Doctor found guilty of murdering wife, claiming she fell

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A California doctor who claimed more than seven years ago that his wife died from accidentally falling down the stairs has been convicted of murdering her.

Eric Scott Sills, 58, was convicted by a jury Tuesday of one count of second-degree murder for strangling his 45-year-old wife, Susann Sills, then staging her body at the bottom of the stairs of their San Clemente home in November 2016, prosecutors said.

He faces up to 15 years to life in state prison when sentenced in March.

“Think of how diabolical you have to be — not only to kill your wife but to make it look like she had fallen down the stairs,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said.

“It took calculated planning to commit this crime, and worst of all, he ruthlessly and selfishly murdered the mother of their children, who now are left without their parents,” he said of their then-12-year-old twins.

“Dr. Sills was sworn to care for the sick and injured and his chosen profession as a fertility doctor helped bring so much joy to his patients,” the DA said.

“But the woman he vowed to love in sickness and health was strangled to death by his own hands.”

Sills had called 911 on Nov. 13, 2016, claiming that he woke to find the lifeless body of his wife of 10 years after she “apparently fell down the stairs,” prosecutors said.

He was arrested for her murder more than two years later after it was confirmed she died by strangulation, not a fall.

Bloodstains were also found on a wall and curtains in her daughter’s bedroom, where the woman was sleeping because of a migraine.

“A clump of her hair also was found in the room, indicating that there had been a violent struggle between the couple,” the DA’s office said.

The Sillses had been married for more than 10 years and worked together at the Center for Advanced Genetics, a fertility clinic in Carlsbad.

The couple had twins, a boy and a girl.

A motive remained unclear, but prosecutors said during the trial that the couple had marital problems, and Susann had texted her husband that she “wants out,” the Orange County Register said.

“She is frustrated, upset, feels trapped and feels like he is killing her,” Senior Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Walker told jurors. “She tells him in these texts, ‘You are killing me, don’t you see?’”

Sills’ defense attorney, Jack Earley, argued that Susann Sills had taken painkillers and had not been eating, which could have made her disoriented and resulted in a fall.

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