I was going to break it up into halves, but it's so long I think thirds will be better. Plus one third is all I've done so far!
Hope there isn't a trick to copy/paste on here from Word... Also there are some curse words in there which I left, I think they will automatically get taken out though.
AL Interview 7/1/15 with Detective John Lathrop (JL) of LCSO in Fort Meyers FL
(JL): … In these sort of cases it’s extremely important that all sorts of varied information about the social history, medical history, things that were going on in your sister’s life… Like I said, every small detail could definitely matter so we appreciate everyone’s help with all that’s going on. If at any time… I’m going to ask some questions that may have to do with her investigation - it may not. There’s a bunch of… list of questions we have to go through for the medical examiner, that covers a variety of topics like drug abuse, suicide, things like that that don’t apply, may not apply at all, so don’t be alarmed when I bring that up, that’s just so we don’t miss anything.
(AL): Sure. Absolutely, I’m here to make this happen cause we need to know some answers cause we’re just playing off potential nightmares in our head right now.
(JL): … And I’d be happy to answer any questions that you have, um, that’s appropriate to answer… If I’m able to I’ll be happy to share it with you.
All right, we’re here discussing your sister Teresa. How many brothers and sisters do you guys have?
(AL): OK, there’s an older brother, Patrick, 53, lives in Connecticut. There’s then me, I’m 52. And there was Teresa. And when my parents divorced, my mother had another son, Frankie, we were raised with Frankie so this is a family, even though he was a half brother cause my mother remarried, we grew up together in the same house.
(JL): So he was your step brother…
(AL): Half brother. There’s a big difference. Cause step means, you know, my father’s wife and she’s got 3 kids and we’re not blood. He’s my half brother. We have the same mother. And then my father when he got remarried he had another daughter. And, so that’s our half sister. Her name is Nim. I should probably tell you she’s a professor at Columbia University, she lives in Manhattan.
OK, one more sibling. We just found out about this one fifteen years ago. My father had to come clean and tell us he had a child when he was married to that second wife and that is my sister Dawn and her last name is T., which is my maiden name. So that’s my maiden name, that’s Teresa’s maiden name.
(JL): And where does Frankie live?
(AL): Frankie lives in New Jersey, ??? New Jersey
(JL): New Jersey and Nim lives in Manhattan
(AL): She’s a professor at Columbia
(JL): And then Dawn, where does Dawn live?
(AL): Dawn lives in Long Island
(JL): And who’s Teresa closest with out of all the family?
(AL): Me
(JL): And Teresa’s a doctor, correct, and where did she go to school?
(AL): She went to Ross University which was in Dominica so it was not in the United States but she did all of her residency in the United States.
(JL): And she has a practice here in Estero
(AL): Yes, Restorative Health and Healing which she was in the process of going into a new name, um, what were they going to call it, it was going to end up being called Sievers and Spiska Where East Meets West… Path-.. Yes
(JL): Is Spiska the other doctor?
(AL): She’s not a doctor, she’s a Reiki master, intuologist, you know medical intuologist, and um they were going into a partnership together
(JL): OK. And from what I’ve been told her practice was basically taking everything from the body and mind and you know through a healthy lifestyle, healthy nutrition, exercise you can you know, do away with a lot of medical problems
(AL): Right. She built that but her last piece of the puzzle that she put together was I’d say right around last year at this time was understanding the energetic component that basically you could be doing all, you know, she had patients and she realized I can’t treat people with a pill, OK, I’m going to spend time, I’m going to get your hormones balanced, I’m going to ???, and I know this because I wrote for her, I’m a writer so I did her articles and I knew. And she was my soul mate so I knew.
And basically she saw patients who weren’t getting better. They were taking all the right diets, they were doing all the right things, but they still weren’t getting better and she realized there was a lot that had to do with intention and people undergoing stress that they may not consciously be aware of and she was getting into doing Reiki, which Reiki is energetic healing of the hands where you bring in the universal life force and it’s not a religious thing it’s a spiritual thing. It’s becoming very, very popular. Teresa was excited to be one of the first doctors in southwest Florida to openly embrace energetic… not… people are like… it could be polarizing you know what I mean?
