Dateline NBC: What happened to Teresa Sievers?

The brutal murder of Dr. Teresa Sievers in 2015 sent shockwaves across the community in Bonita Springs. The highly regarded doctor had been back from a family vacation in Connecticut when she was bludgeoned to death with a hammer in her Jarvis Road home in a murder-for-hire plot laid out by her husband, Mark Sievers.

The 46-year-old mother-of-two was murdered as Mark feared losing custody of their children over marital problems and wished to encash five of her life insurance policies worth $4.433 million, per The News-Press.

The Dateline NBC episode titled The Road Trip, showcasing Dr. Sievers' murder, aired originally on April 3, 2020, and is scheduled to re-air on May 24, 2024, at 9 p.m. EST on NBC exclusively. The official synopsis reads,

"When Dr. Teresa Sievers is found murdered in her kitchen, detectives struggle to find any leads until an unexpected tip changes everything; the woman who helped investigators speaks out."

---

Who was Teresa Sievers? Details explored

Teresa Ann Grace Sievers was born on November 19, 1968, in Derby, Connecticut, to the late John E. Tottenham and Mary Ann Aquila Groves. She studied at Ansonia High School in Connecticut, graduating as a valedictorian in 1986. Teresa then pursued a Masters of Science at Fairfield University in 1990.

Sievers graduated from the Ross University School of Medicine in 1996 and became the resident of the year at the University of Florida in Jacksonville. Furthermore, she received her board certification in internal medicine.

Dr. Teresa Sievers worked as a resident at Bonita Springs since 2006. She was also part of the staff of the Naples Community Hospital and then went ahead to start her practice at her organization, Restorative Health & Healing Center, in the Estero Medical Center, which she set up with her husband, Mark Sievers.

Dr. Sievers took up a board certification and fellowship at the American Academy of Anti-Aging, Regenerative & Functional Medicine. She also obtained another Medical Master of Science Degree in Metabolic & Nutritional Medicine through the University of South Florida.

Teresa Sievers got married to the brother of one of her friends, Mark Sievers, in 2003 after her first marriage was dissolved.

---

What happened to Teresa Sievers?

Teresa Sievers had been on a family vacation in Connecticut when she flew back to her Bonita Springs home on June 27, 2015. She had intended to attend to a few patients the following day. Her husband, Mark Sievers, had driven her to LaGuardia Airport in New York City for her flight.

Per court documents, Teresa was seen for the last time at the Southwest Florida International Airport. Mark Sievers had initially been in Missouri to allegedly attend a friend's wedding and then went up to Connecticut for the vacation. He had asked their neighbor, Dr. Mark Petrites, to check in on her when she failed to show up for work on June 29.

Petrites walked into their home to find Teresa face-down on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood. Dr. Mark Petrites dialed 911, and in the recorded call, he could be heard saying,

“She’s bashed in the back of the head. And she’s cold. She’s dead cold.”

The investigators noticed that the crime scene had been staged to look like a burglary. The safe with over $40,000 in cash had been left as is, while the shelves and drawers seemed purposefully ransacked, per The News-Press.

According to CBS News, Dr. Teresa Sievers had been struck with a hammer 17 times until she was dead. The complex investigation revealed a heinous murder-for-hire plot laid down by Mark Sievers with help from his friend from Missouri, Curtis Wayne Wright Jr., and a hitman, Jimmy Ray Rodgers.

---

Catch episode 29 of season 28 of Dateline on NBC on Friday.