San Clemente fertility doctor convicted of wife's murder

An Orange County jury convicted a 58-year-old fertility doctor for his wife's murder Tuesday. 

Dr. Eric Scott Sills faces a maximum sentence of 15 years to life for his partner's death, which happened more than seven years ago. 

It happened in November 2016 when officers found 45-year-old Susann Sills dead at a foot stairs in the couple's San Clemente home. Prosecutors said her husband staged her death as an accident. Sills said he called 911 after he woke up to find his wife's lifeless body at the bottom of the stairs after an apparent fall. 

The Orange County District Attorney said investigators found blood stains on the wall and curtains of their daughter's bedroom where Susann was sleeping off a migraine. They found a clump of the woman's hair and claimed it indicated a violent struggle happened in the bedroom. 

"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 but the woman he vowed to love in sickness and health was strangled to death by his own hands," Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said.   

Susann and Eric Sills co-founded the Center of Advanced Genetics fertility clinic in Carlsbad the year before her death.

"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," Spitzer said. "It took calculated planning to commit this crime and worse of all he ruthlessly and selfishly murdered the mother of their children who now are left without their parents."