(JL): Yeah, well people are skeptical
(AL): People are skeptical but she was getting people to like, see. She was getting people who simply were not getting well even though all their balances were perfect, they were doing the right… And then they would get to the bottom, Teresa would spend a long time, she’d spend an hour with patients. That’s why she stopped taking insurances, because they were getting in her way. She spent a long time, she would get to the bottom, you know and realize maybe that this person was in a relationship that they shouldn’t be in and it was causing it to manifest in their body. She would then without telling Lenka anything, cause Lenka didn’t want to know, she would send them to Lenka for a session and depending on how open, willing the person was you know Lenka would be able and you know in her way which is to go into a meditation or do Reiki and get into their energy field and literally be able to say, you know, I see this, I see this, and most patients, unless they’re all blocked up and they don’t want to admit anything is wrong with them, you know, oh well, you’re not going to get well, sorry.
(JL): And now is Lenka, is that Spiska?
(AL): Yeah
(JL): OK I didn’t have a first name
(AL): So she was the first doctor, I think what’s key here, Teresa was the first doctor in southwest Florida to openly embrace it. Teresa was the kind of person she didn’t give a **** what you thought about her. Sometimes I’d be like “could you just calm down” – “don’t tell me to calm down,” that’s how she was. She didn’t care. She didn’t care if she was going to lose every patient that she had. She wanted people to know. This is it, you’re being fed… you’re not hearing the whole picture. She was getting into a position where she wanted to start seeing patients less and less and get into large scale where she was asked to be speaking. She had been doing a lot of events. So she wanted to impact every person and load them with education and information so they could tap into the doctor within them and heal themselves. Of course she’ll be there to take you on the journey but you need to be willing, I can’t fix you, only you can fix you. And that’s where we were and I know this verbatim because I wrote a lot of this for her in our conversations. I helped her put together some presentations, I did all of her articles, I just finished all the writing for her website and her television show, Pathways to Healing, that she and Lenka were going to be doing so I know it thoroughly.
(JL): OK. Um, and did Teresa, did she drink alcohol?
(AL): She drank wine
(JL): And how often would she drink and how much?
(AL): Never on a school night, as we always said. Probably a Friday, a Saturday, or Sunday. She liked red wine.
(JL): She drank socially
(AL): Yeah
(JL): Maybe just a couple of glasses
(AL): Yeah
(JL): Um, did she smoke cigarettes?
(AL): No. She had quit.
(JL): She didn’t borrow cigarettes or anything?
(AL): Oh, she might grab a cigar if we were out
(JL): But at one time she did smoke and she quit?
(AL): Oh yeah I mean, how long has it been now, twenty-six years?
(JL): Oh so years and years ago OK. Any kind of illegal drugs, marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine…
(AL): Yeah, she’ll get mad at me because she was a doctor who believed that weed could be a good healer, but actually she hasn’t smoked anything in ten months. I think she said ten months.
(JL): And why did she quit ten months ago?
(AL): She just suddenly realized that, you know, spiritually, if you really want to be authentic, you know, when you’re high you can have… you know you think you can… and it can, it can certainly facilitate some spiritual thought but she wanted to be completely authentic and she was… done.
(JL): Do you know anybody in particular she was either getting the marijuana from or buying it from…
(AL): *shakes head no* Absolutely I do not know that
(JL): Do you think she was buying from a dealer on the street…
(AL): No no no no no no she was… No no no no no no… Now I’m going to be honest with you, can I tell you that Mark might not tell you that because Teresa was like don’t… and no body can ever know - do you understand I’m a physician she goes and it pisses me off cause why isn’t it legal and I think it can certainly help patients. And it certainly helped her at times but um
(JL): I’m not concerned with that aspect, I’m just concerned with linking who’s involved…
(AL): Oh yeah, right, no no no. None of that was going on and I know that… I don’t know any names. I know that it was nowhere near her house when she did it and it was respectable people. Respectable people don’t like people to know that they smoke weed. You know, it’s ok to, you know, get messed up on martinis every night but it’s not socially acceptable – and she had a lot at stake. So it was not part of – No.
(JL): Um, was she under the care of a doctor for any other illnesses or any other problem…
(AL): She was her own doctor
(JL): I understand but was she seeing…
(AL): I know but literally
(JL): anyone for cancer, heart disease, stroke, anything like that?
