NANCY GRACE, HOST: Breaking news tonight, live, Bonita Springs, Florida. New details emerging tonight in the mystery surrounding the murder of a gorgeous young doctor, mother of two little girls, Dr. Teresa Sievers found murdered in her upscale Florida home while Sievers's husband and girls out of town.
Not one but two arrests go down in the murder of Dr. Sievers. The disturbing twist, one of the two arrested is Sievers's husband's best friend from childhood.
Bombshell tonight. We dig through the night to put together a timeline. Police insisting they are still on the hunt for anyone else responsible for the brutal murder of Teresa Sievers. Who could that be?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was a woman that did not deserve what happened to her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sievers was found dead in Bonita Springs. A SWAT team raided Wright`s trailer 1,200 miles away.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It gave me chills knowing that he said that he -- his favorite weapon was a hammer.
DR. TERESA SIEVERS, VIDEO: That`s why I didn't go in (ph) about what I've done because it's going to kind of unfold as we go through.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: That video from Teresa Sievers`s YouTube channel.
Good evening, I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight. Live to Bonita Springs, Florida. Tonight, new details, disturbing details emerging in the mystery surrounding the murder of a gorgeous young doctor, a mother of two little girls, Dr. Teresa Sievers, Dr. Teresa found murdered in her upscale Florida home while Sievers's husband and little girls remain out of town after a family vacation.
Not one but two arrests go down in the murder of Dr. Sievers. The disturbing twist? One of the two is Sievers`s husband`s best friend from childhood.
Bombshell tonight. We dig through the night to put together a timeline, as police insisting at this hour, they are still on the hunt for anyone else responsible for the brutal murder of Dr. Teresa Sievers. Anyone else? Who could that be?
Let`s see that frame shot, Liz, that side-by-side.
Now, the two men that have been arrested, as you all know by now, Curtis Wayne Wright and Jimmy Rodgers, both live in Missouri. The side-by-side of Curtis Wayne Wright and Sievers`s husband -- that side-by-side. Now interesting, Curtis Wayne Wright and Dr. Sievers`s husband, Mark Sievers, are almost doppelgangers.
Look at this. The one on the left is his, Mark Sievers`s, best friend from childhood, have stayed in touch all these years. They live over 1,200 miles apart. Mark Sievers, on the left, married to Dr. Teresa Sievers, and they claim on line that they are brothers.
Now, I don`t know if there`s an actual blood relation, but why would your best friend travel 1,200 miles with your sidekick, Jimmy Rodgers, to murder your best friend`s wife while you are out of town?
Joining me right now is a special guest, in addition to Rita Cosby and Michael Christian, Sheriff Mike Scott is with us from the Lee County sheriff`s office. Sheriff, thank you so much for being with us.
MIKE SCOTT, LEE COUNTY SHERIFF (via telephone): Thank you.
GRACE: Now, Sheriff, I know a lot of this you can`t comment on, but forgive me for asking. Our viewers are extremely attached to Dr. Sievers, and we all want to see justice. You stated that the investigation is ongoing, that anyone else that may be partially involved or responsible for her brutal murder, you are tracking them down. Is that correct?
SCOTT: Yes, ma`am, that`s very much correct. We have still evidence that`s yet to be finalized in terms of evaluated and analyzed, both evidence that was gathered here in Florida and as well in Missouri and at points in between. And so, you know, we believe, obviously, we had a great start with these two in custody. However, anything and anybody that`s remotely associated with this case, we obviously have an obligation to move forward with that, and that`s what we`re doing. We have not let up at all. Our foot is very much on the gas pedal, and we`re moving forward full speed ahead with the investigation.
GRACE: With me, special guest Sheriff Mike Scott, who`s been on this case around the clock with his people, all law enforcement.
Sheriff Scott, question. How soon after finding Dr. Sievers`s body in her home did you dispatch detectives to Missouri?
SCOTT: It was about two weeks afterward. I will say that, initially, we developed strong suspicion that this was not random or arbitrary, that this was, in fact, a targeted event targeting Dr. Sievers.
And in that vein, I tried to communicate to the public -- of course, absent an arrest, it`s difficult, but communicate to the public that we did not feel that anyone else was in harm`s way. Evidence continued to build. Suspicion became stronger, to the point, frankly, of probable cause, at which time, we went to -- we dispatched
detectives to Missouri.
I`ll tell you that, initially, what we sent them for was far less than we came up with. We sent them initially for three days. We figured they`d be there for three days. They were there three weeks on that first trip.
GRACE: Wow.
SCOTT: So on that end, things continued to unfold. And you know, we started to get some breaks, big breaks in the case.
GRACE: You know, we`ve heard the reports about a bloody jumpsuit being taken from Jimmy Rodgers`s belongings. And if that is the blood of Dr. Sievers, that will be a direct DNA link. Not so much news about Curtis Wayne Wright.
