Zordon Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences, listener discretion is advised.

He actually turned around and ran back and and he was laughing about the use the cloth part of the hammer.

This is season eight of certain scale, episode 183, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. Often wonder what the perfect crime would look like, because there really isn't such a thing, it's like a unicorn, like a magical unicorn that only exists in your imagination.

I wonder what kind of people actually think they can get away with murder. Let's face it, they can't be that bright. Teresa Sievers sister recalls the weekend of June, twenty sixth, twenty fifteen, it began in celebration of their mother's birthday and abruptly ended as the last weekend the family would ever spend together. We enjoyed the weather the first day. It was beautiful. And we swam in the pool and we relaxed in the sun. My sister was doing yoga.

She prepared a beautiful dinner, started to cook for the weekend, and we just enjoy each other's company and had wine and laughed and played a lot of Scrabble because it rained the next day. So we just played a lot of Scrabble play piano because much to the delight, there was a piano there and my sister and I played and we hadn't played in years. So there was a lot of that, that these gatherings that was once a tradition to take a family photo together.

And so all the siblings, significant others and grandchildren huddled around each other, smiling, not knowing this family ritual would soon and forever be too painful to recreate. As the family reunion came to a close that Sunday evening, Teresa Sievers, her husband Mark, and her two daughters drove south to LaGuardia Airport, where Teresa would be dropped off for her flight back home. Teresa Sievers was, in fact, Dr. Teresa Sievers with a busy practice and patients to see.

First thing Monday morning, Mark and their two daughters would stay behind, driving back up north to Connecticut, reuniting with Teresa's mother and extending their vacation for the next several days. Teresa returned home just after 11 p.m. that Sunday night. And after parking the minivan in the garage and placing her luggage near the front bumper, Teresa walked through the laundry room and into the kitchen, where she would set her purse on the counter, undoubtedly feeling that same sense of comfort we all feel when we're finally back home after a long day of travel.

But hardly a moment had passed when an extremely loud crashing sound rang out like a gong being hit directly behind her, echoing going off the kitchen walls and startling Teresa with the terrifying notion that someone else was in her home. She turned around. The large man was already through the laundry room and standing in the kitchen doorway, wielding a hammer and striking her in the head. With three swift strokes still in shock, she spun and fell against the kitchen counter, holding her arms in self-defense.

But her frantic attempts to stay alive were useless as the footsteps of a second shadowy figure suddenly charged towards her, striking again with a hammer, only this time with decisively more force. Blow after blow after blow, Teresa was ultimately knocked to the floor, where the horrible hammering overwhelmed her senses until, mercifully, there was nothing left to feel. In her final moments, Teresa uttered the question that would haunt her family and friends for years. Why, when Teresa didn't show up for her nine a.m. appointment on Monday morning, concerned co-worker called out to her cell but never heard back.

Not knowing what else to do, she called and texted Theresa's husband, Mark. Mark hadn't heard from Teresa either, and still being out of state with his two daughters and Teresa's mother. The next course of action was to call a family friend.

Hey, Mark, my called yesterday. My second you know, I'm calling you today to see if you get your country. So it's I know it's early in the morning and you're probably at work, and that's OK out of here. And the office is calling a taxi and we can't continue to do so. So I just wanted to ask you at if you could possibly swing by the house because code is one three one three a.m. local time. It's great.

The Liberal government never come over American country. So maybe just honestly, this is not like you are going to be very poor and uninsured for this kind of normal for me, but for. All right, I'm rambling.

I thought you, like the family friend was returning from the post office when he saw Mark's voice mail, when he reached the Sievers home. A knock on the. All went unanswered. The lights were on and he could see her purse on the counter, so he continued to pound on the door to no avail. He then used the garage code and was surprised to see one of the Sèvres dogs bounding out of the house, indicating that the door from the laundry room to the garage was left open.

Stepping inside the house, he called out for Theresa, but within moments he understood why she wasn't responding. Nine one one.

What is your emergency? I'm at a friend's house. He's out of town. And I came here because I was like, this is dead on the floor. The address is on the line. In a moment, we're going to we're going to ask for the address, the fire. What is the address of the emergency coming back and what happened? My friend, she's a doctor. I'm a doctor. She came home last night. Her husband is in Connecticut and she was at 9:00.

She called me and I was on my way to work one day and she's there on the floor and there's a hammer at the side and she's based in the back of the head. And I'm looking for you on the way. And I interrupted. You said you're a doctor. Yes, I am. How are you with her? I'm outside of the house. I don't know if there's anybody in the house. OK, saw how old she is, 47 as well as her.

And if you want to sit down for those bastin in this line of work, stay on the line up.

The sheriff's office has questions and they're going to continue on what to do next. OK, sir, are you inside the residence then? No, I'm not. I'm standing in the driveway. OK. And then when you walk inside the house, you said the blood was dry. What did you say? That half the blood is dry happens. What she's called to that call the hammer sitting next to her. And you had left it. Don't touch anything.

No, I did not touch anything. I touched her. I shook her a little bit. And you didn't see anything else. I mean, other than I didn't I didn't go in. I mean, I'm afraid somebody's going to help. And somebody killed or I mean, it's a murder, right? It's there. There's she deaths in the back of the head. OK, you know, I. I can't see her falling or anything like that.

I, I just looked and I thought, oh my God, she's like this for ten days.

All hands were on deck. Crime scene analysts took hundreds of photos. Every room in the house was dusted and swabbed for DNA and every neighbor was questioned about what they may have heard or seen on the night of Sunday, June 28th, authorities even conducted a line search. Thirty people wide looking up and down the streets for any items that might serve as a clue. But no tangible leads were ever obtained, even the bloody Harry Hammer itself only had the DNA of Dr.

