HILLSBORO, Mo. (AP) - One of two Missouri men accused of killing a Florida doctor who was married to his childhood friend must go to that state to face prosecution, a judge ordered Wednesday.
A judge in Jefferson County, south of St. Louis, signed off on the extradition of Curtis Wayne Wright Jr., 47, of Hillsboro. Wright had challenged the efforts to be extradited to Florida.
Wright and 25-year-old Jimmy Ray Rodgers of Cadet, Missouri, both are charged with second-degree murder in the June killing of Teresa Sievers. She was a 46-year-old holistic physician and mother of two whose body was found in her Bonita Springs, Florida, home.
Wright grew up near St. Louis with Sievers' husband, who is not charged in his wife's death.
Authorities have divulged few details about the killing, including how Sievers died or a possible motive.
Rodgers was sentenced in September to six months in prison for violating probation in a 2011 case in which he pleaded guilty to being a felon in unlawful possession of a firearm. Authorities say the probation violation put him in the same Florida county where Sievers was killed - more than 1,100 miles from his eastern Missouri home - a day before her body was found.
Terms of Rodgers' probation had barred him from leaving Missouri, but his probation officer said he was seen at a Wal-Mart store on June 28 in Fort Myers, Florida, about 20 miles from Sievers' home.
Sheriff Mike Scott in Lee County, Florida, said recently that the investigation of Sievers' death is ongoing, and didn't rule out additional arrests.