The Lookalike, The Polarizing Doctor and The Hammer

and the Hammer. The year was two thousand and three and Mark Sievers was on vacation in St. Petersburg, Florida. As a traveling nurse, his job could be pretty stressful, so little R and R was much needed. In between time at the beach and poolside drinks. He met a recently divorced doctor named Teresa. For the thirty five year old, it was love at first sight. As a holistic doctor, Teresa was outspoken and confident to her friends and family. She was something special and Mark saw that right away.

After dating for some time, the pair got engaged to honor how they met. Mark and Teresa got married on a beach at sunset surrounded by loved ones. Teresa let her hair fall curly and wore a stunning white dress. She was the epitome of a glowing bride. Six months after time the not the couple welcome their first daughter. They built a large home around forty five minutes south of Fort Myers in a safe community named Bonita Springs. In two thousand seven, they had another little girl for

Mark and Teresa. It seemed like all of their dreams were finally coming true. Here's Stephanie. Theresa found success as a holistic doctor. She basically combined traditional and alternative medicine, which healed people from all over the world who couldn't find help elsewhere. She also made motivational speaking videotapes that she would sell online, and with multiple sources of income, she became the family's breadwinner. Mark helped manage the office

though when he took care of their two girls. And perhaps she was so successful because Teresa was a fighter and she would fight for her patients to receive the best care possible. A fighter indeed stuff. Teresa was known to have a really strong personality. She was considered pretty polarizing from the people in her life. He either loved her or you hated her. People described her as a dynamo.

She had a very short fuse, and this probably comes from the fact that she really expected perfection from everyone. She would even yell at patients who weren't following her orders. Despite being a very small woman, she often had the biggest personality in every room she stepped into. But what really it came down to was it all came from a place of wanting to help people. On June twenty nine, dispatchers received a call nine one one, When is your emergency? Uh?

I had a friend's house. Uh, he's out of town and I came here to check on his flight. And she's down on the floor the sea. Her family had been on vacation in Connecticut celebrating Teresa's mother's birthday, while Mark stayed behind to continue the fund. Teresa had to come home early to get to work Monday morning. When she failed to arrive at the office, the staff texted Mark, who contacted a friend to check on her. Here's audio from the call. My friend. Uh, she's a doctor. I'm

a doctor. She came home last night. Her husband is in Connecticut and she was supposed to go at nine o'clock. They called me and I was on my way in the work slice one by and she's down on the s and there's hammer at the side and she's bashed in the back of the head. And then knocked on the front door and nobody answered, and the lights were on. I could see her persons on the countertop and she didn't answer at pound and pounding needed to keep goat to get into the glass door. Glass door, and the

door leading to it was opened. One of the dogs ran out. I don't know if he left un and uh, and I walked and I just opened up the door, walked in the door and you can have on the floor. He's doing great, okay, okay. I did then know that you're outside? The fire guys are here, okay, go yeah's dad. So when the detectives arrived, their first thought was a robbery gone wrong. Theresa had just gotten home and perhaps a Robert didn't think anyone would be there, and she

had walked in on a crime being committed. What cops noticed that kind of added to this theory was that the home's alarm system wasn't on, and this all stemmed from the fact that when the family was on vacation, Mark had asked his mom to come over and feed the family pets. When she arrived at the house, she noticed that the alarm was off and had called her son Mark to ask him about it, and he told

her not to worry about it. So perhaps the alarm system got left off which allowed a Robert to break in, because, as we know later that evening, Teresa was killed by someone in the hall. The issue was that nothing was missing in the house. Everything was in pristine condition, so it didn't even look like a break in. Plus worth noting this crime was absolutely brutal. Teresa had been beaten to death with a hammer. She sustained severe head trauma,

and there was a ton of blood. It was clear to detectives that this was not a quick and painless death. In fact, it looked very personal. While the detectives were looking at everyone in Teresa's life, like her office staff, her patients, her manicurists, and her landscaper, the online web sleuth community also kind of took on the case. Online web sleuths are amateur, everyday men and woman who are passionate about true crime and really investigate cases from the

comfort of their own homes. They've been known to have a fair amount of success, and so according to this community, there had actually been at least five holistic doctors across the country who were found dead. Their thought was that could someone have been targeting these men and women because perhaps they had a cure for cancer or something else that a big pharmaceutical company wouldn't want getting out. At that time, police did not buy that. They were looking