Teresa Sievers. Clearly this had been a brutal murder.

But why? And over what if this was a robbery? Why hadn't they taken the nearly fifty thousand dollars in cash stowed in the house?

All the expensive electronics were still in place. And even though the Seavers had guns and samurai swords in the house, those were untouched as well. Detectives began interviewing family members and also got permission from Theresa's husband, Mark, to have his cell phone analyzed in the hopes of finding some sort of connection, a clue. But all they found was shock and grief. These are excerpts from a law enforcement interview with Teresa's mother, who explains the moment her entire world was shattered, towns across on the cell phone.

I guess about nine thirty Monday morning and says, my doctor hasn't come in yet. That's not like her. You think maybe she overslept?

Not likely. He says, you know, she might be running a few minutes late, but, you know, she was always on time to get to work. So now he's trying to get a hold of her. I'm trying to get a hold of her texting her this morning. We're not getting any answers. And he's already in tears. You know what had happened? He's already in tears thinking the worst. And I'm saying, Mark, you know, you got to be calm and collected.

We got to see that. It's got to be a rational reason for this.

You know, she explains to the detective the same chain of events of reaching out to a family friend to check on Theresa and the devastating moment that friend called them back.

That's what he called Mark and said, Mark, you've got to come home now fast. And I guess he just told her that she was dead. And then we both were up in the yard screaming, crying. And I said, you can't tell the kids now.

The horrible news was left.

For once, the family returned from what began as a wonderful vacation until the kids chose to scream or who. Currently, she's a tough cookie. I mean, she was sobbing so hard.

But, you know, maybe because she was a little bit younger, she didn't know how to express her feelings. She had to scream like Jose did. But now, Jose, she's so intuitive. She's like her mother, almost, you know, spirit wise man, not here with her body, but I know she's here in spirit. You can feel her energy. This is 11 year old. Unfortunately, Theresa's mother was unable to provide any additional information for investigators.

I hadn't seen any news reports. All I know that she's been interviewed or talked about throughout the country, people from different parts of country. So they saw her on national TV or heard about her on TV. And this was she was trying to do she wants you to reach masses of people that I always thought about. You know, you'll do it, Teresa.

I just know you'll do it to us.

But that's the way I want to talk to you. Is there anybody you suspect would have a clue, clue to. Somebody was envious of all the good that she was doing. I don't know, Dr. Teresa Sievers was described by her mother as a firecracker.

Teresa's sister added that she was loud, loving, compassionate, and that her husband, Mark, worshipped the ground she walked on. She was the breadwinner of the family, a board certified internal medicine physician who had traveled the world to address the importance of healing the body, the mind and the spirit. Teresa had even begun filming a television series called Pathways to Healing, where she would be the host.

I'm Dr. Teresa Sievers. And as I promised you, I was going to be bringing you different modalities of healing. I think it's so exciting for people to find new ways of preventative health. This is one of the largest problems with our health care system. We don't do preventative medicine. We do reactive medicine. And we wait until people are good and sick and then we start treating them. But just what if we actually stopped and looked at how to do preventative medicine?

What might our health care look like? Maybe we wouldn't be ranked 30 to in health in the world, maybe one of the higher countries.

On July 9th, almost two weeks after the mystery of Theresa's murder made national headlines, there was at long last a break in the case. While these brutal events had transpired in a city called Bonita Springs, Florida, two detectives made a trip over a thousand miles away to another city called Mount Vernon, Illinois. There they spoke with an acquaintance of the local police chief who stated she had overheard information about a man named Curtis Wainwright who had left for an unexplained trip to Bonita Springs to fix a computer at the house of his friend Mark Seavers.

And so the two detectives traveled again, this time two hours west, just outside St. Louis to the home of Curtis Wainwright in Hillsborough, Missouri or Missouri, as you guys like to say, further investigating revealed that Curtis had rented a car and left without a cell phone just a couple of days before Theresa's murder, returning home shortly after her death when police questioned him. He denied ever making the trip, but the 20 700 miles driven on the retrieved rental car told a different story, and it seemed he had not traveled alone.

When the cell phone records of Curtis Wainwright were analyzed, the name Jimmy Ray Rogers popped up around the same time frame of the murder, which was interesting but not damning. It wasn't until nearly a month later that the results from Curtis's portable GPS device had been retrieved, that a major connection was established. This portable GPS device, popularly known as a Garmin, not only traced all of the stops Curtis's rental car made over the course of that weekend in June.

But the device had also been linked to an e-mail account. Jimmie Ray Rogers 9D at Gmail dot com.

Everybody calls him all of his friends back home. And you had indicated to me that's because that's his weapon of choice where he has to do something.

Yes, you heard that right. Jimmy Ray Rogers was known to his friends as Jimmy the Hammer.

This nickname was proudly listed on the man's Facebook page, for Christ's sake, before it was deleted.

What you're hearing now is a law enforcement interview with his baby mama. Now his ex-girlfriend, Taylor Shoemaker. Detectives had originally questioned her and Jimmy the previous month when they were looking for Curtis Wainwright as a person of interest. But no one was willing to make a formal statement.

But immediately after the detectives left and throughout the course of the following month, Taylor had grown increasingly more confident that her boyfriend, Jimmy, had something to do with the murder everyone was talking about on TV.

So tell me about tell me about what happens after we leave was what starts out. We're always going to get the car. We're taking a ride home. I'm really scared.

And we went out to his work and around and he went in there entrenched just on the water and broke into pieces.

Where did you turn to the water? Like a puddle of cincher, a water fountain. So he drenches the phone and he took down there in water, in the water fountain, and then he crashed it into five pieces.

I didn't see him, OK?

He just told me that I stopped going. So what happens from there on?

