Gayane Keshishyan Mendez
Appearances
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
Sie macht ihn ein bisschen wie ein Narzissist, weißt du? Obwohl sie später in der Interview, glaube ich, auch ein bisschen mit ihm zu führen, weil sie eine Sache für Ärzte hat.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
That's an interesting point. He is a scientist. Once she heard about the arrest, Marie told investigators she felt guilty and she thought that that he might have killed his wife, basically to be with her.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
Er listet numerisch die Dinge, die er so beeindruckend über sie findet. Und ich erinnere mich nicht, ob ihre materiellen Fähigkeiten einer davon sind, aber er spricht definitiv darüber, wie groß sie in einem Bikini sieht und sagt, du würdest mir wirklich mit meiner Praxis helfen. Wir würden es zu einem anderen Niveau nehmen. Und er bietet ihr ein bisschen
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
The position of business manager that Suzanne held. And throughout this letter, which is quite long, or email rather, he kind of reminds himself that, oh, but I've been through this tragedy. But now that I've had a chance to grieve and I'm ready to get out there again, I really want you in my life and we don't have to sneak around now.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
The prosecutor and also the medical experts testified that it takes 30 seconds to render someone unconscious. And then depending on how old you are, you know, your health, it could take, you know, three to five minutes to actually strangle someone to death. And the prosecutor actually looked at a watch and said, let's all just wait for 30 seconds just to see how long 30 seconds feels like.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
Yeah, it's really unfathomable what she and her brother Eric have been through, you know, from the age of 12 losing their mom. They've sort of lost their dad now, even though he's alive, but he's not going to be around, really. And Mary Catherine's foster mom passed away shortly before the sentencing. And she apparently is the one who found her dead.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
So, just so much tragedy and it's just heartbreaking.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
So he's out of state, whereas Mary Catherine still lives in Southern California. But both Mary Catherine and Eric were called to testify at the trial by the prosecution. He would say things like, I don't really remember. But then he would be presented with a statement that he made when he was 12. And when asked, he would say, yes, you know, that that was truthful.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
So, you know, they're very much in their dad's corner.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
So I was at the sentencing and they were sitting on separate sides of the courtroom where the grandmother, Teresa, and Suzanne's stepbrother were on one side, you know, kind of on the prosecution side. And then Mary Catherine was and her other friends and family were on the defense side of the aisle. Theresa was very careful not to say anything really negative about Dr. Sills.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
She really focused on her daughter, Suzanne, and this amazing woman that she was and the hopes that she had to see her daughter grow up and get married and all these wonderful things. And then once the sentencing was over, Mary Catherine came over and talked to her grandmother and they reminisced a little bit.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
That was nice to see, because we did know that that was something that was really important for Suzanne's mom, was to maintain the relationship, at least with her grandchildren. And she made a really poignant remark during her statement.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
That's a really good point. And it's something that was debated at the trial. The 911 call was actually played several times, both by the prosecution and the defense. And when the prosecution played it,
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
Sie hat es wirklich von der Perspektive her entdeckt, dass all diese Dinge, die anders klingen als man erwarten würde, eine Person, die seine Frau gerade totgefunden hat und versuchen würde, ihr Leben zu retten, tun. Sie argumentiert, dass er sich aufgibt, ihr CPR zu geben, dass er tatsächlich wartet auf den 911-Operator, um ihm Instruktionen zu geben, CPR zu machen.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
And he's kind of fiddling around, trying to find something called a pulse oximeter, which measures if you're breathing, if you have a heartbeat. And so he waits about five minutes before he actually starts administering Die CPR und, you know, I think we all know that it's key to start doing CPR right away.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
The prosecution said that this 911 call is really just a setup for him to tell his story for the first time. And he knows that she's dead. There's nothing he can do. So he's just sort of biding his time and going through the motions.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
It's something that was brought up at trial and something that Jack Early, the defense attorney, kind of went after the fact that it took a year to get this ruling for the cause of death and made the case that The forensic pathologist was essentially on the prosecution's team, you know, working with the investigators rather than being sort of an objective scientific mind looking at the case.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
And when the forensic pathologist who did the autopsy was on the stand, the defense attorney tried to say that she kind of arbitrarily picked the cause of death and waited until there was more from the investigation. so that she could figure out which one fit best and chose that conclusion. But the investigators say, look, she just wanted to be careful. She wanted to look at all the facts.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
And the forensic pathologist does look at evidence in the case they're not looking at just the body so in this case she saw early on that there was a c3 fracture and the ligature mark and she indicated all of the injuries um you know on a diagram right away but she didn't draw her conclusions until she actually saw some crime scene photos and found out about the blood in the room
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
He didn't necessarily try to explain it. I think he was more trying to poke holes in the prosecution's theory and he countered it with, well, you don't see Marx anywhere else in the house. You know, like the prosecution's arguing, there's this big fight to the death. in the bedroom and that he placed her at the bottom of the stairs. But he's saying, if that's true, where's the evidence of that?
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
Why isn't there more blood? Why isn't there blood all over the floor, damage to the furniture? You know, he's saying there are no marks anywhere if you're going to make the argument that there are no marks on the stairs. So that was more his strategy, was to kind of give you the argument for the reverse argument.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
Ja, ich meine, einige davon haben wir in unserer Stunde besprochen, aber es gab einige furchtbare Texte, die Susanne innerhalb von drei Monaten ihres Todes geschickt hat. Es gab Finanzen, die ziemlich fest waren, weil sie dieses Geschäft angefangen haben, und deshalb mussten sie alles dazugeben, bis es auf dem Boden kam.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
And another issue that we heard not only in trial, but also from one of the friends of Suzanne that we interviewed, was that Suzanne felt really disrespected by Scott's older children at times, his son. And she was upset that, you know, her husband really didn't stick up for her. So that was something that the prosecutor...
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
Also mentioned at trial that in these text messages was one of the things that she was mad at him about.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
And then, of course, there are those Patrick.net posts and the photo that was posted of Suzanne Toplas.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
Patrick von Patrick.net? Und sie waren wirklich freundliche Verhandlungen. Sie scheint sich wirklich komfortabel zu fühlen, über ihre politischen Ansichten zu sprechen. Sie hat sogar einige persönliche Fotos von sich selbst, ihrer Familie, ihren Pässen teilt. Es war wie ihr kleiner Raum und sie scheint sich komfortabel zu verweisen.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
When Patrick testified, he said that someone claiming to be Dr. Sills emailed him after Suzanne's death. He was being asked to remove Suzanne's information off of Patrick.net. And he said that that made him really uncomfortable and he felt like it would be destroying evidence. He said he left everything as is pertaining to Suzanne.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
And when Dr. Sills was arrested, somebody, one of the users actually posted something like, Why do I have a feeling this is going to end up on 48 Hours Mystery on CBS? So yeah, it was very interesting.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The Perplexing Death of Susann Sills
One of her friends that we interviewed, Chris Solomini, he said that, you know, she wasn't like an overly flirtatious person. That wasn't the purpose with which she would do this. But he said she was somebody who would stick to her word. So if she made that promise, she was not going to back down.