at a disgruntled employee by the name of Sandra Hoskins. Now, Sandra had been treated harshly by Teresa, apparently telling her that she had very bad energy, and Sandra responded to Teresa by calling her a bit. The relationship had soured, and so much so that Sandra had been planning on quitting her job the very Monday that Teresa was actually found dead. The police also wanted to talk to the person closest to Teresa, her husband Mark. For around three hours,

he spoke to detectives without an attorney. Let's take a listen, appreciate has been something key read and tell her whatever you're leaving going in dark at night, always have it your finger on it. Your purse is ne any good. If you carry a gun, you had your hand on it. It doesn't be any good if it's not accessible. I spoke to our financial advisor, who's a really good friend. It's like a father to Teresa. He's also telling me

what I need to do. Stop crying, stop doing. We have to do all these things, and I know it's just I'm doing as much as I can as people are telling me. I feel so I guess I feel pathetically, but at the same time, there's so much going on. It's hard that I could stop this. How do make it all? Can you tell me when she died? I need to know what she told you was, what happened to this stage, we're still working on that. This is hard. This is really should be nothing. We should say this

is because it's gonna help solve. Relaxed, starting yourself, trying to focus. Okay, now talking about your relationship. Have you guys been contemplating any kind of separation or divorce? Has there been any marital problems? How about six months ago? How about a year ago? And at one point Mark had a moment alone and he completely broke down. Oh helping do this pretty harrowing stuff. So really, at this point,

despite all of his crying and heartbreak. It looked like he was one of the two biggest suspects in the case, the former employee Sandra, and I suppose by default, the husband Mark, which is very common. Typically when anybody has murdered the first suspect, there's always their spouse or their partner or their significant other. It's just stage one of obviously starting an investigation, and you want to start ruling people out as quickly as possible. That's a great point. Stuff.

And because remember Mark had actually been out of town in Connecticut with the kids at the time of the murder, so it was physically impossible that he would even be able to kill his wife, but cops often assumed that spouses have information or insight into the frame of mind of the victim. In July, nearly a month after the doctor was found dead in her home, the police got a tip that had them looking in a completely new direction. The tiptold investigators to take a closer look at a

man named Curtis Wainwright in small town, Missouri. According to the tip, Curtis had been in Florida at the time of the murders. So who was this man thousands of miles away? Here's Jeff. As it turned out, Curtis was actually Mark's childhood friend. The two men, both bald and large in stature, looked more like identical twins than buddies. They were also incredibly close. Mark would tell people Curtis was his brother from another mother. He was at the

couple's wedding. Curtis was incredibly smart. He was his class president and a whiz with technology. He would come down to Florida to work on the Sabers computers in their home and office. Two months before his wife's death, Mark had traveled all the way to Missouri to be the best man at Curtis's wedding. Curtis then had traveled down to Florida to attend Teresa's funeral. But he also had a bit of a dark side. He was a five time convicted felon, and Curtis was also a person of

interest in missing person case. The tip also said that Curtis hadn't been alone on that Florida trip. He was allegedly with a friend from prison, a man named Jimmy Rogers. Now Jimmy had a pretty interesting and relevant nick thing, the Hammer, which of course we know was the weapon that ultimately killed her. So the police went to talk to both men and they denied every being in Florida. This big tip, however, seemed like a dead end until

police noticed a car and Curtis's driveway. Inside the car was a GPS device, which, you know, police were very hopeful would shed some light on his whereabouts and that that information could be used as potential evidence. But unfortunately the GPS had been cleared. But we know how technology works. Detectives spent hours recovering data and luckily pulled up all of the previous destinations and bingo, sure enough, it seemed that, in fact, Curtis had driven one thousand one miles from

Missouri down to Florida. Yeah, this GPS device really showed a true road trip from hell. On the morning of June, two days before Teresa was killed, Curtis first stopped at Jimmy's house. Next, the pair drove south all the way to the Ciba residence and according to the g PS, they arrived around six am. Detectives surmised the men probably went into the home, turning the alarm system off at six o nine am. Remember, Mark's mom was really confused why the alarm system was off. When she went to

the house. Here's what cops told her. I wasn't there at six o nine in the morning. He was six nine. That's what we're trying to work. Oh my god. After getting into the house, Curtis and Jimmy had some time to kill literally, so they went to Walmart. The police tracked down surveillance footage of the two men at the store buying items like a lock pick set, black towels, flushable wipes, and garbage bags. After doing this macab shopping, the men drove to the beach to enjoy the Florida sun.