Let me ask you a question, Sheriff Scott. Do you believe that only two perpetrators entered Dr. Sievers`s home at the time she was killed?
SCOTT: Well, I`m not able to say that with certainty, no. You know, anybody, as you know, that`s within the general envelope, particularly in a - you work from the inside out. And so when we start to talk about family members, close friends, business associates -- and I`m speaking generally now, but it could be applied to this case, as well -- sort of working from the inside out, that general envelope of initial suspicion is one that`s fairly broad.
And you know, it can be husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, close family friends, business associates. And so that`s sort of what happened initially. And as remains the case now, I`m not at liberty to say that there`s no one else directly involved with the crime...
GRACE: Right.
SCOTT: ... or indirectly to the point that they would be culpable criminally for the activity that took place.
GRACE: You know what`s interesting, Sheriff Scott? And I`m going to go to you on this, Rita Cosby, investigative journalist, WABC host -- Rita, I notice that Jimmy Rodgers -- let's take a look at the timeline, please.
Rita, Jimmy Rodgers, who is not the look-alike best friend of Sievers`s husband -- he's the other one -- his nickname is "the hammer" and he has actually stated online that the hammer is his preferred weapon.
You know what`s interesting? He actually said that he was going to make $10,000 over the weekend.
Now, Sheriff Scott, isn't it correct that Rodgers, AKA, also known as "the hammer," somewhere said he was going to get $10,000 over the weekend, but he gets off work on Friday and he -- around 6:00 PM. He doesn't punch back in. He wasn't supposed to punch back in until Tuesday. Dr. Sievers was murdered between Sunday and Monday, correct?
SCOTT: Yes, ma'am.
GRACE: So do we have any idea how Rodgers, Sheriff, thought he was going to get $10,000 cash that weekend?
SCOTT: Well, as I said earlier, we have a lot of ideas, and many of those are supported by, frankly, a mountain of circumstantial evidence and a significant amount of physical evidence, as well, that we continue to look at.
GRACE: Right.
SCOTT: And I`ll tell you that that quote specifically, Nancy, that you talk about in terms of him mentioning the $10,000, I believe that quote is attributed to his...
GRACE: Girlfriend?
SCOTT: ... employer. Yes, ma`am.
GRACE: Oh, the employer. Yes, yes, yes. You`re absolutely right about that.
As a matter of fact, joining me right now from Cadet, Missouri, Tyler Juliette, the former boss of Jimmy Rodgers. Tyler Juliette, thank you so much for being with us.
TYLER JULIETTE, former boss of JIMMY RODGERS (via telephone): Thank you, ma`am.
GRACE: You know, it`s amazing...
JULIETTE: Can you hear me?
GRACE: Yes, sir. It`s amazing, isn`t it, that you can work with somebody so long and you think you know them, and then they are suddenly implicated in something like this. It`s happened to me before, where you think you know the people you`re working with and then, boom, guess what?
You don`t know them at all.
How long did Jimmy Rodgers, also known as "the hammer," work for you, Tyler?
JULIETTE: He worked for us for -- he was hired on 8/27/14, so it was almost a year to the day.
GRACE: Did you ever hear him brag he was going to make $10,000 that weekend?
JULIETTE: No, not working for us, he wasn`t.
GRACE: OK. I know that he said that. I`m trying to narrow down where that came from. Let me ask you, what was his demeanor when he worked for you?
JULIETTE: We never had a problem with Jimmy. He showed up for work. He was on time. He did his job. I never had -- never had much, you know, of a complaint ever on him, to be honest with you.
GRACE: And he worked at a smelting business?
SCOTT: He worked wherever we needed him. We work for a lot of different companies. But that`s where he was at, at the time that week, and a few weeks before that. He had been working for a company that we sub out to, yes.
GRACE: Well, let me ask you this, sir. He works generally in smelting and he subs out doing other things. Would he normally be able to pull in $10,000 in one weekend?
JULIETTE: No, ma`am.
GRACE: OK, because that`s a pretty pricey bill, $10,000 in one weekend.
JULIETTE: You bet.
GRACE: Do you have any idea how he could have made -- who would have paid him to do what job for $10,000 in 72 hours?
JULIETTE: Well, I can assure you it has nothing to do with us, ma`am.
GRACE: Guess what? I believe you. I believe you, Tyler Juliette. You cooperated with police. You cooperated when you realized they needed information for his arrest. What happened?
JULIETTE: We -- I don`t know if you -- that Jimmy also rents a home from us. We also have a lot of rental properties. So we knew that they were here or close by his vicinity, or his home, actually. We weren't for sure what was going on, but we knew that they was trying to, you know, get a hold of him.
