Blood splatter, hammer with hair among 1,500 photos released in Sievers case

FORT MYERS, Fla. – Pictures of blood splatter and a hammer on a floor with hair attached were among more than 1,500 photos released Thursday in connection to the Dr. Teresa Sievers murder case.

The batch was the third set of documents, which number well into the thousands, released by the State Attorney’s Office.

The photos include shots of:

• Teresa Sievers walking through an airport terminal
• A pool of blood on the kitchen floor inside her Bonita Springs home
• Blood splatter on the dishwasher and fridge
• Shredded life insurance policy addressed to Sievers
• A white Hyundai with Missouri plates
• A phone log from a cell phone
• Sievers’ wallet and its contents
• Sievers’ suitcase and its contents
• Multiple guns inside the home
• Jewelry and other personal effects with blood on them
• Medication
• External and internal shots of the home
• Home alarm keypads
• Facebook memes depicting violence

The released documents also included messages from the Facebook account of Jimmy Ray Rodgers, one of two men charged in the killing.

Sievers, 46, was found bludgeoned to death with a hammer inside the kitchen of her Jarvis Road home on June 29. Rodgers, 25, was arrested in connection with the killing. He is serving six months in federal prison for a probation violation in an unrelated gun case. Curtis Wayne Wright, 47, is charged with second-degree murder in the case.

Below are the key details from the first two batch of documents, which contained search warrant applications, sworn statements, evidence logs and other court documents:

• Investigators theorized that Sievers’ husband, Mark, had direct involvement in the planning and execution of what they say was a murder-for-hire. Mark Sievers’ Fenton, Mo., condominium was searched, but no evidence was found. He has not been charged.
• Investigators believe the killing may be related to the couple’s financial problems. The IRS filed a federal tax lien against Mark and Teresa Sievers after they failed to pay more than $32,000 in income taxes in 2013. The couple had five life insurance policies on each other totaling $4.4 million.
• The couple was involved “in numerous affairs with men and women both together and outside of their marriage” and both considered divorce.
• The couple’s alarm inside their Bonita Springs was deactivated, and Mark Sievers told his mother-in-law, who was caring for the family’s pets, not to reactivate it. Teresa Sievers was killed hours later.
• GPS and surveillance video showed Rodgers and Wright were in Southwest Florida, even though both men initially denied being in the state. Rodgers also purchased souvenirs for his girlfriend and later tried to destroy evidence.
• Wright and Mark Sievers, friends since elementary school, used “burner” phones to communicate.
• Rodgers’ girlfriend, Taylor Shomaker, told detectives in a sworn statement that Rodgers admitted to the killing and that he and Wright did it for the insurance money.
• Memes from Rodgers’ Facebook account, some posted just days before Teresa Sievers’ death, includes messages about killing and violence.
• Hairs from the Sievers’ three pets, two dogs and a cat, that were found near Teresa Sievers’ body. Hairs “consistent with that of an animal” were found inside the passenger compartment and trunk of the vehicle Wright rented to drive to Florida, according to court documents.
• Multiple cell phones, textile gloves and a metal claw hammer from Wright’s trailer in Hillsboro, Mo. A manilla folder with Mark Sievers’ name was also found.
• Two Missouri licenses with the name “Kurtis G. Emshousen” were found in Wright’s storage unit in Festus, Mo.