(AL): Nope, nope, nope. Only person she would see is Lenka – Give me a Reiki treatment, Lenka.
(JL): OK. Um, was she ever diagnosed with any mental illness: schizophrenia, bi-polar, depression, anything like that?
(AL): *shakes head no*
(JL): Had she ever been Baker Act-ed or institutionalized for any reason?
(AL): What?
(JL): Baker Act-ed is to say – you tell a doctor or police officer that you’re going to hurt yourself
(AL): No no no no no no.
(JL): Some of the questions may not apply; it’s kind of a standard list we go by so if she doesn’t, she doesn’t.
(AL): That’s fine. I understand.
(JL): Um. Has she ever threatened to hurt herself or commit suicide?
(AL): Never.
(JL): OK. Again like I said some of the questions don’t apply - it’s a standard list. Um. Is there anyone in particular who’d want to harm her or hurt her for any reason?
(AL): OK. This is where we need to talk.
(JL): OK
(AL): This is what came to my husband first.
(JL): And what’s your husband’s name?
(AL): Peter L.
(JL): Peter, OK.
(AL): We were all just way upstate New York this weekend, and Teresa… I wasn’t in the room when I started to hear Teresa talk about it. I mean, I normally spoke to my sister almost every morning we’d call it “dilling(ed. Dealing? Like dealing with life, sounds like she is saying dilling though)” We would talk to each other on the speaker while we were putting our make up on. Over the past month it was very much less because she’s under so much stress. She was trying to get up and do her meditation in the morning and write her notes and she had to write an article and she had to be on the tv show and she was travelling so it was a little… more.
She’s - This medical building that she’s in – and this is what I said to Mark: “Did you tell them about the deal?” “Oh, no, Annie, I forgot” – Mark’s a little bit of a d – scatter brain? He doesn’t remember things, he has to put them in his phone because he won’t remember which drove my sister out of her freaking mind cause my sister was like *making chopping motion with hands* and he’s like “Eh” and she’s like “Mark what are you doing you’re making me crazy”
(JL): Yeah in relationships a lot of times you got one super strong and one…
(AL): Oh, Teresa was, Teresa was a superstar and he was Mr. Mom and she went out and she ran the business.
She bought into this business I want to say ten years ago. And the deal was they invested some money and at the end of the contract, they stood to make a million dollars.
She did not want to leave beautiful St. Petersburg Florida, which we all loved to come visit and she ended up here *stabs finger at table*. And for a mother, her mother, our mother who’d been in real estate for twenty-five years, thirty years, this is the dumbest thing in the world. She lived in a **** neighborhood. She bought two lots and she built this big stupid house.
(JL): Yeah I saw the house it was like a hundred thousand more than half the neighborhood.
(AL): And we broke her bone and we were like what are you doing? And she was like “uh, yeah I know…” You know, I couldn’t you know, didn’t want to get Teresa yelling at me: “I know, I know!” So they were under, you know, that was hard. I think they lost some properties, real estate went down, it was a lot of like, oh man like I can’t believe like I’m a doctor and I have no freaking money. So now over the last, I want to say, maybe the last eight months cause it was right after the anniversary of my dad’s death, we happened to be in Boston and that was in uh September of 2014. 2013. And she said uh, started talking shortly after that so probably the beginning of 2014 about “I think we’re going to be able to get out of this building” because what, as she realized, the rent she was paying was astronomical
(JL): And that was the building in St. Pete?
(AL): That was where her office is
(JL): OK
(AL): “Rent is absolutely ridiculous. I could get a place down the street, I could save myself a load of money, you know, I’m so over it. I’m wondering if I should just break my lease. I don’t know what to do.” And then an opportunity came on the table and I don’t know any of the particulars but you need to talk, you need to figure this out… Where there was a really good opportunity that was going to come through and I don’t know if somebody was going to buy the building, they were going to buy the practice, they were whatever, Teresa was going to make a nice fat check, everybody was, she was going to be able to get the hell out of there, reduce her overhead, and have some money that she could put aside. That fell apart. She thought - she was devastated. This weekend, she said another deal came to the board. Now I don’t know who’s on the board, I don’t know who’s involved in owning this property, building.
