Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - BOMBSHELL in Dr. Teresa Sievers murder. Gorgeous mom/doctor still wearing stilettos found bludgeoned dead on kitchen floor.

Episode Date: December 10, 2019

Dr. Teresa Sievers is bludgeoned to death by an intruder wielding a hammer inside her Bonita Springs, Florida, home. Who planned the attack, going as far as recruiting a childhood friend and a jailhouse thug?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 for the State Of Florida Amanda Hall: Reporter for WINK TV, Ft Myers, Florida Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. A beautiful young mom, gorgeous and brilliant, a medical doctor who specifically treated hundreds of women throughout the Bonita Springs, Florida area, much beloved. She takes her family on a vacation up to Connecticut to visit with her extended relatives, her husband, her two little girls. Mommy comes home early on a Sunday night, leaving family behind in Connecticut so she can go to work the next morning and see her patients. But it didn't work out that way. Gorgeous mom, Dr.

Teresa Seavers, found brutally bludgeoned. Still wearing her outfit, her high heel shoes she wore home from the airport that Sunday night. Her kitchen covered in blood. In the last hours, a stunning development in the case of the murder of Dr. Teresa Seavers. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. 911, what is your emergency? I'm at a friend's house.

He's out of town, and I came here to check on his wife, and she's dead on the floor. Okay. The address is... Okay, stay on the line. Sir, hold on. Stay on the line. Yes. Okay.

You're doing very well. Good job. Just a moment. We're going to connect you. We're going to ask for the address. Hey, Melissa, I'm sorry. What is the address of the emergency? 210-34 Jarvis. Jarvis Road? Okay. And is that a house or an apartment, sir?

It's a house. Tell me exactly what happened. My friend, Teresa Sebers, she's a doctor. I'm a doctor. She came home last night. Her husband is in Connecticut, and she was supposed to go to work at 9 o'clock. They called me, and I was on my way into work, so I swung by, and she's dead on the floor. And there's a hammer at the side, and she's bashed in the back of the head you are hearing the 9-1-1 call from a co-worker dr patrides 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 Dr. Teresa Seavers, a tiny woman about 4'11 or 5 feet tall, she was still wearing the shoes, I call them stilettos, really high heels she'd wore because 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 her husband and two little girls.

That told me a lot about the timeline. Seemingly, she still had on her clothes. She hadn't gone back to her bedroom to take a bath or put on PJs. She was ambushed right as she came home from the airport. Was someone following her. Did someone know her flight plan or was it just a burglary gone wrong? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.

Thank you for being with us. We have been on a verdict watch. But first, let's start at the very beginning. Take a listen to more of that 911 call. Okay. All right. So how old is Teresa? She's 50. 47 is. All right, sir. And is she awake? No, she's dead. She's cold. We'll put back what we have to cast in, and there's blood everywhere. Okay. All right. So I do have paramedics, fire department, also law enforcement is on the line with us.

Okay, they're going to be going out, okay? Okay, okay. I want law enforcement is on the line with us. Okay, they're going to be going out, okay? Okay, okay. I want you to stay on the line one moment. Yeah, I'm going to stay here until I get here because, you know, I don't know if anybody's still in the house. Okay, all right. Was, right. All right, just stay on the line, okay? The sheriff's office has questions, and they're going to talk to you on what to do next.

Okay, sir, are you inside the residence, then? No, I'm not. I'm standing in the driveway. Okay. And then when you walked inside the house, you said the blood was dry or what did you say? Yeah, half the blood is dry, half is wet. She's cold. She's dead cold. You know, I can't help but analyze that 911 call and this co-worker, Dr. Petritti, seems very, very calm. I want to go to Dr. Tim Gallagher right off the top, the medical examiner for the entire state of Florida. Dr. Gallagher, I mean, I know a lot of your patients don't complain too much that you're the medical examiner, but is that part of the training of a doctor or could I read anything into his calm demeanor? I mean, if I found somebody dead on the kitchen floor, bludgeoned dead, which is is a whole other can of worms, the mode of death.