The little terms gets out of the car. Me drives drive down the Highway Rismark. I'm not sure what it's called, I think. And that's why he answered the phone and tells me to get out of his OK.

And did you do that? Yeah. OK, if you ask why or you just did it and I just didn't ask to understand.

As they continued driving towards Taylor's mom's house, Jimmy handed her a rolled up towel that contained a dark blue jumpsuit and a box of industrial latex gloves and instructed her to throw the items at the window. And he had you.

Where you driving in the front seat? Yes, I was a really bad passenger. All right. Front passenger seat. And why did you pick that specific spot? Just throw it out of the road.

He told me to throw out there because there's no houses, OK? You don't want anybody to find everything. That is some of the stuff now.

So would you want me to throw it in the river? But my was a little late because I was tired. He has been there on my most recent days. I was out. Yeah.

So it took me looking what he said and I threw it out. OK, so did you throw the glove for sure. You do that.

Let's first look at it and then the jumps to clarify as they passed over a bridge and on the way to Taylor's mom's house, Jimmy instructed her to throw the jumpsuit and gloves out the window and into the river. But Taylor was distracted not only from how odd Jimmy was acting, but also because she had found out she. Pregnant with Jamie's child, by the time his instructions registered, they had already passed over the bridge, meaning when she threw the items out the window, they didn't land in the water, but instead just off the side of the road.

Still, would anyone pay attention to a dusty old jumpsuit crumpled on a lonely stretch of highway a night later, while lying in bed together at Taylor's mom's house? Taylor started reconsidering Jimmy's strange behavior since returning from his impromptu trip to Florida.

I thought I knew. I didn't actually know it was after I came him and I told him that I knew that he had something to do with it, OK? And and then he used to ask me questions like. And then he said, yeah, and then I said, my ex-wife, when they said, yeah, same when you said Marks, we talked about Teresa Sievers, the doctor that was killed.

Yes, OK. And I said, did you shoot her? And he said, no. And I said, then how how do you kill her? And he made his people chocolatiers and then said, was he said with a hammer. Yeah, OK.

Taylor stopped asking questions after that. And when detectives had contacted her again, she was terrified and asking for protection. In exchange, she was more than happy to take them to the exact locations where the crime scene items had been thrown out the window. Luckily for everyone, well, maybe not for Jimmy. They were still there. The jumpsuit had been there for weeks, exposed to the elements and even run over by a lawnmower. Still, the FBI trace evidence unit was able to recover a hair from the jumpsuit, which matched a hair plucked from Jimmy the Hammer and corroborated Taylor's story.

Added to this, a fiber from the blue jumpsuit matched a blue fiber that was found on Teresa Sievers body. Bingo.

Today, we're very, very pleased. Again, eight weeks and a few days later to announce the charges have been filed out of state against Jimmie Rodgers. Jimmie Rodgers will be charged in the death of Dr. Sievers. And I want to emphasize that this is very much, very much an ongoing and active investigation. The public, as we thought early on, was never in jeopardy. We recognized early on, as I said early on, that this was a we believe, the targeted set of circumstances and that remains the case.

So we're very pleased. I'm very, very proud again. It was a great team effort and one that I have not seen in my time here, both as sheriff or prior as a member of the sheriff's office for many years. And I've talked to many, many people. It's a big it's a really big deal. It's a big deal. And, you know, we've got a lot of work to do and we're going to get back to work right now.

Thank you, Jimmy. The Hammer was clearly no criminal mastermind. He was twenty five years old, raised by his brother after his schizophrenic mother committed suicide and before their father died, Jimmy was charged with a felony conviction after driving his dad's high performance TransAm. One hundred and fifty miles an hour and not stopping for police. Jimmy was supposed to join the military as his older brother had, but he just kept drinking and doing drugs instead. But looking at Jimmy, you wouldn't know he was a cold blooded killer.

He looks like your average burnout, pudgy with a bad haircut and dorky glasses. He's a boy, really, one who was forced to grow up too quickly. And this is the understatement of the year, made a lot of really bad decisions. But he wasn't the one who planned the murder of Dr. Teresa Sievers. He surely participated in it for sure. But prior to these events, you don't even know who she was. In truth, he was just a hired gun or a hired hammer in this case, the man who called him up, who knew Jimmy had been involved in people's deaths and would actually go through with this very terrible crime was the computer engineer we mentioned earlier, Curtis, Wayne Wright Curtis and Jimmy had been casual friends for a couple of years since the first meeting and prison, the kind of friend you have a couple drinks with or barbecue with or, you know, brag about hammering people with.

But Curtis Wainwright had another friend, the type of friend you confide your most troubling secrets to and the type of friend you'd do anything for. That friend. Was Mark Sèvres the out of town husband who supposedly worshipped the ground, his wife, Dr. Teresa Sievers, walked on but had been secretly planning what should have been the perfect crime. Conference tournaments are tipping off, bubble teams are making their final push, top seeds are preparing for what they hope is a long run drapkin sportsbook.

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The word doppelganger is really a combination of two German words, Dobel, which means double and ganger, which means Walker creepily enough together, the word has an almost mythical quality to it.

Twins, strangers, a ghostly double or an evil alter ego that may also be a personification of death, which in this particular case seems to really hit the nail on the head, Mark Sèvres and his high school friend Curtis Wainwright could very easily be mistaken for one another. With the exception of their heights, they seem to share identical features, same bald head, same goatee, same glasses. There's a wedding photo where Mark is helping Curtis with his tie and in their matching cornflower blue shirts.

You honestly have to do a double take before you realize it's not just a man in the mirror. Seriously, Google the phrase Mark Sèvres, Curtis Wainwright wedding and you'll see the picture I'm talking about. Don't worry, I'll wait. And three to one, I think you've probably had enough time there to Google that. See what I'm talking about?

