Correspondent Tracy Smith and Producer Gayane Keshishyan Mendez discuss the case of Susann Sills, a mother of twins who was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in the home she shared with her husband, a renowned fertility doctor. The team discusses the 911 call made by Dr. Sills, the police interview with a woman investigators believed he was courting, and the defense’s unusual theory that the family dogs were involved in Susann's death. This episode originally aired on May 21, 2024. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who was Susann Sills and what were the circumstances of her death?
Hallo und willkommen zu Postmortem. Ich bin deine Hostin Anne-Marie Green und heute sprechen wir über den Fall von Suzanne Sills, die am Boden eines Steckkastens in ihrer Orange County, Kalifornien, gestorben wurde. Sein Mann, ein renowneder Fertilitätschirurg, sagt, dass sie gestorben ist und dass ihr Tod ein Unfall war. But later, he's charged with her murder.
So joining me now to discuss the final episode of this season are 48-Hours-Correspondent Tracy Smith and producer Gayan Kashishian-Mendez. Tracy, Gayan, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having us. Thank you. All right, everyone, before we dive in. A quick reminder for our listeners to go first and watch or listen to this episode. The title is The Puzzling Death of Suzanne Sills.
You can find the full audio just below this episode in your podcast feed. So go listen if you haven't already and then come join us for our conversation. All right, here we go. So there's something really unusual about this case. It's that Suzanne's husband is a doctor. And you would imagine that if you're going to have an accident at home and fall down your stairs, this is the best case scenario.
Chapter 2: What are the key details of the 911 call made by Dr. Sills?
The doctor is already there. So we heard some portions of the 911 call that he made on that morning, Sunday, November 13th, 2016. We want to play some of it because there are a few points that really jumped out at me right away.
Okay, and what's happened?
We got a patient here who's fallen upstairs and I don't have a pulse and she's cold and I don't know what time this happened.
Okay, so she's not breathing? No, she's not breathing. She's not breathing. Okay, so I've got help being sent while we're talking. Is there anybody else there with you?
Oh yes, our whole family's here.
Okay, let's get her down on a hard flat surface on her back.
Okay.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
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Chapter 3: Why was the 911 call significant in the trial?
Why is he acting like he doesn't know CPR? He's a doctor.
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,
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.
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.
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.
But then he also calls her the patient.
So Jack Early, the defense attorney for Dr. Sills, says, yes, he calls her the patient, but he's in doctor mode. So he is maybe detaching himself a little bit, but that's because he's gone into doctor mode now. He's getting the pulse ox because the 911 operator asked if she was alive. So his thought is, I can get the pulse ox to find out if she's alive. This is what Jack Early is telling us.
He also was saying, he's not doing CPR every day in his IVF practice. So of course he's maybe a little rusty on CPR. And he also argues that Mary Catherine, the daughter, is sitting there. Would Mary Catherine be in on this conspiracy? This is what Jack Early is asking me. Okay, those are all really, really interesting points that I had not considered.
So, a year after Suzanne's death, the coroner's office finally cited her cause of death as ligature strangulation and the manner a homicide. Out of curiosity, why did it take a year to come to a conclusion? Or is that a standard...
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Chapter 4: What unusual defense theory was presented regarding dogs?
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.
Und dann, you know, Tracy, when you spoke to Jack earlier, he sort of gave a little more insight into what he thought happened.
He kind of had two theories, but let me just explain this. It was tough to get the full story out of Jack early because he says he can't tell it because it's Dr. Sills' story. Dr. Sills didn't testify, so he basically said we didn't get the whole story at trial. There's more to tell and Scott Sills has to tell it. Now having said that, what he said to us was...
Maybe she was killed by the C3 fracture, so the fracture to her neck, which would have happened from a fall down the stairs. Or maybe she was incapacitated enough from the C3 fracture that then she's at the bottom of the stairs and the dogs pull on the scarf enough to leave the mark, not necessarily to kill her.
He also theorized that maybe it was one dog because the scarf was tied around her neck and then you wouldn't have to have the coordination of the two dogs. Then you just have the one dog pulling on the tied scarf and it could have made that even mark. This was his theory.
Did they present any of that at trial? I mean...