He seemed pretty calm, Dr. Gallagher. Well, you know, doctors are human too, and everyone has their own reaction to these types of things. But in our medical training, you know, we are trained to remain calm under stressful situations because people look to us as a leader-type individual in these situations, especially if there's a medical condition involved. And then we have to project an air of confidence and then direct the rescue personnel to resolve themselves. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst joining us from L.A.,

you can find her at drbethanymarshall.com. Dr. Bethany, I was the same way in court. No matter what happened, at least in front of a jury, I would stay extremely calm, even once when a prisoner lunged 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 911 call, Dr. Bethany? Well, Nancy, let me tell you a little story. When I was doing your HLN show, I had a patient who tried to kill herself. She overdosed on benzodiazepines. She called me up. She into like a sort of a coma-like state.

I called 911 and my biggest fear was that the 911 call was going to be played on the evening news. So I was very formal in how I reported it. I said, this is Dr. Bethany Marshall. This is my license number. This is where I got this call. This is the woman's address. Here's her diagnosis. Here's the benzodiazepines, the number of pills she took on down the road, because I

knew that that was a very formalized report, that this could be played in court. This could be played on the evening news, as I just said. So this is a doctor who walks into a crime scene. The woman's back of her head is bashed in. She's still wearing her stiletto shoes. He is the first one on the scene. So yes, Dr. Kim Gallagher is correct. You have to be authoritative. You have to be calm in the midst of the storm. But there's also this anxiety about how you are going to come across as you report the incident. You are the first responder. You're the person who's going to be questioned.

So how you make that verbal report is extremely important. With me, an all-star panel today to break it down, put it back together again. Of course, in addition to Dr. Tim Gallagher, Dr. Bethany Marshall. With me, judge and trial lawyer, anchor, Court TV, Ashley Wilcott. You can find her at ashleywilcott.com. James Shelnut, 27 years, Atlanta Metro Major, K-SWAT officer, now lawyer. But right now, to Amanda Hall, special guest joining us, investigative reporter from WINK-TV, Fort Myers, Florida, who has been on the story since the get-go.

At the beginning, Amanda, let's just take what we know. Tell me about the crime scene. For those of you just joining us, a stunning development in the case of a murdered mom and doctor, Dr. Teresa Seavers. Remind those listeners that don't already know Amanda Hall, when cops came in, what did they find at the scene? Nancy, when police came in in June of 2015, they came inside the Seavers' home and they found blood in the kitchen and they found Teresa Seavers bludgeoned to death with the claw end of a hammer. Blood. Amanda, Amanda, Amanda.

Amanda Hall, joining me, WIENK. 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. Okay, we're not talking about that kind of blood, Nancy. What do you mean by blood? Just a tiny drop? Tell me the whole thing, Amanda.

Nancy, there was so much blood in there. You know, when we have interviewed investigators and detectives who were initially on this case, some of them had never seen anything like it. The amount of blood was stunning. When you look at the report, 17 crescent-shaped cuts 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. What else did they find, Amanda? 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 cache of guns that were untouched.

So for it to be staged to look like someone broke and entered, they didn't take anything. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Okay, and there's a hammer sitting next to her and you had left it. Did you touch anything? No, I did not touch anything. I touched her. I shook her a little bit. Okay.

All right, one moment. You're doing really well. So the last time you had seen her is what time? Probably two or three weeks ago. Two or three weeks ago. Okay. And you said she returned today? I don't know when she came back, but she was supposed to go back. She was supposed to go to work today at nine o'clock, and her husband called me from Connecticut to say she didn't show up at work, and she's not answering her phone. And he checked her. He tried calling, tried calling. He was going to call her mom. And he said, she's swinging by. Can you swing by?

And I knocked on the front door, and nobody answered. The lights were on. I could see her purse was on the countertop, and she didn't answer. I pounded and pounded, and he gave me the key code to get into the garage door. I opened the garage door, and the door leading into it was open. And I walked in. I just opened up the door. I walked in the door, and she was there on the floor. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Nancy Graves. That is the 911 call of a co-worker, Dr. Petridis, who shows up when this gorgeous young mom of two little girls, Dr. Teresa Seavers, very well known in the Bonita Springs area, practiced mostly with women

and had a very holistic method toward medicine, very inclusive to the whole community, never turned a person away, Tiny, diminutive woman. I think she was about 4'11". 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 dead. She had just flown in from Connecticut. Her husband and children still in Connecticut.

