SAN CLEMENTE, CA — A fertility doctor strangled his wife and staged it as if she fell down stairs to her death in their San Clemente home, a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday, while the defendant’s attorney faulted the investigation for bias and characterized her death as a “horrible accident.”
Eric Scott Sills, 58, is charged with murder in the Nov. 13, 2016, death of 45-year-old Susann Stephanie Arsuaga Sills.
The victim had told her husband “she wants out” of their marriage, Senior Deputy District attorney Jennifer Walker said.
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“She’s frustrated, upset, feels trapped and feels like he is killing her,” Walker said.
Sills was also upset that she shared a topless photo of herself on an online chat group she belonged to, Walker said. Susann Sills had lost a bet about former President Donald Trump winning the Republican nomination in 2016, so she posted the photo, Walker said.
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“This did not make the defendant happy,” Walker said.
Sills sounded “unemotional” on a 911 call with first responders regarding his wife the day she died, Walker said.
“The defendant says we’ve got a patient here who has fallen down the stairs,” Walker said. “He doesn’t even say it’s his wife. He refers to her as a patient.”
Sills was slow to do CPR on his wife while talking to a 911 dispatcher, Walker said.
“Why? Because he already knew she was dead,” Walker said.
Susann Sills had gotten a migraine while attending a parade days before she was killed, Walker said. She periodically suffered from the fierce headaches, she added.
So her daughter spruced up her own room like a hotel for her mother to use while she slept in the master bedroom, Walker said. But investigators found blood on the curtains and on the wall and night stand as well as a clump of the victim’s hair, Walker said.
Investigators had the Orange County Crime Lab do three DNA reports on items found in the home and found the defendant’s genetic material, Walker said.
“This was no rush to judgment,” Walker said, referring to how prosecutors took three years before charging the defendant. “You won’t see confirmation bias, but scientific confirmation.”
The daughter’s twin brother woke up at about 4 a.m. to the sounds of his parents arguing, Walker said. He went and told his sister he couldn’t sleep because of the clamor, Walker said.
The victim’s cause of death was eventually determined to be strangulation, Walker said. The victim had “ligature” marks on her neck and other cuts on her that were “inconsistent with falling down stars,” Walker said.
A scarf was around her neck when first responders arrived in an attempt “to hide the ligature marks,” Walker alleged.
The defendant also put on a “beanie” to hide a cut on his head, Walker said.
The victim was 5-feet-5 and “too tall” to suffer a deadly injury falling down the height of the home’s stairs, Walker said.
The defendant’s attorney, Jack Earley, said Susann Sills was an indispensable part of the couple’s Center for Advanced Genetics fertility clinic in Carlsbad. She played nurse, receptionist and office manager, Earley said.
Many of their clients were from China and other Asian countries where fertility treatments are not allowed, so she often had to tend to business at odd hours when their clients were up for the day, Earley said.
The defense attorney downplayed any rancor in the relationship, blaming occasional outbursts to the victim’s migraines. Sills was in on the joke with the Trump bet and was even going to take the topless photo, but was busy at work, so their daughter took it, Earley said.
“It was a very busy family,” Earley said. “And they were on a tight budget.”
One source of angst came when the couple argued about his alimony payments to his ex-wife and their son and daughter, Earley said.
But Susann Sills worked hard to blend the two families and coordinated trips between the half-siblings, Earley said.
Earley explained that of course his client’s DNA is on his wife’s clothes and on her.
“You’re going to hear a lot about DNA,” Earley said. “But what you’ll hear is if you live in a house your DNA will be everywhere in the house.”
Earley said the pathologist in the case initially told investigators that it appeared the victim died from a fall down the stairs, but later changed her determination to be strangulation. It was her first case of strangulation, he said.
“It took a year for her to reach a conclusion,” Earley said.
Susann Sills had taken valium, a muscle relaxant, and Tramadol, a painkiller, to treat her migraine, Earley said. The two aren’t meant to be mixed, he said.
Susann Sills also suffered from a “fainting disorder,” Earley said.
“Guess what she gets from migraines when they’re bad?” Earley said. “Vertigo.”
But authorities ignored those explanations because they had their minds made up that it was murder, Earley said. The physician would have been “stupid” to think a scarf could disguise the strangulation, Earley said.
The scarf was a routine she had in case her migraines made her nauseous and she had to wipe her face, Earley said. He suggested the family’s two rambunctious 100-pound dogs were yanking on the scarf after the fall and left the marks.
The hair clump was also normal, he said, because of her use of hair dye and extensions. It was a source of complaints at times, he said.
The defendant cut his head when he burned his arm while working on their car and jolted, causing him to bump his head on the hood, Earley said. It was healing at the time and it was routine for him in the winter months to wear the hat, Earley said.
The blood was on the curtains before that night and were due to be replaced soon, Earley said.
Investigators did not test the scarf for the DNA of the dogs, Earley said. If they had, they would have found pig DNA on it because the victim would buy pig ears from Costco for the pets to chew on, Earley said.
The defense attorney played the 911 call for jurors so they could hear how he tries to find a device to test her blood-oxygen level and do CPR on his wife and their daughter declares she can hear her mother making noises. The doctor also said he got a slight reading from the blood-oxygen device, Earley said.
The victim broke her neck falling down the “steep” stairs, Earley said.
“It was a horrible accident,” he said. “They lost their mother, he lost his wife … This is not a murder.”
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