Weird, right? These two men are not related, but the planning and execution of his heinous crime was carried out by two conspirators who shared a bond that was clearly stronger than family. It's like the old saying, if you want something done right, do it yourself or hire someone that looks exactly like you to do it for you. Before we return to the night of Dr. Teresa Sievers murder. We have to go back two months prior. We briefly mentioned that after Teresa was killed, her husband Mark agreed to have his cell phone analyzed.

And at that time, the investigators found nothing of note, although there was a text from Mark to Curtis Wainwright sent April 29, 2015, that read, quote, Hopefully we can talk privately tomorrow, not about you or Angie, but it's personal, end quote. Curtis Wainwright was about to get married and Mark Sèvres would be traveling to Missouri to be his best man or Missouri. I know you're going to email about that, so I'm just getting it out there anyway.

Well, this should have been a weekend to celebrate the love between Curtis and his fiancee, Angie, that was instead dedicated to conversations about the lack of love between Mark Sievers and his wife, Teresa.

Curtis Wainwright explains what happened next.

The night before the wedding, he stayed with us. We had a lot of people in from out of town, I should say, a lot. We had other couples from out of town. So our wedding was at noon in the park. So we thought it would be better if we got everybody together the day before we all hung out at a cookout. And then that night we had a combined bachelor bachelorette party where we all went out together to a karaoke bar.

The night before he came to Missouri, he sent me a text message telling me that he had something personal that he needed to talk to me about. It didn't say what it was, but he said that he'd hoped that we'd have some time to be able to talk privately.

It was a busy day. Of course, anyone who's been married before knows that the final twenty four hours leading up to a wedding can be a bit stressful, making sure everything is in place for the big celebration. But Mark was eager to get Curtis away from the crowd to talk about this important and private topic.

At some point during that day. That afternoon, he asked me if we could go somewhere and talk privately. So we went back to I went to my bedroom, closed the door, or that can happen. He told me that the increase that we're having, having problems, marital problems, he told me that she was having an affair and that they were having financial problems as well, considering bankruptcy. You know, at one point he brought up a hypothetical situation where if kids were going to be taken away and, you know, putting into some kind of danger that if I knew somebody that would be willing to help them, help them how we didn't get into specifics.

But my take on it at the time was maybe to have this guy run off, beat up, you know, something.

But Mark and Curtis were interrupted before the conversation could go any further. Again, this was the day before Curtis's wedding, and understandably, people were wondering where the groom to be had run off to. The next morning, the day of the wedding, Marc brought it up again privately while everyone was getting the tables and chairs set up at the park, Curtis and his bride had chosen for their festivities.

He brought the situation back up. This time he told me that Theresa was actually leaving him the night before. It was just that she was having an affair. And so at this point, it's getting a little more a little more involved. She said that she was actually that she was actually leaving him. She was taking the children and taking them out of state. He told me that that the kids were in danger if she took them, that he couldn't let that happen.

We talked about some different options as far as the marriage goes. I mentioned, you know, about fighting here legally for custody. You said that that wasn't that wasn't an option. He didn't have he wasn't financially in a place that he could be able to find her for that. Just a couple other different things. I think we talked about maybe counseling. I believe he said that they tried tried counseling and it didn't work the conversation.

Was interrupted again. It seemed there was suddenly a crisis at the wedding itself that needed immediate attention. The food at the wedding was provided by a family friend who owned a grocery and deli. And in the final hours before the ceremony, it became apparent that an entire case of meat had been left in the Walk-In freezer. It would be a roughly 40 minute trip to pick up the missing food, and Mark offered to drive Curtis'. Sensing this was a perfect opportunity to be alone.

He brought it up again, told me, you know, that she was leaving him, that he couldn't let her take the kids away from him. And again, that they were in danger, some kind of danger without him there to be able to protect them. He told me that the only option that he had was for her to die, and he said that he needed to have her killed. I mean, what kind of help was he asking for?

Was he asking you to do it yourself or or what what kind of help can you possibly ask his friend for?

Oh, I know it was pretty direct. He asked me to I could I would kill her or take care of it. I think ASAP was actually the term he used. So I didn't really see myself personally doing it. But part of what the way that it was asked was if I had, you know, I could make sure it got done. So it was a matter of. On the day of your wedding, May 2nd, 2015. Yes.

Curtis was caught off guard and didn't really know how to answer, saying the phrase, I'll see what I can do. That was all Mark needed to hear to start planning the next steps. Two days after the wedding, Marc returned home and purchased plane tickets for himself, his wife and their two daughters to travel to Connecticut to visit Theresa's mother for her birthday. And two days after that, he purchased a prepaid phone and instructed Curtis to do the same thing.

These burner phones are given an area code of your choosing, and they do not require you to list a name. Curtis hesitated for two weeks debating whether or not he was going to be involved, but ultimately deciding to ask his friend Jimmy the Hammer if he wanted to make a little money. I got my cell phone, my other phone, an anonymous call for the anonymous phone. We referred to him as our other phones just so that kind of keep it straight.

I got my other phone on May 17th and I got it right after I spoke to Jimmy. I went and talked to Jimmy in person and told him that, you know, there was a guy, you know, not specifics about who you are or anything, but made sure that it was something he wanted to get involved in. And he was he was on board.

So as Curtis explains, he and Mark referred to their burner phones as their other phones in order to protect the details of their conversation. The idea was that the burner phones would remain turned off unless they received a text with the code word other in it. Some texts are clever, like Hello Brother from another mother and others not so much. Check other. Each time one received a coded text, they knew they just had to turn their burner phone on and within minutes they received a call from the other to continue their secret plotting.

