A Lee County man trying to get off death row for murdering his wife and her sister is hopeful the judge will not reverse the ruling.
Mark Sievers was not in court himself Monday afternoon. He remains on death row. However, his lawyers are pushing to have sealed documents opened.
It has been a decade since Annie Lisa last spoke to her sister, Teresa Sievers.
"It's been 10 years," she said. "It's such a strange thing because sometimes it feels like — did this ever happen? Did we ever really have a life here together? Because it seems so far away."
In 2015, Teresa Sievers' husband, Mark Sievers, hired two hitmen to kill her at their Bonita Springs home. The motive was to collect nearly $100,000 in life insurance benefits.
"There were red flags for me with him from the beginning," Lisa said. "It was just one of those things where it wasn't like I thought he was a psychopath. I thought he was a creepy dude. But those aren't things you say to your sister without some information. It was an instinct."
For Teresa Sievers's family, this case seems to have no end. Lisa still remembers her last goodbye with her sister, giving her a huge hug.
"We hug everybody," she said. "But when it came to each other, we always just went, 'Yeah, I'm good.' But on that last day, the last time I saw her, we walked up to each other and did the standard. Then I just turned around and grabbed her so hard I almost knocked her off her feet. And she said, 'What are you doing? We don't do this.' And I said, 'I just feel like I have to.' That was some interesting foreshadowing for sure."
As Mark Sievers sits on death row, his lawyers are working to get a judge to unseal medical examiner records from the trial. The medical examiner wants the request denied, saying the records are not relevant.
Mark Sievers is trying to overturn his conviction and death sentence based on several factors, saying he had ineffective counsel and did not receive a fair trial due to the publicity surrounding the case.
Teresa Sievers' sister is confident that Mark Sievers will remain on death row.
"I know that he's never going to see the light of day, which is the most important thing to me," Lisa said.
The judge struck down the amended motion Monday, as it was filed by Mark Sievers himself. However, the judge signed an order directing that an evidentiary hearing be set. No date has been chosen yet.