DOWNTOWN FORT MYERS, Fla. — A Bonita Springs man who has sat on death row for the last six years for the murder-for-hire of his wife is back in Lee County to appeal his death sentence.
WATCH BELOW TO SEE THE FULL BACKGROUND OF THE CASE:
Mark Sievers will be inside a Lee County courtroom Monday morning to challenge his conviction and try to get his death sentence vacated.
Sievers was convicted of orchestrating the murder of his wife, Dr. Teresa Sievers.
According to prosecutors, in 2015, Sievers hired his friend Curtis Wayne Wright Jr. to kill his wife in exchange for $100,000 in life insurance money.
Prosecutors said Wright later recruited Jimmy Ray Rodgers. The two drove more than 1,000 miles from Missouri to Southwest Florida to commit the murder.
In June 2015, Teresa Sievers returned alone from a family vacation to her Bonita Springs home. Court records show Wright and Rodgers were waiting inside the house for her and beat her to death with hammers.
The case was cold for nearly two months. It wasn't until August 2015 that Rodgers's girlfriend told investigators that Rodgers had admitted to the killing.
Sievers was arrested in December of that year.
Rodgers is serving life in prison, while Wright pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years for his role.
Sievers's hearing is expected to last all week.
During the hearing, a judge will consider six points that the defense team has brought up from the trial in court documents including:
- Claim 1: Newly discovered evidence not previously presented at trial undermines the confidence in the verdict
- Claim 2: Failure of a qualified attorney in the case
- Claim 3: Sievers was denied his right to a fair trial and due process because of ineffective assistance of counsel during guilt phase
- Claim 4: Trial counsel provided ineffective assistance of counsel during jury selection
- Claim 5: Sievers was denied his right to a fair trial, due process and reliable adversarial testing due to ineffective assistance of counsel during guilt phase
- Claim 6: Counsel was ineffective by failing to conduct a thorough penalty phase investigation during the trial
The court document said the combination violated his Sixth, Eighth and Fourteenth amendment rights.
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