Mark didn't want anybody else to know if there was someone else involved. He didn't want to know who it was and didn't want that person to know who he was. I was in between person, so there was never any direct communication between the two of them.

Even though Mark and Jimmy the Hammer likely interacted at some point during Curtis's wedding, neither had any idea of the other's involvement.

It was up to Curtis, the middleman, to convey any information from one party to another and make sure the plan ran as smoothly as possible. So what exactly was the plan initially, Mark's idea was that it would happen at the office, at the medical office, that when when she got off work, because she generally she worked late and, you know, usually come out by herself, the office is off off the road quite a bit. So it's kind of a secluded area back there.

I thought that that would be an ideal place for a mugging to happen. She had to walk along the side of the building, up to the parking lot to get to her car. She had me pull up aerial photos like from Google Maps so that he could talk me through what he was talking about. He showed me where there's a there's a side entrance where a stairwell comes down. That's where she exited at. So he gave me the the code, the button code to that door so that I could either wait inside the stairwell or the other option was right outside of that door.

It was a blind spot where you had to walk past once you left that door. One of my concerns was with with the office location. His suggestion was to use a gun. And my concern was when I told him, he said that she leaves by herself most of the time. So when I when I told him my concern about whether or not she would if what would happen if she wasn't by herself, he told me that that there couldn't be any witnesses and there would have to be collateral damage.

And that killed the person that was with her. And I that wasn't that wasn't an option for me.

Bringing a gun across state lines was also not a good option for Curtis. He was a convicted felon, arrested three times in recent years, including a stint behind bars for, quote, running a meth lab, unquote.

Side note, Curtis allegedly told a friend that his female roommate at the time ratted him out and took five years of his life. He told the friend that he found her and, quote, took her life, unquote, and further reminisced about watching the life leave her eyes.

Have I mentioned this guy was a frickin computer technician and IT consultant? I'm never making an appointment at the Apple Genius Bar again.

Mark's idea was that if it was going to happen at the house, that, you know, he thought that making it look like she came home and interrupted a burglary in progress or something like that. So I think the weapon would be something that was at the house is how I looked at it.

So there was we didn't bring any weapons with us, armed with literally nothing other than a half baked idea to stage a robbery that would turn deadly. Curtis picked Jimmy the Hammer up in a rented white Hyundai Elantra on the morning of Saturday, June 27th. And the two set out from Missouri to Florida, arriving at six a.m. on Sunday, June the 28th. Curtis asked Jimmy not to bring his cell phone, but they were already on the road when he realized Jimmy hadn't listen to him.

Jimmy had also procured two navy blue coveralls from his place of work and had also brought industrial latex gloves along with duct tape so they could tape the cuffs of their arms and legs to prevent any evidence from being left behind. By day, Jimmy the Hammer worked at a lead disposal plant and was very well aware of how to avoid contamination, but during this entire road trip, they still didn't talk in any more detail about what exactly they would do once Teresa Sievers came home.

Sure, Margaret called the night before to make sure they had the garage code, but there were still a ton of variables, including the fact that Jimmy had never even seen the layout of the house. When they arrived at six a.m. in the morning, the neighborhood was quiet. They hadn't suited up yet, but they did wear gloves.

We were only there about five minutes, but yeah, so there was a little poking around in the house. The main reason we were there was to check out like the fence line and the doors.

Mark had explained to Curtis that there was a fence they could jump over and that he had trimmed the hedges in advance so no one would get scratched and leave DNA evidence behind.

But upon seeing the fence, it was clear that the area was just too exposed. Instead, they entered through the garage, initially kind of looked around in the garage.

Jimmy was kind of poking around and stuff, found a hammer in it and one of Mark's toolboxes and made a crude joke about it being traces. Destiny made a hammering. Curtis trails off here.

But if it's not clear, he says that upon entering the garage, Jimmy came face to face with his namesake, a hammer. It was destiny, he joked, and proceeded to make a hammering motion with a sinister grin.

Curtis knew that Mark's mom would be coming by at some point to feed the dogs while the Seavers were out of town. So they quickly finished their scouting mission and made sure the pets were familiar with them so they wouldn't be barking when they came back later that night and the rest of the afternoon. The final hours leading up to this vicious murder the guys did with anyone coming from Missouri to Florida would do check out the beaches.

Of course, initially we went down to the beach, down to Bonita Beach. And Mark, it showed me at one point that there's a small parking lots that you can park in for free. They hold maybe I think it's like six cars or something. They're probably private lots. But but there's beach access there and you don't have to park on the main beach and it's got trees. So it's shaded. I think we actually went down there and took a little nap, a couple hour nap while it was still early.

I had actually brought I like a little gym bag. We had a change of clothes and a towel, things in it. So I knew that we were going to end up spending time down at the beach because in a crowd of people, you know, stand out, Jimmy hadn't brought any clothes or anything to go to the beach with. So he wanted to go to Wal-Mart. So about ten thirty we decided we were going to go to Wal-Mart.

I think I did a search for it on the garment and found in the early part of what was bought at the Wal-Mart was, you know, give needed clothes. And I think he bought a T-shirt for Taylor but got some some towels, trash bags, wet wipes, you know, some of which were used during the murder. And then there was a small backpack, which actually I got that because I used backpacks as a tool. I mean, all of her computer stuff, cables, all that stuff.

And then we have kids that live in the house. They're always neednt backpacks or something. And then I also bought a pair of water shoes. They were on sale. Just an impulse buy.

Just an impulse buy. Hey, it was on sale. Can you blame them.

Lot of concentration put into beach attire, but still no specific plan for the horrific crime they'd be committing that night. By all accounts, it sounds like they were just going to try to wing it and hope for the best.

