FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) - A jury recommended the death sentence for a man convicted in the 2015 killing of his wife who was a well-known doctor in Southwest Florida.
On Tuesday, the Lee County jury made the recommendation that Mark Sievers, 51, should received the death sentence for killing his wife, Teresa Sievers, 46.
He was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder by the same jury Dec. 4.
The News-Press reports that prosecutors told the jury Mark Sievers was motivated, in part, by the large amount of money from insurance policies on his wife.
She ran a medical practice, wrote about her passion for combining Eastern and Western medicine, and had filmed episodes for a local TV show about her work. She and Mark Sievers had two children together. They are being cared for by Teresa Sievers’ mother, Mary Ann Groves.
“These two girls have been robbed of their remarkable mother, their home, their pets, their possessions, their family and friends,” Groves said. “Teresa will not be able to love and guide them.”
On June 28, 2015, Teresa Sievers was bludgeoned to death after arriving home alone late after a family vacation. Mark Sievers and the couple’s daughters stayed in Connecticut for a few extra days.
According to testimony, Mark Sievers planned his wife’s murder with help from his best friend, Curtis Wayne Wright Jr., prosecutors told the jury before Mark Sievers was convicted.
A third man, Jimmy Rodgers, was enlisted to help with the killing by Wright and the pair killed Teresa Sievers with hammers, prosecutors said.
Both of Mark Sievers’ co-defendants in the case are awaiting sentencing. Rodgers was convicted by a Lee County jury of second-degree murder Oct. 23. Wright pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2016 in exchange for a 25-year prison sentence.
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