(JL): Now just so I don’t get lost. She still currently was owning the property in St. Pete, this is all recently, even though she lived here…
(AL): No this property is in Fort Myers this is where Restorative Health and Healing Practice is right now right in that building where she practiced.
(JL): So we’re talking about the same building currently where she’s at right now
(AL): Yes, correct. Currently. So, um, what happened was she said something like “I got another…” I go “what’s going on with the building? How are you going to be able to get out of that?” She goes, “These freaking people…” They had put another offer on the table but it involved them getting into business with other people and signing another lease – And her lease with these people, I think, I want to say she said it was up in July, OK? And uh, she was – so basically, my sister didn’t mince her words and she goes “I regret getting in business with you *advertiser censored* holes, I’m not going to get in business for ten more years with people I don’t know.” Cause they did things like… They’d put competing doctors in the same building who offered the same services she did, which – and they didn’t have the training for, so she – they just did stupid things so she goes “I need to get out of this, I need to get out.”
I’m not a hundred percent sure but it could be possible… So what Teresa did was she got a lot of other people to think, which is what she did. So there were people who wanted this business deal to close cause they were going to make a lot of money and my sister basically stopped it from happening. Whether she was the only person who voted against it or she made other people, “wake up, what the hell’s wrong with you?” And I think people started taking Teresa like “yeah, you know, she’s right, she’s right.” So that was one of the first things my husband thought of. Like there’s, like who would want to hurt my sister.
The other thing is, there’s a person that works in Teresa’s office her name is Sandra. You’ve probably spoken to her right?
(JL): Sandra…
(AL): Sandra, I don’t know her last name
(JL): Hoshkins, Hopkins, something like that
(AL): She was the only Sandra, she’s probably maybe fifty, thin woman. Teresa has worked with Sandra for, I was there with her at her fortieth birthday, for probably seven years. My sister was getting to a, my sister tried to help everybody, you know, to the point where you know, “let me buy this for you, let me help you do this, let me get you here, you know, let me buy you a car, whatever she needed what she couldn’t do (ed. I could not understand this part, this is my best guess but it makes no sense). But over the years, the last couple of years, she would say to me “you know, Sandra’s driving me out of my…” You know, I’m going to censor everything cause my sister was great for f bombs “She’s driving me out of my freaking mind.”
(JL): OK you can just be straight with me, it’s cool
(AL): OK, she was like “Driving me ****ing crazy, Dill. She’s driving me ****ing nuts” She goes “listen to what she did today she…” In the energy world when you talk, there’s certain, um, archetypes that we all carry, OK? She was the victim archetype. It was always “Ohhh,” you know doing stupid things like “ohhh l I’m really sick today and I have the flu but you know I’m coming in to work today.” And it was like “shut the **** up right?”
(JL): Yeah I know the type
(AL): So she was, my sister was like “get your **** together. You know, I’m trying to raise the vibration of this office.” I also heard her say over the years that, you know, Sandra was badmouthing Teresa. And you may not like your boss, but you don’t badmouth them to patients that are coming in the door like “Dr. Sievers, you know, she’s a, she’s a *****.” So I remember she said to me “someone who was so good to her” and I’m not saying my sister wasn’t a hard *advertiser censored*, my sister expected **** from you, you know what I mean, cause she was going to give it all and if you’re not on this team get the **** out and somebody else will come who can help me. I mean we argued sometimes about how to write an article and I’d be like “shut up, I’m the writer, and stop talking like a scientist” and we would, “all right, I’ll give it up to you.” And it was hard to get her to give it up. So for Sandra to do that said to me, she was already willing to break a trust and dishonor her so that already fit in my mind. But what really stuck in my mind, when you’re doing a who’d want to hurt my sister, is I said to her just maybe a couple of weeks ago “what’s going on with Sandra, did you get rid of her yet and replace her cause I know…?” She said, she goes, “Dill, I finally went up to her and said this ‘Sandra,’” Now they knew she was looking for another job because any email that Sandra sends, Mark, Teresa’s husband Mark gets a copy. So they knew she was looking for another job, which they were thrilled to death. Um but Teresa being the nice person that she is, didn’t say “you’re done today, good bye” or “get out of here in two weeks.” She said “Sandra, I just want to let you know, I tried so hard, but I cannot take your energy anymore. You’re sucking me dry. You’re killing the vibration of this office. I’ve given you so many chances and you just keep screwing this up and screwing it up, when you know, when you lie to me, I asked you if you did this” my sister already knows what the answer is, catches her in a lie, catches her in a lie. She said, “I need you to look for another job” even though she knew she was, she needed to hear it from Teresa. “Because I need to move this practice in another direction and you’re not going to be on, I can’t have you part of it.” So. Was she a disgruntled employee? Obviously we can’t make any assumptions.