We should have been better prepared. We weren't we're not very good at it.

And now we reach the night of the crime. If the story hasn't already begun to remind you of the world's dumbest criminals, brace yourself.

Curtis and Jimmy return to the Sievers home around ten thirty pm. They entered through the garage door and then stepped into the side yard to begin suiting up and the navy blue coveralls Jimmy had stolen from work. Curtis also wore a hat as well as the water shoes he'd gotten on sale at Wal-Mart earlier that day. Curtis thought it would look more like a break in if he pried the side door open. Remember, the only quote unquote plan these guys agreed on was to make it look like Theresa had stumbled into a robbery in progress.

But when police ultimately saw the door was unlocked, the fractured doorframe was just confusing. I never looked for a weapon. I know that there were things in the house are CLECs guns? And they're probably in a safe. I never even looked for them. I don't think Jimmy did. So no, I mean, we really weren't looking for weapons. I assume that we were going to use like a knife or something that was there at the house.

But it wasn't, I guess, define the final plans. Hadn't formed yet. We still thought we still have a little more time to solidify that.

Rather than rely on a last minute improvised weapon, Curtis brazenly assumed his hands would do the talking. But if you can believe it, according to court records, Curtis commonly boasted that he was a ninja and knew how to disappear.

My intention was to have this may sound strange, but to to put it in a chokehold, which isn't choking somebody, but it cuts the blood off so the person passes out pretty quickly. I competed martial arts competition fighting. So, I mean, I had I was exposed to it then. You know, I practiced a lot with a lot of different people. So I had a lot of exposure to different kinds of martial arts stuff.

So Chuck Norris over here thought he would put Teresa in a chokehold and then after she was unconscious, he would stab her to death, move her or do whatever else they needed to do without her fighting or yelling. I didn't see it being such a violent situation. So, you know, I thought that we would have had plenty of time to do to make it look like a burglary or whatever after after the fact.

He thought they would have plenty of time. But paradoxically, he also couldn't remember what time Teresa's flight was getting in.

As I was thinking about things I did, I thought that it would be a good idea to probably be able to check that, to make sure the flight was on time or delayed or just to make sure. But Mark at one point had told me the flight information, but I didn't write it down and I couldn't remember. All I felt like I needed to know was the time she was going to be there. So it was an afterthought that I maybe it would be a good idea to check it, but I couldn't remember the information to check it.

I had sent an email to mark a fake email, a disguised email to try to ask him what what information, what flight they were coming in on or what airline. But I didn't get a response back in time.

What Curtis had remembered was the time eleven twenty five p.m. but therein lies the biggest mistake of them all.

Yeah, that was an unfortunate misunderstanding. I he built the twenty minute drive from the airport to the house into that time when he told me eleven twenty five. So I thought that's when she got to the airport because eleven, twenty five is kind of a specific number to pull out. It sounded more like an airline arrival time, but he told me that that's when she would be in. He meant that's when she would be home. I thought we still had at least twenty minutes.

In fact Teresa got home even before eleven, twenty five p.m.. Give Me The Hammer was milling about somewhere in the house and Curtis was so surprised he was literally standing in the middle of the garage admiring Mark's motorcycle when suddenly the overhead light popped on and the garage door started rolling open.

When the light came on, I. I drove because I didn't want the headlights to hit me. There was a seems like there was a pile of boxes or something, maybe right there with the motorcycle.

The boxes were blocking him from the headlights of the family minivan, but he was still totally exposed on the other side.

I stayed down. I couldn't I was kind of trapped. I couldn't really go anywhere at that point.

He couldn't see Teresa, but he could hear her getting out of the van, dragging her luggage around and leaving it at the base of the two little steps leading into the laundry room. I panicked where I was at. I was afraid that if she stopped when she opened the door and set her purse down and turned around to grab her bag, her luggage, she had been looking right at me. I panicked. I jumped up and I followed her into the house.

Curtis claims that in this moment he came across a hammer on the freezer, just sitting just to the right of the laundry room. This was a second hammer, not the one Jimmy had been joking about earlier that day.

It was it was just I don't know, it wasn't thought through. I just grabbed it. Even when I had it, I still intended to use my hands, but it was a back up.

Chris continued, creeping in behind Teresa, who was completely unaware that these would be her final moments, but in a scene straight out of a bad comedy. Curtis unexpectedly exposed himself in the most forehead's slapping me stupid moment of all time at that point that I caught up to her, she was right at the countertop.

But right before that, there's a dog dish. It's on a stand because the dogs are older dogs and so they don't have to bend over so far that their dog dish is actually on the stand and it's in that little hallway. And I've kicked it. I tripped over it. I'm not sure the right term, but I hit that thing with my foot, I think every time I've been over there. So I kicked that stand. The dog dish went fly and water went everywhere.

She jumped and started to turn towards me.

He wasn't close enough to put her in a chokehold, as he claimed was his original intention. Instead, he swung the hammer at her head.

She didn't seem to respond much. I thought that it would knock her out. I've never seen anybody with a hammer before, so I didn't know how hard it is. But I have I have medical problems with my shoulders and I don't have a lot of strength in my shoulder. So when I hit her, it was more elbow. But I didn't hit hard enough. She just continued to turn towards me. She was surprised. I, I actually think that she thought I was Mark.

She said why?

Curtis responded with two more hammer swings right after that third. The third time I swam, Jimmy came from my right side and just started started blasting her over and over and over.

As Teresa fell to the floor face down, Jimmy the Hammer continued his delirious rampage, smashing her in the face and head with his weapon of choice, devastating her skull so much that her brain started oozing out when he kept hitting her on the floor. I ask him what happened? I said, can we stop? You know, I said, enough and he wouldn't stop. So I actually went over there and put my hand on his shoulder just like, stop.