Can you imagine? And by the way, all of this is trackable on a GPS system. But that wasn't all the police were relying on. Jimmy a k a. The Hammer had a girlfriend. Her name was Taylor's shoemaker, and she was also talking to police. She told cops that Jimmy had confessed to her. Have a listen, and you still don't know anything about what happened yet, right? He tells you that night, did your mom? Yeah, tells me the next night and my mom I told him that

I knew. I didn't actually know. It was after you guys came and I told him that I knew that he had something to do with it, okay, and then you And then he started asking questions like what I know about and I'm like, well, I know you went down and kill some night and then he said yeah. And then, um, I took a guess at Mark five. Let me said yeah, And you said when you said Mark some way, we're talking about Teresa Severs, the doctor that was killed. Yes, And then um I said did

you shoot her? And he said no? And I said then how how did you kill her? And he made his people little chocolate lady does and then said with it he said, with a hammer? Yeah, okay. Taylor then took the cops to the area where he said Jimmy had her dispose of the bloody clothes, and sure enough, the clothes were right where she said they would be.

With all the signs pointing towards Curtis and Jimmy as the killers, the cops could close the case, but the question remained, why did these two men so far away killed Teresa Severs. Curtis Wainwright offered the full story in exchange for a lesser sentence. Prosecutors offered him a plea of second degree manslaughter with a twenty five year sentence. It was a deal he could not refuse. We're going to take a break. We'll be back in just a moment.

At Jimmy's trial, Curtis testified that he and Jimmy killed Teresa. He also told the courtroom that he had offered Jimmy ten dollars for his part in the murder. After two days of deliberating, the jury found Jimmy guilty of second degree murder and sends him to life in prison. But what Curtis offered to prosecutors wasn't just testimony against Jimmy. It was also a story that pointed the blame towards

his best friend and Teresa's husband, Mark. According to Curtis, Mark had offered him a hundred thousand dollars to kill his wife Teresa, and it all started two months before the murder at Curtis's wedding, the one where Mark was the best man. Curtis said that Mark was complaining of marriage problems and suggested that Curtis killed Teresa to make all of his problems go away. At first, Mark's idea was that Curtis shoot her as she was leaving work.

Now to that. Curtis pointed out that he might accidentally hurt someone else in the process, but Mark countered that, saying that it would actually maybe work even better if someone else died, because then the suspicion would be off of him. Well, the cops had figured out Mark and Theresa had serious money issues. They also discovered that Teresa had a four million dollar life insurance policy against her.

This backed up everything Curtis had told them about the marriage and financial issues that Mark had allegedly told him. It's so predictable because an insurance policy with that amount of money, I mean four million dollars is a large life insurance policy. And sure enough, here we go. That seems to be one of the motives. The police also discovered one interesting thing. They said that Mark had been communicating with Curtis via some kind of a burner phone.

On their regular phones, they would text like normal, but when one of them said the word quote other then they would switch to the burner phone. It was kind of their code stuff. We've covered a fair amount of true crime cases, and criminals always think they can get around cops with things like burner phones and code words, and they always get found out, no one is smarter than the police in these situations, and that's what happened. With all this information, the police had enough to arrest

Mark Severs for murder in February, grossly enough. As he was being walked out of his house where his two daughters waited for him, he had a noticeable smirk. The press became obsessed with the lookalike friends turned murderers who would now testify against each other in court. As the trial started, Mike appealed jovial, laughing and smiling with his attorney, but when Curtis took the stand, his disposition shifted. Here's

some audio from the trial. I think when we were in high school, I think the relationship was it was less deep, So the the confiding and part of it really probably didn't happen until we got closed after that. Yeah, Dr Severs and his daughters. Did you ever spend time with them? Did? I didn't spend much time with all of them together, but I spent quite a bit of