I got a call asking if I could get him -- asking what time he got off his shift, and I had to call the foreman that runs that crew. He informed me that Jimmy didn't get off until approximately, I think, it was 5:00 or 6:00 o`clock.
So that (INAUDIBLE) getting back here at 6:00 o`clock that day. And they didn't -- they wasn't willing to wait that long, so they asked me if I would go ahead and put an order in for him to come on home and just tell him that his PO needed to do a spot check on him as soon as possible.
GRACE: Probation officer?
JULIETTE: Yes. Yes, ma`am.
GRACE: OK.
JULIETTE: And so I called my foreman and told him to go ahead and get somebody to cover Jimmy for the last few hours and get him sent home, that the probation officer need him here ASAP for a check. And that`s what happened. And we really knew no details at all at the time.
GRACE: Wow. When you look back and you realize that he is now implicated in the murder of Dr. Sievers, were there any red flags? Was there anything suspicious at all?
JULIETTE: No. I mean, it`s very disturbing to think that he worked for, you know, our company as long as he did around my employees that long, if he had anything to do with this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[20:18:18]UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The investigation is still ongoing, and more information will come available as the investigation unfolds.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seemed like 20 SWAT guys or so, a whole bunch of - - a whole bunch of jackets and flak jackets and a whole lot of rifles.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the reasons this case has taken so long is the volume of evidence that needs to be lab tested.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very much an ongoing and active investigation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Dr. Teresa Sievers was out of town at a family gathering of her family. She took with her her husband, Mark Sievers, and their two little girls, but she decided to come back that Sunday night.
Or was that planned ahead of time? Mark Sievers staying along at Teresa Sievers`s family get-together with the children, coming back the next day. And while he was gone, tragedy strikes, Teresa Sievers found dead in her home.
Well, in the last 72 hours, arrests go down of not one, but two people from Missouri. Turns out one is Mark Sievers`s childhood best friend, also his sidekick, Jimmy Rodgers, AKA "the hammer."
Joining me right now in front of the Sieverses` home, investigative reporter Nicole Partin. Nicole, you`re there. What do you see?
NICOLE PARTIN, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Nancy, today I noticed something different outside Dr. Sievers's home. The blinds on the front door are open, but I`m also noticing that those security lights are still remaining on.
It was early on in the investigation that you brought up the point of the security system, the security lights. We began to question, did the person who broke into her home know how to manipulate that system?
We are learning from friends of Curtis Wayne Wright that he had a previous job as a security system business. Does this in any way tell us that he was able to manipulate the system in order to get into Dr. Sievers`s home?
[20:20:10]GRACE: OK, Sheriff Mike Scott, special guest joining us, the Lee County sheriff. Sheriff Scott, my head is absolutely spinning.
It`s bad enough, I thought, that Wright is the husband`s best friend from childhood. They claim they`re brothers. They`re doppelgangers. They looked just alike. He worked as a computer whiz for Dr. Sievers in her office. I`m sure the husband fixed that up.
But now I learn that Wright is a security person, he worked at a security system company?
SCOTT: There was some employment history along those lines, yes, ma`am. And my head is spinning, as well, and has been since the case unfolded, just for reasons that you've enumerated and so many others that we know about, these facts, as you say, that continue to come out that we know ahead of time, and many more together with them.
And so again, I emphasize that no one, nobody is outside of the envelope of suspicion and/or as the evidence takes us to possible responsibility...
GRACE: Sheriff Scott, let me ask you this. Did the Sieverses have a safe in their home?
SCOTT: I know the answer to the question, but I think I`m going to decline speaking to it.
GRACE: OK. Because if somebody knows -- for instance, if Wright knew they had a safe and he knew they kept X amount of money there, it would make sense that Rodgers`s girlfriend is bragging he`s going to get $10,000. But if she did not have a safe, where would that number come from? Very, very disturbing.
To Ben Levitan, telecommunications expert. Ben, here he`s got a security background with a security company. He`s a computer whiz. If this home security system were wireless, that would be a piece of cake for him to break into.
BEN LEVITAN, TELECOMMUNICATIONS EXPERT (via telephone): Well, absolutely, Nancy. But most of these security systems can be remotely turned on and turned off. He was fully aware of the entire network. He probably recommended all the computer networks that were in Dr. Sievers`s office. He probably had the codes that he could remotely turn these off, Nancy.
GRACE: But who would know...
LEVITAN: And who knows, he may have even been able to have access to the safe.
GRACE: ... the husband -- the other thing, if there was a safe. But the other thing is, who would have known he was gone for the weekend? The wife was gone. Were they surprised when she came back? Was that a surprise? But couldn`t they see both cars there and know Dr. Sievers was back, that the home wasn`t empty?
Joining me again at the scene, investigative reporter Nicole Partin. What else can you tell me, Nicole?
