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.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
The judge, when he issued the ruling in this case, pointed out that, you know, it can seem unfair. The law, the justice system can seem unfair to victims' families. And they definitely, that resonates with them because they feel that it's only the rights of people like their daughters' murderers that are being protected with justice.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
With the constant, you know, evolution of these laws that provide more protections and more relief. And so they've been advocating for victims' rights and they've been working with, you know, the sheriff's office as well as the DA's office from the beginning to raise money and just to raise awareness.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
We really wanted to give people something to think about and to also, you know, spread the word on what the family's trying to do. But, you know, doing these murders, I have an almost 13-year-old daughter, and I tried to shield her from some of the really horrific stuff. You know, and this definitely is at the top of the list, but she knows Justine Vandershoot's name. She knows her story.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
And even though she's too young to be dating, it's just, you know, it seemed like a natural thing thing for her to be aware of. I think Natalie and I, and obviously Justine's family, they just want to be able to help even one person, one family from having to go through what they have gone through with this, just by paying attention to the signs that were right there.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
A key element of the case is that this location was so hard to get to, at least the prosecution argued, and Brandon being able to lead detectives right to it without any hesitation in the dark. through sort of rugged terrain. Even the investigator, the original investigator on the case didn't know how to get there.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
Matt was the only one who was able to lead us every single time because he just grew up on these trails. And so he knew it like the back of his hand. There's a couple of road signs, but once you're there to actually get to the spot where the burial site is, there is nothing marking it. It's just sort of feeling your way and knowing where to go. And he couldn't really give us verbal directions.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
We had to have Matt as a guide every time, and he was just very generous in doing that.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
From what we've been told and also from some of the evidence photos we've seen, you know, back in the early 2000s, and this crime happened in 2003, it was really a dumping ground, you know, where you would have maybe unhoused populations coming through. There was an abandoned trailer there. So just all kinds of debris. And so a mattress was really not out of place. Wow.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
The sheriff's detectives tell us that they zeroed in on these guys early on. And one of the reasons being is that they did everything together, according to the people in the inner circle in the know who knew... Danny, Brandon, and Justine. And they found out that they were lying about their alibi that night. So that was sort of a big red flag right away that led them to look at these guys.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
But as they looked at them, they discovered that they had this... fascination with violence, with murder. They talked about being able to kill people and get away with it. They looked into beating polygraphs. Brandon was said to have a website that sort of ranked levels of violence. And based on the witness accounts of what they had seen, it was pretty startling, disturbing stuff.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
But the defense denies that Brandon ever said anything to encourage him. So all of that stuff kind of goes to motive, right?
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
Prosecutors tell us that there was nothing serious, criminally serious in these guys' backgrounds, but they both had brushes with the law as juveniles. Danny reportedly had been involved in some burglaries and possession of stolen property. Brandon had been prosecuted for hacking. He was a computer whiz. So we don't have access to their juvenile records, obviously, but, you know,
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
Again, prosecution says nothing that would lead you to believe that they could be dangerous on this level.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
And this is what happened to them. I think their emotions have really run the gamut over the last two decades. Having to... you know, kind of relive this over and over again every time that they have to face these guys at a parole hearing or, you know, now with Brandon, the second go-around for the petition to be resentenced. So...
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
It's just really hard to encapsulate what they're feeling because it's just such a range of emotions, you know, obviously anger in there, but a determination to make sure these guys don't get out.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
I think it's important to point out, too, that the defense kind of uses Danny's commitment to this lie and just the way that he's able to do it so flawlessly. And to say that, you know, this is the guy, this is the real danger here, and trying to use that as an argument to say that Brandon... was duped by him just as much as Justine was.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
We're told that the law was intended to give relief to people who were inadvertently, unintentionally involved in a murder where they neither intended to kill anyone. And they didn't actually do the killing, like a getaway driver in a robbery gone bad. And then those people used to be prosecuted at the same level as the person who actually pulled the trigger. This law was intended to... fix that.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
And unfortunately, according to prosecutors and Justine's family, the way that the law was written allowed someone like Brandon, who they say absolutely is not deserving and doesn't fit the bill on this, to apply and to be given a chance to actually make his case to a judge. If you listen to Brandon's defense attorney, he's exactly the kind of person for whom the law was intended because he says,
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice
And Brandon didn't commit the crime that he saw Justine as Danny had already killed her and then was so scared that he did what Danny told him, helped dig the grave, bury her, and then proceeded to lie to cover it up for over two weeks.