It was just too much. I mean, he she would have been dead no matter what happened, because that was the intentions we went down there and what we were hired to do and not like that man. You know, like I said, if it was up to me, she would have been unconscious before she was killed. Curtis dropped the hammer he was holding when he tried to get Jimmy to stop.

I thought that he was he stopped. I mean, at that point, I turned around, I walked. I was starting to leave the kitchen to go out. And he actually turned around and ran back and and he was laughing about the use the club part of the hammer.

Jimmy struck Teresa one last time, a sickening final fuck you for no good reason. It was now clear that the ruse of Teresa stumbling onto a home invasion would never pass and any plans to steal things from the house were completely out the window.

No, that made it impossible look like anything other than what it was. Even a walkden robbery wouldn't be that brutal. Curtis and Jimmy drove straight back to Missouri, stopping only for gas and at one point a truckers rest stop there. They cleaned out the car and split up to two separate dumpsters to deposit evidence, including the coverall jumpsuits they'd worn. Or at least that's what Curtis did.

You may recall that Jimmy the Hammer stupidly brought everything back home with him, asking his girlfriend to throw it out the window only after police had started to question him. Guys, a real, real winner. It wasn't long after Jimmy's arrest that a warrant was issued for Curtis Wainwright. Detectives took active measures to locate and arrest Curtis, and he was found speeding towards the north county line of Hillsborough when a traffic stop was conducted and he was taken into custody without incident.

Curtis, who had previously denied all involvement, was shown the incriminating other phone texts suggesting he and Mark Sievers were secretly communicating. And detectives explained that if his friend Mark had intentionally involved him in a crime, that was the time to explain the situation. Taking one murderer's word over another is one thing, but proving it is an entirely different challenge. And by the time the third coconspirator and ultimate mastermind, Mark Sievers was arrested, eight months had passed from the night of Theresa's murder.

But finally, the answer to Theresa's question that night. Why? Would at long last be answered. In the early days of the investigation, before any suspects were known, a funeral was held for Dr. Teresa Sievers in attendance was, of course, the grieving husband who had secretly asked for his wife's death and even stranger. So was Curtis Wainwright, who had rented a second vehicle in Missouri and taken a second road trip to Florida. Only this time to show support for the family.

He had played a direct role in destroying so much arrogance displayed over a crime so disastrously and completely botched.

While these two men were no doubt able to muster a few tears for the mourners in attendance, they probably both couldn't believe their luck that they had actually gotten away with it.

But thankfully, there are people smarter than these two idiots working in digital forensics. They may have thought they were being clever with their other phones, but after months and months of researching and filtering, an interesting cell phone tower pattern began to emerge. To simplify. If you take the tower location, the phone number itself and the time the call is placed together, it gives you a clear picture of when and where a certain phone is being used.

Both Mark and Curtis were AT&T users for their everyday phones, so investigators figured the cell tower information from that network was a good place to start. And wouldn't you know it whenever the tower would register a hit from someone's public phone.

Minutes later, their burner phone would ping on top of that.

Both burner phones were activated and May stopped in June and primarily interacted with one another. While it would be impossible to prove the content of the secret conversations, this cell phone pattern was irrefutable proof that Mark and Curtis were in communication with one another and that they didn't want anyone finding out about it. Just another strike against Mark's defense that he had no idea his best friend was planning to murder his wife. Figuring this all out. Needless to say, was an extremely laborious task.

But watching Mark Sievers, flanked by reporters as he's put into the back of a squad car, makes it all worth it.

What do you have to give your daughter? As I said early on, we would not leave any stone unturned. Our people worked tirelessly on this case. I maintained all along that it was an active, ongoing investigation. I think everybody has sensed both in the media and in our community that this was very much active and very much ongoing. But I don't think you realize, nor does our community realize the extent of investigation and effort that went into this case.

As you've seen, Mark Sievers is going to jail right now. He's been charged with second degree murder. Those charges may change. That's up to the state attorney's office. Of course, we want to be respectful of the prosecution phase of this, who has also done a great job with us toward the latter part of this investigation. And we'll continue on from here. I do anticipate that this brings closure to the case. I'm not indicating that there's anything really further to do at this point.

We were after Mark Sievers. We got our man and we're very happy for that. Do you have a confession? I'm sorry. Do you have any confession? Are you going to speak to that specifically and tell us how he reacted when you arrested him today? Stoic emotion. No emotion there. I'm not 100 percent sure he's got blood. His veins. I think it might be ice.

This terrible crime would be easier to grasp if he truly did have ice in his veins. But the disappointing truth is that Mark is a warm blooded human being, just like you and me.

He's motivated to do terrible things by the same driving factors that upend many of our lives, money and sex. The money part was easy enough to trace. When Mark stopped cooperating with investigators, he started forming his defense that he had absolutely no idea any of this was happening. Subpoenas were set out regarding insurance policies. For Teresa Sievers, the results from these findings show Theresa's death would pay out nearly five million dollars. A partially shredded insurance policy document obtained from Mark's office suggested he knew a bit more than he was letting on.

And when Curtis Wainwright came forward with the truth of what happened that night, he explained how Mark had offered to pay him a hundred thousand dollars for the murder, but that they would have to wait for the insurance to pay out first. At the time, Mark provided Curtis with six hundred dollars to pay for the rental car, gas and other necessities. To add insult to injury, the check was issued to him as a business check from the medical practice of Dr.

Teresa Sievers. Curtis, in turn, offered Jimmy the Hammer roughly ten thousand dollars for his help.