Normally, you look at the husband first. Husband, lover, boyfriend, ex. He's in Connecticut with the children on a vacation with her family. It was only when she didn't show up to work that morning that co-workers became concerned and went to her home. Again, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.

And you know, Ashley Wilcott, judge and trial lawyer, Anchor Court TV, ashleywilcott.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, carefree. 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. He'll eat whatever I fix. He'll wear whatever I lay out.

He doesn't care if his hair is combed. Nothing. He's just perfect. Girls are a whole other ballgame. And you need your mother. You need a loving guiding hand somebody that can say stand up don't walk like a field hand and they don't get hurt you're loving them you're helping them through all life's curveballs these two little girls are with dad at a connecticut vacation with

extended family their mom is gone. I mean, how do you break something like that to two little girls, Ashley? Yeah, I, you know, I don't know, Nancy, you can't even imagine because depending on the age, they don't even necessarily understand what that means. And so every day they're going to still look for their mom and wonder where their mom is and try to grasp what it means that she's literally gone forever. But the other thing that bothers me is, of course, it happens that one spouse is somewhere with the kids and the other spouse has to travel back to work. But this to me was the beginning of the story to say he's in Connecticut with the kids. She's here at home and happens to then get killed the first night. Does this mean anything

or not? Take a listen to the questions the 911 operator poses to Dr. Petrides. Okay, and so you were there because they asked you to take care of the house, is that correct? Mark, her husband, called me to say, please, can you check on her? Because I'm not like her not to show up to work any late. Okay, so, and I know you told me before, but after he called to check on his wife because she wasn't at work. Correct. All right. I only talked to him once.

Okay. He gave me the code number. He sounded a little, you know, whatever. And he received a call from work saying she wasn't there? I don't know. Okay, that's fine. You know, he's her office manager. Oh, she's the office manager of his business? No, he's the office manager of her medical practice. Okay, right there, we're getting a lot of clarification. Did you hear that? To Amanda Hall, our special guest joining us from WINK-WINK-TV Fort Myers. This is in her backyard. So this is a common misconception.

The 911 operator is trying to figure out how this calm cool collected co-worker a male co-worker happens to show up at the home to find a dead body 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 dr 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 911 call operators say oh she's his office manager and he says no amanda hall tell me what's your understanding is how did dr petridis end up on the scene to find a dead body? Because I always look at who finds the body and who calls 911 because that tells me a lot circumstantially. Yes, it does, Nancy. 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 when Monday morning rolled around and she wasn't there, the staff called Mark, who ran the office, and said, hey, we haven't heard from Dr. Seavers. She's not here. I want you to take a listen to what our friends at ABC News says. In Florida, a prominent doctor who appeared on local television found dead in her home after failing to show up at her office. ABC's Rena Ninen is here with more on the story.

Good morning, Rena. Hey, Amy, good morning. This murder mystery has rocked the South Florida community, and right now law enforcement asking everyone to do one particular thing. Lock your doors. This morning, police in Bonita Springs, Florida, searching for clues after Dr. Teresa Seavers, a local doctor and mother of two, was found dead in her home. Please don't tell me it's that house.

Please don't tell me it's that house. Please don't tell me it's that house. He said it is. After a family vacation last week, Seavers returned 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. You are 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 cache of guns there as well. Amanda Hall, I've never known there to have been alleged any type of sex attack. Is that correct? Correct. So she's bludgeoned dead in the kitchen.

