FORT MYERS, Fla. — Curtis Wayne Wright, who confessed to taking part in the brutal murder of a beloved Bonita Springs doctor, Teresa Sievers, officially received his sentence Monday.
Investigators say the doctor's husband, Mark Sievers, hired Curtis Wright and Jimmy Rodgers to murder Dr. Teresa Sievers.
To avoid potentially facing capital murder, Wright took a plea deal and turned into a key witness against Mark Sievers and Jimmy Rodgers.
The payoff for Wright would be that he could go free after serving just twenty-five years in prison.
After having testified during the Mark Sievers and Jimmy Rodgers trials as agreed upon in his plea deal, Judge Bruce Kyle sentenced Wright to twenty-five years in prison.
During his testimonies against both Sievers and Rodgers, Wright confessed he and Rodgers drove to down to Bonita Springs to kill Dr. Teresa Sievers.
However, Wright said Mark Sievers had been the mastermind behind the murder.
In an emotional victim impact statement, Mary Ann Groves blamed Wright for the murder of her daughter.
"You, Curtis Wayne Wright, have stolen this gift from us. You are responsible for what has happened to her. You have robbed us of the most brilliant, unique, and compassionate doctor and human being," said Mary Ann Groves, Teresa Sievers' mother.
Monday was the third time Groves has had to give an impact statement; the other two were during Mark Sievers' and Jimmy Rodgers' sentencings.
"I wish that there was a way, anything at all that I could do, to change what happened, but I can't. That'll be with me for the rest of my life," said Wright as he apologized to the court and Groves for his actions.
Wright claimed he was sorry for joining Jimmy Rodgers in savagely beating the doctor to death with a hammer.
Dr. Teresa Sievers was found dead in her Bonita Springs home in 2015, with seventeen lacerations to the head.
"I'm sorry," said Wight as he faced Teresa Sievers' mother.
Following the sentencing, Wright's defense attorney, Elizabeth Parker, said Wright's conscience led him to turn on the men he planned the murder of Dr. Teresa Sievers.
"Once he came to grips with what he had done, he did try to do the right thing, and I think you saw that through his testimony, and I think you saw that through the verdicts," said Parker.
Rodgers received a life sentence after being convicted by a jury of second-degree murder in December.
Mark Sievers received a death sentence after a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder for the killing of his wife, Dr. Teresa Sievers.
"He [Wright] knows that the plea and the sentencing today will never give Teresa's family the justice that they deserve," said Parker.
"It's good that these cases are finally drawing to a close, and this family, which has gone through so much [can] start moving forward instead of being angered in the past," said Assistant State Attorney, Cynthia Ross.
Following the sentencing, prosecutors requested the judge recommend Wright and the other two convicted murderers have no contact with one another.
Judge Bruce Kyle said he could give the recommendation, but it's ultimately up to the Department of Corrections.