(JL): And this was a few weeks ago she basically told her?
(AL): I want to say this was in the last three weeks. I mean this is when Teresa and I talked about it. Whether she told Sandra a month ago because like I said I wasn’t talking to her, whenever we did talk it was like we’d try to cover so much in five minutes so I never got every detail, like I got up this morning, I had a bagel for breakfast, which she wouldn’t have a bagel anyway, but we never got to talk about those things unless we had like made a date and said, “hey what are you doing Saturday morning let’s have coffee and dill for a while.” “Oh, good, we’ll have a dill session, good dill session.” Our “dill” session.
(JL): Which is where you chitchat?
(AL): Well we called each other Dill and then you could use it as a verb, “Let’s dill, let’s just dill.” And um we would talk on the phone and that’s where I would get to hear like what’s really going on with this TV show, ok remind me who this guy is, ok he’s the producer that met you and he thinks you’re a natural. Ok, who’s this person…” So that’s when we would have… But it had been, as sad as it is, it’s probably been six weeks since we’ve had any long in depth conversation because there’s just been like two ships passing in the night. When she would call me it was 9:30 at night I was already done. When I would call her it was 7:00 in the morning now she was getting up and doing the meditation and doing journal writing in the morning. During the day was impossible, ok, she was with patients. I always knew if I got a call from my sister during the day or either one of us did, we always took it because we knew it was important, we never bothered each other. So I can tell you the conversation with Teresa was probably in the last two weeks and when she had it with Sandra could have been within a month of that. So it’s been recent. It’s not like she told her a year ago. I don’t even think it was six months ago. I would say within the last two or three months probably closer to the last – on the closer side she gave this news to Sandra.
I got here last night. As soon as I got to see my brother in law and we cried and we went through all that stuff, I said “I know you’re dingy, Mark, did you tell them…” “Oh, no, Annie I didn’t even think about that.” And I was like *bites finger*.
(JL): Oh you mean Sandra and all this other… and the real estate
(AL): Yeah, yeah and he goes “I didn’t even think of that.” And the Sandra thing I go, “when did she tell her?” he goes “did she tell her? I know she was going to tell her.” I’m like “Mark.” And he’s like “wait a minute, Annie, wait, yeah she did, Annie, she did tell her that.” And I’m like “Don’t you think the police need to know that? Teresa just fired somebody” who we never thought was right. I’m not saying she was unsta – eh, she was, did stupid things like she would buy my sister like - she had no money - and she’d buy my sister like two hundred dollars worth of birthday gifts. I don’t buy my sister two hundred dollars worth of cr- … Teresa doesn’t give a **** about that. And I still have a green dress with a tag on it in my closet cause when she showed it she’s like, “look what Sandra did” and she goes “and would I ever wear this and the stupid tacky jewelry?” My sister was very down to earth but she wasn’t tacky. I go “the dress isn’t too bad.” She goes “here take it, you want it?” That was when I was here, I don’t know how many years ago. She was like “You see what I mean Annie?” she goes “that’s the kind of…” my sister actually never called me Annie. “You see what I mean Anne, this is the kind of stupid **** that she does. She’s crying and ‘ooohhhh’” and then she goes out and she wants you to feel bad for her, and she wants you to like her, so that’s the kind of personality that I could probably best describe you and Lenka could give you a, Lenka was like “this girl’s energy is bad” cause Lenka feels that. Teresa goes “you got that one right away.” That she was not good for the office, for the direction that they were moving.
Even after all these months, we're still all asking questions!