And it's my understanding her pocketbook was there too, right, Amanda? Right. She came home, pulled into the garage, and went from the garage into the house. And that's where she was attacked. You know, my first thought that when this happened was the burglar alarm, James Shelnut. And James, 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. That night, that day, I heard about Dr. Teresa Seavers 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 $99 it covers your whole house and why wouldn't they have a burglar alarm for $99. It covers your whole house. And why wouldn't they have a burglar alarm? Then I found out, James, they did have a burglar alarm. And that was a brain twister for me, James. Yeah, absolutely. And so from everything I've researched, it indicates that Mark Seavers 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. Huh. Well, okay, interesting on that because I have pets too, a cat and a dog and two guinea pigs. God help me if they get loose. But there are ways to set your alarm where the people and animals can wander around and go in and out doggy doors and cat doors without setting off the alarm. Absolutely.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. This is not new age. This is actually ancient years of wisdom of healing from Eastern medicine. Known for a practice focusing on integrated health, using a mix of Eastern and Western medicine, Severs was a passionate advocate for holistic health care and a popular fixture in her community. I remember the first time that I went to see her. She spent more than an hour with me. Seavers was a popular fixture in her community.

She had the quality like a Mother Teresa. She cared, and she had nothing more than love. If she had nothing else to offer, it would be her care and her love for the patient. Thinking about Dr. Teresa Seavers, 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 Rena Neenan. But I want you to take a listen to something very odd that happened at the funeral. Eight days after Dr. Teresa Seavers was murdered friends and family came together for her funeral almost all her patients were there I was numb as we

were going down to try to get to the casket we were seeing her sisters on one side and the look that we were getting wasn't a look of sadness it was look of hatred Frank Hayes and his wife Sandra say the look didn't just come from dr. Seaver sisters they were getting the same look from the grieving widower I hugged him out 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 grinned. And it wasn't nothing of sorrow or sadness.

The look was hatred. I stepped back. I said, holy crap. Strange? Well, perhaps. But Dr. Teresa Seaver's killer hadn't yet been arrested. You are hearing our friend, I know you recognize that voice, Erin Moriarty at CBS 48 Hours, a look of hate at the funeral. And bethany marshall psychologist joining me out of la dr bethany it's not that looking back he concocted this at the time he said he recoiled and was shocked at the look 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 um after a death that's unsolved you start looking at the crime scene then at the funeral nancy can you imagine going to a funeral

theresa severs is dead 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 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. Well,

she's out there seeing patients. I mean, on the face of it, nothing wrong with that, but he's sending her out to work while he's doing the easy work behind the desk. I mean, all along this whole story, this husband has never acted like a husband. 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. Let me go to Amanda Hall, special guest joining us from WINK-TV, Fort Myers, Florida. Amanda, what do we know about the husband? And yes, I know he was in Connecticut at the time. For all of you just joining us a major development in the murder of Dr. Teresa Seavers. What do we know about Mark Seavers? Where is he from? What's his deal? Well we know that the two met while he was a nurse and

she was a new doctor practicing in St. Petersburg, Florida. We know that they married very quickly, had their first daughter shortly after they were married on the beach. They had two girls, 11 and eight years old at the time, and he became the office manager of her practice, propping her up to do what she did best, and that was treating people with a blend of traditional medicine and holistic medicine. And he was really more of the caregiver for the two girls. Neighbors said that they always saw him outside playing with them and attending to the two daughters. Where did you tell me he's from, Amanda, to start with?

Mark Seavers grew up in a little small town in Missouri. Hmm. Okay. I want to go to Dr. Tim Gallagher, medical examiner for the state of Florida. Dr. Gallagher, I want you to describe, if you could, the wounds to Dr. Seaver's body. And again, there was no sex attack and no theft or burglary from her person or the home. So her wounds were concentrated mostly on the back of her head. So they were the crescent-shaped impressions that a hammer would make when they strike soft flesh. So she had lacerations to the back of her head. It was extensive bleeding. There was physical brain damage done. The shards of the broken skull had penetrated into her brain, and there was massive bleeding.