But as with everything this Dalt was in charge of, he wasn't actually sure how much he was going to get from Mark, and thus he couldn't really specify how much he'd give to Jimmy. Jimmy agreed to this incredibly vague deal with the devil, but he had to wait for the payday just like everyone else. A moment ago, I mentioned sex as another motivating factor. You'll recall at Curtis Wainwright's wedding, Mark originally came to him explaining that he feared Theresa was having an affair and wanted a divorce.

The truth was much stranger than that perfect fodder for news outlets to gossip about.

But let's be honest, mostly a distraction from the brutal murder at the center of it all, a charming couple established doctor, a picture perfect family from the outside. Behind the doors at Jarvis wrote another story was playing out. Documents appear to show Mark Sievers kept a sex log, part of an every day itinerary explaining when, how and where the couple would have sex. Sometimes other partners, they had sex with this one from July 2015, reading sex after dinner with two other people, another reading Tea Times to Sex Me Times three.

Then a familiar name, Wayne enters the bizarre calendar. Toward the end, she mentioned Wayne. She really enjoyed having door open when he was in town. Then text in locks became darker. Teresa becomes short, even angry, swearing at Mark on June 13th. This is expletive that you left and did not tell me I should leave you here without a ride home. And this text, after her death, proving this sender knew nothing of the husband suspected plan to murder his wife, telling Mark, Don't blame yourself.

Looking through tags, Mark Seaver's also became close with another woman. It's obvious their relationship was sexual. And at one point Mark even says that he loves her. The last time Mark told Theresa he loved her and text was about two months before she was murdered.

Curtis Wainwright eventually entered a plea agreement. He will only serve twenty five years for his role in Theresa's murder. And only because he cooperated and gave multiple sworn testimony under oath.

The verdict for Jimmy the Hammer, which finally came in December of 2019, was a bit more, as the judge stated, conflicted. He was found guilty of murder as a principle, but without a weapon, even though the evidence showed a weapon was clearly used. The judge in this case theorized the jury perhaps felt Jimmy was taken advantage of because he was younger. Nevertheless, the judge recognized that Jimmy picked out the navy blue coveralls. He brought the duct tape and he drove all the way to Florida with plenty of opportunity to back out and turn around.

Jimmie Rodgers was rightfully sentenced to life in prison.

The trial of Mark Sèvres immediately followed the trial of Jimmie Rodgers. Mark was not only sentenced to life in prison, but the jury also recommended the death penalty. Still, it is only a recommendation. It's up to the judge to make that decision. At a separate court appearance in January of twenty. Mark Sievers made a plea for his own selfish life, still denying his involvement in the crimes that the prosecution successfully proved he committed four and a half years earlier.

Although a jury found me guilty and innocent of all charges, as I've maintained since this heinous crime took place. I love my wife Teresa and her two daughters, Josie and Cami, with all my heart.

Our girls have tragically lost their mommy and now they're about to lose their daddy as well. Therefore, I respectfully ask the court for life is not to compound their loss and suffering. I'm grateful, however, that the court can only determine my fate on Earth when my soul is in God's hands and God knows the truth. I cannot feel remorse for something I had absolutely nothing to do with. Am deeply saddened and forever heartbroken, to say the very least.

That was taken from us. Teresa is my soul. I will miss her and cherish her memories until we are reunited in heaven. Until then, I will fight this wrongful conviction until I am proven innocent and set free to rejoin my family.

During the formal sentencing, Judge Bruce Khail, who oversaw the proceedings of both Jimmy and Mark's cases, replied to Mark's proclamation of innocence.

To just make a couple of comments about your statements here today. Mr. Sievers, a jury of 12 have found you guilty as charged that you are guilty. You do get an automatic appeal to the Florida Supreme Court to inform you of that at this point in time as well. I judge people's actions. I don't judge people's souls. That's for somebody else to do.

Mark Sèvres was ultimately sentenced to death. And as he vowed in his statement, he continues to appeal what he calls a wrongful conviction. He also expressed concern over the well-being of his two daughters, Jose and Cami. Too little, too late.

After Mark's arrest, the two Seaver's daughters were initially placed with a non relative caregiver, the two grandmothers, Teresa's mom and Mark's mom, that engaged in a custody battle. The former claiming the two young girls had suffered severe psychological and emotional trauma as a result of their father's actions. Mark was still allowed to contact his daughters from behind bars and in hours of recorded calls from prison. Mark is heard coaching his daughters to turn against Teresa's mother in favor of his own.

But if there's one instance of right overpowering wrong in this story, it's that Teresa's mom, Mary Ann Groves, was ultimately granted custody. In her impact statement, Marianne recognizes that the two young girls have been robbed of their remarkable and extraordinary mother, a brilliant doctor whose own statement to the world was, quote, being healthy is your choice. Getting you there is my passion in a world that increasingly seems more and more insane. It's terrible that such a positive force was destroyed for such trivial reasons.

But even in death, we can learn from the lessons she tried to impart while she was alive. Address the body, the mind and the spirit and live a life of generosity. And compassion. Listen, that's going to do it, but if you like the show, join, plus it's five dollars a month if you believe in the fifty dollar minimum wage, podcasters need a minimum wage to help out our whole staff here. Give us a hand five bucks a month.

You get all kinds of plus content stuff. Nobody else gets certain scale dot slash plus find out all the details. See you there. Stay safe. Mike, Mike, Mike.

I'm a new listener. I'm a true crime fan that's been missing a true crime knock off. And I just discovered your show a couple of months ago. And I have to say, I don't always agree with your politics, but what I can say is that your talent is undeniable, the way that you give light to these stories and the victims and your empathy for the situation and your research abilities, your interview ability. I think you're great and I don't care what your politics are, because as far as entertainment value and the value that you're bringing to the world to tell these stories that need to be told is immense.

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