.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
Why she's the office manager of his business.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
No, he's the office manager of her medical practis okay?
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Right there, We're getting a lot of clarification. 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 coworker happens to
show up at the home to find a dead body,
(16:32):
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
(16:52):
nine one call operators say oh, she's his office manager,
and he says, no, Amanda Hall, tell me, what's your
understanding is how did doctor Patriti'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.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
She guess it does Nancy.
Speaker 8 (17:14):
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
(17:37):
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 (17:49):
I want you to take a listen to what our
friends at ABC News says.
Speaker 10 (17:54):
Severs return to 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 (18:05):
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.
(18:28):
Is that correct?
Speaker 5 (18:29):
Correct?
Speaker 1 (18:29):
So she's bludgeoned dead in the kitchen and is my
understanding her pocket book was there too, righte, Amanda?
Speaker 7 (18:37):
Right?
Speaker 8 (18:37):
She came home, pulled into the garage and went from
the garage into the house and that's where she was attacked.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
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
in 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 your doors.
(19:06):
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 nine dollars
(19:27):
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.
Speaker 7 (19:37):
James, Yeah, absolutely, 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 (19:54):
Husband, Mark Severs convicted and the murder of his wife, Teresa,
the mother of his childre 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?
(20:15):
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.
Speaker 10 (20:33):
Severs was a popular fixture in her community.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
She had the quality like a mother Teresa.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
She cared and she had nothing more than love.
Speaker 8 (20:42):
If she had nothing else to offer, it would be
her care and her love for the patient.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
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, But I want you
to take a listen to something very odd that happened
at the funeral.
Speaker 11 (21:06):
We were seeing her sisters on one side, and the
look that we were getting wasn't a look of sadness.
It was a look of hatred.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Frank Pays 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 11 (21:29):
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. I
(21:54):
stepped back.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I said, Holy, you are hearing our friend. I know
you recognize that voice. Aaron Moriarty CBS forty eight hours.
A look of hate at the funeral and doctor Bethany
Marshall psychologists 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
(22:18):
on the husband's face. Why did he somehow blame her family? Why?
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 4 (22:36):
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 former employee with hatred.
It 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
(22:57):
the pets. His wife's coming home alone, he stays behind
with the girls. 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.
(23:17):
I mean, all along this whole story, this husband has never.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Acted like a husband.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
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 (23:36):
Let me go to Amanda Hall, special guest joining us
from wi 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 8 (23:51):
Well, we know that the two met while he was
a nurse and she was a new doctor practicing in
Saint Petersburg, Florida. 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 of her practice,
(24:15):
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 (24:34):
Where did you tell me he's from Amanda.
Speaker 8 (24:36):
To start with, Mark Severs grew up in a little
small town in Missouri.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Hmm, okay, I want to go to doctor Tim Gallagher
medical examiner. I want you to describe, if you could,
the wounds to doctor Sever's body. And again there was
no sex attack and no theft or burglary from her
person or the home.
Speaker 6 (24:59):
So her wound 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
(25:20):
the shards of the broken skull had penetrated into her
brain and there was massive bleeding.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
What did you just say about sharge of the skull.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
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
(25:52):
the blood vessels as supply blood to the brain.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I'm just trying to think about this massive attack on
this tiny woman and Amanda Hall reporter w I and
k TV in Fort Myer's Amanda most of the blows
or to the back of the head. Did she ever
even get a chance to fight back?
Speaker 8 (26:12):
No, Nancy, she didn't. You know, she rolled her suitcase
into an attack and ambush.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
So her suitcase was still sitting there.
Speaker 8 (26:20):
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 (26:31):
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,
(26:51):
still sitting there in the garage. She walks in the
kitchen and bam, she's attacked. Nothing stolen, nothing taken from her,
not her pocketbook, her selfhe 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.
(27:13):
She can't even get past the kitchen. They're waiting for
her to come through that garage door.
Speaker 7 (27:20):
Yeah, all of this adds up to the fact that
you need to start looking at someone who is closely
connected to this victim.
Speaker 6 (27:28):
This is not something random.
Speaker 7 (27:30):
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
at that point. You start where you traditionally start.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Crime stories with Nancy Grace, husband turned killer. Mark Saver's
legal team is can you their death sentence appeal as
a new hearing approaches. I thought he was gone. I
thought he would be in jail the rest of his
life until he got the death penalty. But no, he's back,
(28:12):
causing a stink recall. Severs was found guilty of hiring
two men, his high school buddy Curtis Right aka doppel
Ganger they look exactly alike, and Jimmy Rogers, a neer Dowell,
to carry out a savage killing of his wife there
at the couple's homes and home in Benita Springs, Florida.
(28:34):
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
while the husband, Mark Severs, made himself scarce and gave
(28:55):
himself an alibire. What those killers are planning behind bars?
This is what I know happened at trial.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Crash bags, flushable web wipes, black towels, black shoes, and
a lock picking kit. They paid cash for their purchase
with the one hundred dollars bill.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
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
(29:41):
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 listened to Aaron Moriarty.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
When investigators uncovered five life insurance Paula's 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.
(30:19):
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 Severs was killed, Wayne Wright facing
a possible death sentence, suddenly turned on his brother from
another mother, and he took a deal.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
You were hearing our friend Aaron Moriarty straight out to
Amanda Hale, reporter w I in KTV Fort Myers. How
did these three hook up? Tell me the whole thing,
Amanda Hall.