Yes, he did. He even went so far as to test the scarf for dog DNA. And it came back positive with dog DNA, cat DNA and pig DNA, which they explained as the dogs were eating pig ears as snacks. And so that would leave pig DNA on the scarf. But yeah, I mean, he went with the dog theory.
Yes. So he was sort of asking the jury to disregard the coroner's report and to find a different cause of death.
Yes, he poked holes in exactly in the ruling that it was ligature strangulation that caused that was the cause of death. Yes.
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Chapter 5: What evidence was analyzed to determine the cause of death?
Yeah, that's true. I mean, they said that they didn't need to prove motive, but they gave a lot of options. Right, Diane?
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.
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...
Also mentioned at trial that in these text messages was one of the things that she was mad at him about.
I think the texts are really interesting because, you know, in talking to Jack early, he basically said, if you pull out these things that we pulled out, like I just want out and you're killing me. Yes, they sound very damning, but these are all related to work. This couple worked together, that it's that working relationship that caused all of the tension and you shouldn't read so much text.
into it. You know what? I work with my spouse. I kind of get that argument. It can get tense. And it doesn't mean it's not a reflection on the whole marriage. It's just in that working situation.
And then, of course, there are those Patrick.net posts and the photo that was posted of Suzanne Toplas.
Let us talk about this, because I found the whole thing just really odd. But let's just start with, because I'd never heard of Patrick.net. Can you just sort of explain what Patrick.net is?
So it's basically this political chat room that's frequented by conservatives, kind of like Twitter or Reddit, but they say much more freedom of speech than either Twitter or Reddit.
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Chapter 6: What motives were suggested for Dr. Sills to murder his wife?
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.
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.
Okay, let's talk about that Patrick.net post that Suzanne made. This photo, this topless photo.
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.
So in the photo, though, you notice both of Suzanne's hands are partially visible. It might have been taken using a self-timer, but do we have any idea who actually took this photo?
Well, the defense argued at one point that it was Mary Catherine who took the photo, right? And I'm not sure... wie das ihnen hilft, und sagen, dass es vielleicht eine Familienaktivität war, und dass er nicht so wütend sein würde. Ich schätze nur, ich bin nicht sicher, wo sie damit gehen.
Aber Jack Early hat es uns sehr klar gemacht, dass er nicht glaubte, dass Scott von dieser Foto und dem Chat wütend war. Die Frage ist, wenn es ihn nicht so wütend macht, dann warum hat er ein Bildschirm von dem Patrick.net-Chat auf seinem Telefon und dann ein Printout von dem auf seinem Printer?
Welcome back. So, another possible motive that investigators explored was a one-time relationship Sills had with a woman named Marie Dalton. Now, she was a former nurse that he met online while he was still married to Suzanne. I want to play a clip that we didn't get to put in the hour of Marie's conversation with police after Suzanne died.
So, did he mention that he was stuck in his loveless marriage and, you know, it was kind of
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Chapter 7: What role did online activity play in the investigation?
Yeah, he's a wee bit rusty, I guess, in the wooing department, but it almost sounds like something that was written by ChatGPT. There's something, I don't know how to explain it, somewhat sort of oddly mechanical about it.
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.
But, you know, we did ask Jack early about this flat out. Did he want to get Suzanne out of the way? And he said no. And then he actually went on to say off camera that Dr. Sills really was just looking for a He's very complimentary to Marie and he actually kind of...
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
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.
Just to remind everyone, this letter comes two weeks after his wife dies. So the jury deliberates and the big question is not only if they're going to find him guilty, but if they will find him guilty of first degree or second degree murder. So first off, can we kind of explain what the difference is?
Sure. Basically, first degree murder is premeditated and second degree murder is not premeditated. So second degree, you didn't plan it. First degree, you did plan it. Now, in this case, the prosecution.
Er argumentiert, dass er vielleicht nicht über diese Tage oder Wochen vor dem Zeitpunkt gedacht hat, aber es wurde, wie sie sagen, premeditiert, dass er, wenn er sie verabschiedet hat, sie für einen langen Zeitraum verabschiedet hat. Und der Zeitraum, den es dauert, jemanden zu verabschieden, und nicht nur sie zu verabschieden, ist lang genug, um ihm zu sagen, was ich tue und stoppe.
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.
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