Naman Shrestha
The tragic demise of Dr. Teresa Sievers in June 2015 shook the entire community to its core and became a cause of heavy grief for her family and friends. But what unsettled them more was the fact that her husband had orchestrated the murder while his friend Curtis Wayne Wright Jr., along with his friend Jimmy Ray Rodgers, fulfilled the plan. In the episode titled ‘The Plot to Kill Dr. Sievers’ of CBS’ ’48 Hours,’ the entire case is covered, including the investigation and the conviction of the killers, providing the viewers with a detailed account of the tragedy.
Jimmy Ray Rodgers Was Mark Sievers’ Friend
Curtis Wayne Wright Junior grew up in Missouri, where he got acquainted with one of his best friends, Mark Sievers. In the third grade, he met Greg Bolin, with whom he even attended part of high school later in life. When Greg moved to Illinois after graduating high school, Curtis bonded with his older brother, Ronnie Bolin. In 1994, he got divorced and spiraled down a dark path as he started using drugs, specifically meth, with Curtis. The two friends spent a lot of time together doing drugs, and a few weeks later, in July 1996, Ronnie vanished into thin air.
Since Curtis was one of the last persons to see him alive, he became a prime suspect in the case. When the police questioned Ronnie’s father to get more information on his son, they learned that he had loaned Curtis about $1,500 for a car but didn’t get paid back. Right before he went missing, he had set up a meeting with Curtis to collect the money from him. Although his car was found on July 9, 1996, his body was never recovered. For several years, he engaged in drugs, but by 2010, he had been behind bars for drug possession. While serving time at the Sainte Genevieve County jail in Missouri in 2010, he befriended another inmate named Jimmy Ray Rodgers.
All this while, he remained in contact with his childhood friend, Mark Sievers. In 2015, he got married to Angela Wright, and Mark was in attendance. Soon after that, Mark told him about his marital issues, including his wife Teresa threatening to leave him and take their children away from him. Allegedly, Curtis suggested that getting rid of her for good might be the only option. Helping out his friend, Curtis devised a plan with him to kill her. Without telling Mark, he offered to pay his prison friend, Jimmy Ray Rodgers and hired him to help him carry out the deed. In the early hours of June 29, 2015, Curtis Wayne Wright and Jimmy Ray Rodgers bludgeoned Dr. Teresa Sievers to death with a hammer or two.
After committing the gruesome act, the duo drove back to Missouri. At the time, Jimmy had been dating Taylor Shomaker, and when he returned home, she gave him the news of her pregnancy. As per Taylor, she came across a cooler and backpack in the kitchen of their home. Specifically, she also found a box of gloves, dress shoes, and a hammer inside the cooler, while the backpack contained a rolled-up jumpsuit. Soon, the detectives swarmed into their house and searched the place for any kind of evidence. After the detectives left the property, Jimmy asked Taylor to come for a ride with him. He drove down to his workplace and crushed his cell phone, making her throw the pieces of it out of the car window.
While he was driving, he also asked her to toss the blue jumpsuit out of the moving vehicle. Noticing the suspicious items and his behavior, Taylor confronted him in bed and asked him if he had something to do with the murder of Teresa Sievers. He couldn’t help but confess that he had killed Teresa with a hammer. Despite knowing what it would mean, she decided to help out the police and testify about what she knew about Jimmy and his involvement in the murder. Taylor even claimed that her boyfriend was hired by Curtis, who was, in turn, hired by Teresa’s husband, Mark. In August 2015, both Curtis Wayne Wright Jr. and Jimmy Ray Rodgers were arrested in relation to the murder of Dr. Teresa Sievers.
While Curtis is Serving a 25-year Sentence, Jimmy Ray Rodgers is Behind Bars For Life
In 2016, Curtis Wayne Wright agreed to a 25-year plea deal in exchange for his testimony in the trial of Jimmy Ray Rodgers and Mark Sievers. On the other hand, Jimmy’s initial charge was reduced to second-degree murder and trespassing. The defense argued that Curtis acted alone in the murder and Jimmy had nothing to do with it. But after Curtis provided incriminating testimony against him, claiming that both of them killed Teresa with hammers inside her house, the latter was convicted on October 23, 2019, and sentenced to life in prison on December 12 of the same year. Currently, both Curtis and Jimmy are incarcerated at different Florida prisons, serving their respective sentences.
Read More: Robert Manor and Victor Gray: Where Are The Killers Now?