PARTIN: Nancy, we`re hearing from Jimmy Rodgers`s girlfriend that in the days leading up to Dr. Sievers`s death, he told her he would be working out of town and that he would receive $10,000 while he was away. Now, we`re unclear. Was he expecting to rob $10,000 from the family home, or was he going to be paid $10,000 for killing Dr. Sievers? We don`t know.
But we do know that on Friday evening, he clocked out of work at 6:00 PM, made the 1,200-mile journey here, was seen at a nearby Walmart, and hours after that, Dr. Sievers was found murdered.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rodgers and Wright were taken into custody, both facing second-degree murder charges.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I seen them take bloody clothes out of Jim`s car to put in a paper bag to put in the CSI truck.
SIEVERS: So why have I done this, all this extra training? Truly, it`s for my patients.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: That`s Dr. Teresa Sievers on her YouTube channel. She`s dead, leaving behind two little girls.
In the last 72 hours, two arrests go down, but police say they`re still looking. They`re still on the hunt. Best friend from childhood, Curtis Wayne Wright, Jr., sidekick "the hammer" Jimmy Rodgers.
Rita Cosby, investigative journalist, WABC - Rita, that $10,000 is really bothering me because he either thought he was going to get paid $10,000, or that there was $10,000 in the safe.
Now, couldn't they see that there were two cars there? One should have been at the airport. But Dr. Teresa Sievers was there. They had to know she was there when they went in.
RITA COSBY, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: No, indeed. And on the $10,000 point, not only did the boyfriend -- this is Jimmy Rodgers -- reportedly tell his girlfriend he was gone and going to make $10,000 on a side job, she told someone else, Then we can buy a van because we`re having a baby.
Apparently, the couple did get a van soon afterward, so authorities can trace the money that way.
The other thing, Nancy, both of these guys have rap sheets, not just the guy who looks like the husband but the other one, as well. The Jimmy Rodgers guy has firearms in his background, served multiple times in prison. And then the Wayne Wright, the guy who`s friends with the husband, also served time for manufacturing methamphetamines. Both of them were in prison.
GRACE: With me, Rita Cosby, investigative journalist, WABC host.
To special guest Sheriff Mike Scott, Lee County sheriff. Sheriff, thank you for being with us. Have you guys determined whether there was a life insurance policy on Dr. Sievers?
SCOTT: We have, but again, I`m not at liberty to specify anything with regard to that. But we are aware of that. In other words, that`s an angle that we`re very much aware of and very much on top of.
GRACE: Unleash the lawyers, Robin Ficker and Jacoby Hudson. First to you, Ficker, joining me out of D.C. Why is this only a murder two charge?
Because if these two drove all the way from Missouri, 1,200 miles, to kill Dr. Sievers, they had plenty of time to plan this.
FICKER: That`s why the attorneys for these two men have to fight extradition because Florida is a capital murder case. They`re going to look for the death penalty. But here, I think the sheriff Scott`s certainty that he has his men is inversely proportional to the facts. They can`t trace the money, there are no fingerprints, they don`t have the DNA. He`s guessing.
GRACE: Whoa, whoa. Whoa, whoa. We heard the neighbor say, did we not, Jacoby Hudson, she saw police taking a bloody jumpsuit, which P.S.,
this guy, the Hammer, wore a jumpsuit at a previous job, out of his vehicle, an ice chest covered in blood, out of his vehicle. Long story short, why would these guys argue extradition? That`s not determining if you`re guilty or not, it`s just are you Wright, are you Rodgers. That`s the only question on extradition they`re fighting. They`re not coming from Missouri to Florida without a fight. Why, Jacoby?
HUDSON: Well, they`re going to fight extradition because Florida is a capital -- is a capital state. So they could be seeking the death penalty in Florida. So they will fight extradition for the simple fact that they don`t want to be subjected to the laws of Florida.
GRACE: Put them back up. I`m going to go to Sheriff Mike Scott and get a straight answer. Sheriff, isn`t it true you can fight extradition, but the only question on extradition is, are you Jimmy Rodgers? Are you Curtis Wayne Wright? All they have to do is compare the fingerprints and they`re on their way to Florida?
SCOTT: That`s correct. They`re going to come to Florida regardless. The only question is Rodgers, with his stint in the federal prison right now for probation violation, is whether or not he comes and at what point. But that process is going to happen regardless of what either wants to do. Our governor will sign a warrant to bring them here. There's no question in my mind they'll both come to Florida to face these charges.
GRACE: Do you think there`s still a killer at large? Do you believe this investigation is not over, Sheriff?
SCOTT: I absolutely can tell you this investigation is not over. There`s no question that it`s ongoing. We still have people literally working around the clock and continuing to follow leads and developing information.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1509/01/ng.01.html - link for the transcript
