The idyllic image of Bonita Springs, Florida—a serene Gulf Coast community known for its affluent retirees and pristine beaches—was shattered in the summer of 2015 by a crime of exceptional brutality and betrayal.
A Paradise Interrupted by Savage Violence
On June 28, 2015, Dr. Teresa Sievers, a 46-year-old homeopathic physician, returned alone to her family's Spanish-style home after a trip to visit relatives in Connecticut. Her husband, Mark, and their two daughters had stayed behind. What awaited her was not an empty house, but a meticulously planned ambush. In her garage, she was savagely attacked, struck at least 17 times with a hammer in a ferocious assault that left blood splatter across the scene.
Initially, the murder of the popular and successful doctor in the low-crime city of 57,000 seemed a random, inexplicable tragedy. Mark Sievers presented himself as a devastated widower, delivering a tearful eulogy at his wife's funeral where he proclaimed himself "the luckiest man in the world." However, detectives from the Lee County Sheriff's Office were already looking past the facade.
The Web of Deceit and a $15,000 Contract
The investigation peeled back layers of a marriage fraught with infidelity, financial strain, and deep-seated resentment. As authorities dug deeper, the picture of a perfect life crumbled. Suspicion turned to Mark Sievers, despite his airtight alibi being in Connecticut at the time of the murder. The question became not if he was there, but if he had arranged for someone else to be.
The break in the case came from Missouri, not Florida. Taylor Shomaker, the girlfriend of one of the perpetrators, came forward to law enforcement. She revealed that her boyfriend, Jimmy Rodgers, and his friend, Curtis Wayne Wright Jr., had been hired by Mark Sievers to kill his wife. Wright was a childhood friend of Mark's. The motive was a $6.5 million life insurance payout. The price for Teresa Sievers's life? A mere $15,000 promised to each hitman.
Cellphone records, GPS data, and car rentals placed Rodgers and Wright in Bonita Springs at the time of the homicide. The plot had been conceived months earlier, in 2015, when Mark attended Wright's wedding in Missouri and confided that his marriage was failing and he feared a costly custody battle.
Justice Served with the Ultimate Penalty
The prosecutorial case built steadily. Curtis Wayne Wright Jr. pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for a 25-year prison sentence and his testimony. Jimmy Rodgers was convicted of second-degree murder and trespassing, receiving a life sentence in October 2019.
Mark Sievers stood trial for first-degree murder. The evidence of his orchestration was overwhelming. On December 4, 2019, a jury found him guilty. In a rare unanimous recommendation, they advised he receive the death penalty. Judge Bruce Kyle agreed, sentencing him to death on January 3, 2020. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence in 2022.
Sievers now awaits execution on Florida's death row at the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford. Reflecting on the complex investigation, Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott stated simply, "We were after Mark Sievers … we got our man." The case remains a stark reminder of how greed and desperation can fester behind the sun-drenched veneer of the American dream.