Speaker 8 (30:53):
Okay, Wayne Wright is a childhood friend. As you heard
of Mark Seavers. They called themselves brothers from another mother,
but they really looked like real brothers. They looked like twins.
So wain Wright is getting married and Mark Severs is
his best man, and they started planning this while he was.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
There for the wedding.
Speaker 8 (31:16):
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, and then
(31:38):
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 (31:51):
Okay, now, that's a heck of a nickname, you know.
I got to go to a shrink on that. Doctor
Bethany Marshall the Hammer.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Well, it's interesting he called himself the hammer because 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
(32:21):
Jimmy the Hammer has 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 (32:31):
Amanda to backtrack, how many times does she bludgeon with
the hammer?
Speaker 8 (32:35):
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 (32:45):
To doctor Tim Gallagher, seventeen, I thought they were eighteen.
Speaker 6 (32:48):
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 (33:05):
I'm just just so repelled at this seventeen at least
seventeen blows to the back of her head with what
I understand as 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
(33:28):
that 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 gonna split, We're going to battle
for custody. I have to kill her. Why not just
have joint custody? Ashley, you know, not.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
A great question that we continue to entertain and on
this show, because they're defendant after defendant chooses to.
Speaker 9 (33:51):
Kill someone instead of getting a divorce or having joint custody.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
You know, who knows why? You can't answer the why
you can own?
Speaker 9 (34:00):
We look at what is the evidence show and going
after the person that the evidence show did such a
terrible thing, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Just thinking through all of the evidence. To Amanda Hall,
reporter w in KTV. 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, nicknamed
(34:32):
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 8 (34:44):
Wayne Wright and Jimmy Rodgers are both eleven hundred miles
away from Benita Springs in a small town in the
middle of Missouri. And the way those two are 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
(35:06):
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 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 (35:27):
So fifty one year old Curtis Wayne Wright went to
school all the way through with Mark Severs childhood friends
in Missouri, and Savers moves to Florida, meets Teresa. They marry. Then,
when Mark Severs decides he needs a murder done and
he needs a hit man, Curtis Wayne Wright contacts Jimmy
(35:51):
Ray Rogers, who he met in jail, twenty nine year
old Rogers aka the Hammer. Now it would be it's
so easy for these two to blame Mark Severs to
take the heat off of them, but then enter another witness.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
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.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Hour drive back to Missouri.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
The electronic trail would eventually lead detectives to Jimmy Ray Rogers' door.
Just like Wayne, he denied being involved, but when they
pulled in Jimmy's girlfriend Taylor, what a story she had
to tell. He has her to throw out parts of
his cell phone in a jumpsuit.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
What a couple of demons. You know, if the killer
is the devil, these two are his minions. Now we
know that Curtis Wayne Right, the childhood friend, pleads guilty
to second degree murder. Then Rogers, so called the Hammer,
(37:03):
goes to trial and is convicted of second degree murder.
But the case against Mark Savers take a listen.
Speaker 12 (37:11):
In the Circuit Court of the twentieth Judicial Circuit in
for Lee County, Florida, Criminal Action State of Florida versus
Mark D. Sivers, Case Number fifteen CF. Six seven to
three B verdict, Will 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 (37:33):
Murder Mark Savers challenging his death sentence.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
A judge is granted an extension for closing arguments. In
Mark Savers's latest appeal, State prosecutors and Mark severs defense
had forty five days to file written closing arguments. It
was due a week from Monday, December fifteenth. Mark seivers
mother and stepmother testified in court at his October thirteenth
appeal hearing. Jimmy Ray Rogers, one of Sever's conveyed accomplices,
(38:01):
also maintains sever is innocent. November nineteenth, Sever's post conviction
attorneys filed emotion seeking the time extension. They cited the
impending execution of another death row inmate. They represented. Lee
Circuit Judge Bruce Kyle granted the extension. January thirteenth is
(38:21):
the new thirty day deadline. Jimmy Ray Rogers is also
appealing his conviction. According to Jimmy Ray Rogers, Curtis Wayne
Wright worked in the Severs Benita Springs home doing computer
work as well as painting jobs. According to Rogers, Wright
asked him if he wanted to drive to Florida, speaking
of the trip for weeks, Rogers said after a nineteen
(38:43):
hour drive, they parked in the Severs driveway, but no
one was home. Rogers says Wright had a traumatic brain
injury years before, which causes him to get dates and
times mixed, so they drove to the beach. When they
came back, Teresa Severs was home. Rogers said, Wayne explained
he messed up the times, but they argued as Teresa
(39:04):
told them they were a week early. All three walked
into the garage, which Teresa Severs closed behind them. The
argument continued as she unloaded a van with Right, becoming frustrated,
trying to hold his temper, Rogers says, then Teresa's Severs
said she would fire right. Right, then grabbed a hammer
and hit her. He says she survived the initial attack
(39:26):
near their deep freezer and ran into the kitchen. Right
chased her. Rogers says he chased two, yelling for Right
to stop. He says in the kitchen he saw Right
swinging Teresa Severs to the ground, holding her by her hair.
Then Wright struck Teresa Severs with the hammer over and over.
Right then said the pair needed to make the murder
(39:46):
look like a burglary gone wrong. Rogers said he feared
for his life and did not alert authorities.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
We wait as just as unfals. Goodbye friend
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Zero.
Host
Nancy Grace
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