time with Mark and and the children. When we kind of make exhausted that he told me that really the only option that he had was for her to die. Um and he said that he needed to have her killed. Okay, so on your wedding day, on your drive to pick up we meet for your wedding, MS Receivers are telling you that he wants to have his wife killed. Yes, he asked me to help him. I mean, what kind of help was he asking for? Was he asking you

to do it yourself? Or or what like? What kind of help could he be possibly asking his friend for? He it was pretty direct. He asked me to if I could, I would kill her or take care of it. And what did you what was your response when he asked you to help him kill his wife? I was surprised first, Um, I mean, are the two of you that were the two of you that close? Mr? Wright? That I mean Mr Sivers could ask you to kill

his wife and you would actually consider it? And yes, I mean definitely the asking part question whether or not actually a question whether or not actually doing it was should have been part of the friendship. But let's just say it shouldn't have been. Let's just say that. During the trial, Curtis described in graphic detail the day he murdered Theresa Sievers. As he was testifying, his former best friend Mark was no longer smiling, but now crying. I

kicked that stand. The dog dish went fly and water went everywhere. She jumped and started to turn towards me and um. When she started to turn towards you, what did you do? I had her hit her? Damn you hit Dr Shivers with the hammer? Yes? Where did you hit her in the head? The defense had a plan to counter Curtis's story. According to the defense, Curtis was gay and he was deeply in love with his best

friend Mark. He was jealous of Mark's perfect life with Teresa and couldn't handle it anymore, so he decided to kill Teresa. That way he could hopefully be with Mark. Despite the fact that Mark had attended Curtis's wedding and that's where the whole thing started. Mark's defense lawyer said that he could feel a chemistry between the two men. While the defense started to go in this direction, asking Curtis if he had ever had sex with Mark, the judge was not having any of it and shut down

the line of questioning pretty much immediately. This meant that the defense had just lost their biggest theory. When the prosecution and defense rested, the jury took just four hours to deliberate and sure enough, Mark was found guilty of first degree murder. Did hurry get this recommended death? Let's stop here for another break. At the end of the trial, Teresa's mother made a harrowing victims statement. The biggest loss fought upon her two daughters, whom Teresa loved with all

her heart. These two girls have been robbed of their remarkable mother, their home, their pets, their possessions, their family and friends. Teresa will not be able to love and guide them. She won't be there when they graduate high school, or when they need their mother to kiss away tears from their first heartbreak. She won't be able to impact

her wisdom and in life experiences. Her daughters will miss their mother on every birthday and every holiday, On their wedding day, and when they have children of their own, they will spend the rest of their lives hoping to hold on the memories of the mother they once knew and trying to forget the nightmare she endured the last days moments of her life. But my children have lost the mother they want SNeW because a big part of

me died with her. June fifteen, While the Jerry suggested Marc recy at the death sentence, there was one person who felt Marks should be spared, his now teenage daughter. She wrote a letter to the court saying that while she currently wanted no relationship with her father, that if in the future she changed her mind, sentencing him to death would ensure she would never have the opportunity. Mark

also made a statement to the court. Here's a partial recording of that although a jury found me guilty, I am innocent of all charges, as I maintained since his Haina's crime took place. I love my wife, Teresa and her two daughters, Josie and Karmy, with all my heart. Our girls have tragically lost their mommy, and now they're about to lose her daddy as well. Therefore, I respectfully asked the court for life is not to compound their loss and suffering. I am grateful, however, that the court

can only determine my fate on earth. Well, my soul is in God's hands, and God knows the truth. Although I cannot feel remorse for something I had absolutely nothing to do with, I am deeply saddened and forever heartbroken, to say the very least, the Teresa was taken from us. Teresa is my soul neat I will miss her and chears her memories until we are reunited in heaven. Until then, I will fight the s wrongful conviction until I improve

an innocent and set free to rejoin my family. When it came time to decide Mark's faith, the judge hands at him the death sentence. Mark Seevers is currently the only person on Florida's death row who didn't physically kill anyone. In January, he requested a new trial shameless plug. If you're enjoying Crazy and Love, leave us a review and listen to season three of our hit series The Piked

and Massacre. New episodes there every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts, and don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studio us. Crazy in Love is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Graves, and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design by Jeff Ba. Crazy in Love is a production of I Heart Radio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

your favorite shows. Stay safe, lovers,