What did you just say about shards of the skull? 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 the blood vessels that supply blood to the brain. this massive attack on this tiny woman. And Amanda Hall, reporter at WINK-TV in Fort Myers. Amanda, most of the blows were to the back of the head. Did she ever even get a chance to fight back? No, Nancy, she didn't. You know, she rolled her suitcase into an attack, an ambush. So her suitcase was still sitting there? 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 her clothes or do anything. This is telling me so much about the attack. James Shelnut, 27 years, Atlanta Metro, major case, SWAT officer, now lawyer. James Shelnut, somebody, I mean, it's no coincidence that somebody is right there in the kitchen as she walks in from the garage, parks her car in the garage, gets her suitcase out of the car, 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, not her cell phone, nothing. All that money they had hidden in various spots, the guns that the husband kept, nothing taken.

No sex attack, but someone is lurking right there. She can't even get past the kitchen. They're waiting for her to come through that garage door. Yeah, all of this adds up to the fact that you need to start looking at someone who is closely connected to this victim. This is not something random. There's too many coincidences. The coincidence about the husband 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, which is at the circle of people closest to the victim, and that often starts with a spouse or ex-wife. You're not kidding. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. They bought, among other things, trash bags, flushable wet wipes, black towels, black shoes, and a lock picking kit. They paid cash for their purchase with a $100 bill. After shopping at Walmart, Jimmy and Wayne continued using the navigation system to find the beach. After soaking in some sun at the beach, according to police affidavits, Wayne and Jimmy returned to the Seavers' home, where they hung out for hours in the garage, lying in wait for

an unsuspecting Dr. Seavers to arrive. Who in the hay are these two? You're hearing CBS Erin Moriarty describing two guys, Curtis Wainwright and Jimmy Ray Rogers. Coincidentally, Curtis Wainwright, longtime friend of Dr. Seavers' husband, Mark. Not only that, if you look at the two of them side to side, and you can see them at CrimeOnline.com,

they look like twin brothers. They'd often joke that they're brothers from another mother. They look 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 Seaver's home? A real red flag is then raised. Listen to Erin Moriarty.

When investigators uncovered five life insurance policies for Teresa, totaling more than $4 million, 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. Investigators wondered if that's where Mark hatched a plan with the two men. Taylor Shoemaker, Jimmy's girlfriend, claimed this was a murder for hire and that Jimmy was supposed to be paid $10,000

He said that more Hired Wayne. Yes No, anything about Jimmy being hired. What's the money supposed to come from? Insurance from her death. Okay, and did he already have aid? No. Detectives still didn't have the proof they needed to connect Mark to his wife Teresa's murder. And then, almost eight months after Teresa Seavers was killed, Wayne Wright, facing a possible death sentence, suddenly turned on his brother from another mother, and he took a deal. Mr. Wright, why are you pleading guilty today

to second-degree murder? Wayne admitted killing Teresa. I'm pleading guilty because of my role in the planning and participating of the murders of Teresa Seavers. And he accused Mark Seavers of being the mastermind. That's all police needed. Mark, did you hire Wayne Wright to kill your wife? Mark Seavers was charged with the murder of his wife.

Did you hire anyone to kill your wife? You are hearing our friend Erin Moriarty straight out to Amanda Hall, reporter WINK-TV, Fort Myers. How did these three hook up? Tell me the whole thing, Amanda Hall. 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, Wainwright is getting married, and Mark Seavers is his best man. And they started planning this while he was there for the wedding. Mark is saying that his wife is going to leave him, and he's worried that he can't pay to battle her for custody of their two daughters and that his only option is for Teresa to die. And so he hires Wayne to do the job. Says he'll pay him $100,000 from the insurance money. And then Wayne brings in Jimmy the Rogers Hammer, a man that he met while they were both serving time in prison for other crimes. So Mark hires Wayne, and Wayne brings in the Hammer.

Okay, now that's a heck of a nickname. You know, I've got to go to shrink on that. Dr. Bethany Marshall, the Hammer. Well, it's interesting he called himself the Hammer because that's what he used to bludgeon the victim to death. And he did it quite aggressively, quite maliciously. And, Nancy, this was overkill. When Dr. Gallagher was talking about shards of the skull in the brain, I realized they could have hit her once and killed her. They hit her multiple times. So Jimmy the Hammer has this fetishized interest in using

a hammer on a woman. Imagine what you want from that. But this is an extremely aggressive man. Amanda, to backtrack, how many times is she bludgeoned with the hammer? Dozens. At least 17. We know from the autopsy report that there were 17 crescent-shaped wounds to the back of her head. To Dr. Tim Gallagher, the medical examiner for the state of Florida, is that right, 17? I thought there were 18. Well, sometimes it's difficult to say exactly how many there are when the number is so high. A lot of them are intersecting, and a lot of them obscure the one underneath it. So 17 is probably a very conservative number that they could definitively say,

but often it's quite more than that. I'm just so repelled at this. 17, at least. 17 blows to the back of her head with what I understand is a claw hammer on this tiny, tiny little lady. To Ashley Wilcott, judge and trial lawyer, Anchor Court TV. Ashley, did you hear what Amanda Hall said? That according to these two co-defendants, of course, who knows if they're telling the truth,

they're shifting all the blame to somebody else and off themselves. Look at him, not at me. They say that at one of their weddings, he basically said, we're going to split. We're going to battle for custody. I have to kill her. Why not just have joint custody, Ashley? Isn't that a great question that we continue to entertain on this show because they're defendant after defendant chooses to kill someone instead of getting a divorce or having joint custody. You know, who knows why you can can't answer the why. You can only look at what does the evidence show and going after the person that the evidence showed did such a

terrible thing. You know, just thinking through all of the evidence to Amanda Hall, reporter WINK-TV as a former prosecutor, you have to assess the witnesses and see they're false. And here, these two, Curtis Wayne Wright, the childhood friend of the husband, Mark Seavers, all the way through high school together is an identical twin to Seavers, and Jimmy Ray Rogers, nicknamed the Hammer, just 29 years old, they're POCs, pieces of crap. Okay, technical legal term. So why should I believe them? What can you tell me about these two? Wayne Wright and Jimmy Rogers are both 1,100 miles away from Bonita 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 Rogers is rumored to have been a hitman before. 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. So 51 year old Curtis Wayne Wright went to school all the way through with Mark Seavers, childhood friends in Missouri. And Seavers moves to Florida meets Teresa they marry then when Mark

Seavers decides he needs a murder done and he needs a hitman Curtis Wayne Wright contacts Jimmy Ray Rogers who he met in jail 29 year old Rogers Hammer. Now, it would be so easy for these two to blame Mark Seavers, to take the heat off of them, but then enter another witness. Less than an hour later, in the early morning hours of Monday, June 29th, the GPS shows Jimmy and Wayne on the highway headed northbound for the 17-hour drive back to missouri 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

which means you're in a story told truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth correct Jimmy's girlfriend, Taylor. What a story she had to tell. Jimmy Ray Rogers took his girlfriend, Taylor, for a ride right along Route 47 in rural Missouri. And along this road, he asked her to throw out parts of his cell phone, which he had met in a jumpsuit. He said, throw this in the river, and it took me a minute to click in.

And then I threw the gloves out, and then I waited a minute, and then I threw out the jumpsuit. Did you ask why, or you just did it? No, I just did it. I was scared. Okay. Taylor told police that's when she pushed Jimmy to tell her exactly what happened in Florida.

Wow, what a couple of demons. You know, if the killer is the devil, these two are his minions. Now, we know that Curtis Wayne Wright, the childhood friend, pleads guilty to second-degree murder. Then Rogers, so-called the Hammer, goes to trial and is convicted of second-degree murder. But in the last hours, a major development in the case against Mark Seavers. Take a listen.

In the circuit court of the 20th Judicial Circuit, in and for Lee County, Florida, criminal action. State of Florida v. Mark D. Seavers. Case number 15 CF673B. Verdict. We the jury find as follows as to the defendant in this has been found guilty in the murder of his wife, Dr. Teresa Seavers. Her mother has the two little girls now. What's next, Amanda Hall? Now we move into sentencing. We move into the penalty phase. So Mark Seavers' defense team will fight to spare his life, and prosecutors will go for the death penalty. And that begins

today. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.