California
The Robber Baroness of Northern California
As he investigates her homicide, White finds that Jane Stanford’s sanitized public persona masked a actuality that was each extra scandalous and weirder. A spiritualist who attended the flowery séances {of professional} mediums, Stanford sought counsel and luxury from her departed son and husband. However extra importantly, for White’s functions, she usually clashed with the residing.
These clashes, in accordance with White, started within the dwelling. Regardless of her professions of devotion, Berner usually fought with Stanford over the circumstances of her employment. She briefly stop, in 1889, when Stanford denied her day off to look after her sick mom. Comparable disputes arose once more on a number of of Stanford’s prolonged home and worldwide journeys. Stanford, who was deeply spiritual, additionally suspected that Berner was romantically concerned with two male workers within the family, and made no secret of her disapproval. Berner obtained her revenge by taking kickbacks on family bills.
Although White portrays her as a very tyrannical employer, Stanford was all too typical within the management that she sought over her workers’ time and our bodies. Reside-in servants usually labored twelve-hour days, and even when not formally working had been “on name.” “Mistresses,” like Stanford, sometimes permitted the members of their employees to go away the home just one night through the week, and each different Sunday afternoon and night. They positioned themselves because the ethical guardians of their working-class workers, and disciplined servants discovered flirting or socializing with males. Romantic suitors, in any case, had been opponents for workers’ time and loyalty. On this sense, Berner’s relationships weren’t solely a menace to Stanford’s Christian sensibilities—additionally they threatened the sleek operations of a family that was each bit as a lot of a enterprise as Leland’s railroads. The maids, cooks, and secretaries who play a key position within the occasions in White’s guide had been solely the innermost circle of the Stanfords’ a lot bigger employees.
White focusses on the dramas that unfolded within the family and the college, however the Stanford property’s most bitter labor conflicts passed off on the household farms. Moreover their major residence, located in downtown San Francisco, the Stanfords owned three rural properties: a seventy-two-hundred-acre residential property and inventory farm, in Palo Alto; the Gridley wheat farm, in Butte County; and the Vina Ranch, straddling Butte and Tehama County, which contained a rustic home and what was, by some accounts, the world’s largest winery. The properties constituted the unique endowment for the college that the Stanfords based and, after Leland’s loss of life, a possible supply of money.
When Jane Stanford inherited the farms, she got down to make the sometimes money-losing properties worthwhile by leasing sections of the land, promoting off a few of Leland’s horses, closing a distillery, and firing workers who wouldn’t take pay cuts. When Stanford visited Vina within the winter of 1894, newspapers reported {that a} group of native males surrounded her non-public automobile, shouting and firing their revolvers into the air.
Stanford additionally took a web page out of her late husband’s enterprise playbook, hiring indebted migrant staff by the labor contractors who operated all through the area. Not lengthy after the taking pictures incident, rumors started circulating that she had changed Vina’s whole employees of white winery staff with Japanese migrants contracted at decrease wages. That wasn’t fairly true, however newspaper protection, guests’ accounts, and data within the Stanford household’s archives all point out that Jane Stanford employed a whole bunch of each Chinese language and Japanese staff throughout the farm properties, sometimes paying them lower than whites in comparable jobs. Because the historian Cecilia Tsu has written, the favored picture of Northern California as a haven for the idyllic white “household farm” masked the area’s reliance on a big, expert Asian labor drive.
In August, 1898, Stanford instructed her buddy Could Hopkins that she was in Vina attempting to “pacify a bitter feeling current between white workers and Chinese language.” The white staff, it turned out, had set hearth to the winery, protesting the discount of their day by day wages and the employment of Chinese language grape pickers. The arsonists destroyed 600 kilos of hay and alfalfa, together with all the winery instruments, although it appeared that their actual targets had been close by cabins belonging to the Chinese language pickers. Stanford claimed that she subtle the stress with “a couple of form phrases,” and the newspapers praised her as a “peacemaker.” Per week later, fifteen cabins burned down.
The papers attributed the fireplace to a “careless smoker,” however the incident had all of the markers of the anti-Chinese language violence that the historian Beth Lew-Williams has proven was endemic within the Gilded Age. Towards the backdrop of California’s surging battles over labor and immigration, the goings on at Vina couldn’t fully escape controversy. But the farm’s proprietor retained her picture as a gracious homemaker. In her biography, all Berner talked about of Stanford’s administration of Vina had been the preserved fruits, fruit cordials, and selection meats that the widow introduced again to share among the many residents and company of her residence within the metropolis.
Valued at twenty million {dollars} in 1891, Leland Stanford Junior College’s land-backed endowment exceeded the price of Harvard’s by an element of almost 5. The Stanfords envisioned the college as an alternative choice to the élite universities of the East, which sought to coach rich gents for a lifetime of cultured leisure. Their college, in distinction, would admit women and men of all courses. It could settle for high-school store work as an entrance prerequisite, provide extension programs on agricultural science to native fruit growers, and dispense with each grades and tuition.
It’s tempting to view the college merely as a sort of cash laundry, recycling the Stanfords’ ill-gotten positive aspects for the noble functions of teaching the frequent individuals. However the couple’s goals, particularly Jane ’s, had been extra formidable. She didn’t solely need to achieve the favor of California’s working courses. Because the scholar John Ott has argued, she additionally needed to mildew them.
The college’s most significant function, Stanford defined in an deal with to its Board of Trustees a couple of years after her husband’s loss of life, was the event of the coed’s “soul germ.” She urged the trustees to eschew school rooms in favor of outlets and workshops that will “dignify labor” by educating future staff to “use their palms deftly and usefully.” Stanford believed that, along with offering vocational coaching, the college ought to inculcate the values of religion, thrift, and abstinence of varied sorts. She and her husband banned alcohol from the dormitories and capped the variety of girls undergraduates at 5 hundred.
Élite Western girls of this era, because the historian Peggy Pascoe has written, sought ethical authority in a male-dominated world by insisting on their distinctive capability for piety and purity. In search of affect in relation to males, they might exert their energy over nonwhites and the poor. Like friends who established “rescue properties” for sex-workers and single moms, Stanford made her generosity contingent on adherence to her ethical code.
Unsurprisingly, college students chafed at Stanford’s supervision of their social lives. White finds that directors and professors additionally objected to her meddling in tutorial affairs. “Within the eyes of the legislation the college professors had been Mrs. Stanford’s private servants,” the college president, David Starr Jordan, wrote in “The Story of a Good Lady,” primarily based on a speech he gave to honor the college’s co-founder. Jordan was referring to a decide’s order, through the dispute over Leland Stanford, Sr.,’s property, that the college pay its workers’ salaries from the identical allowance reserved for family employees. However White’s characterization of the connection between Jordan and Jane Stanford means that the assertion may need had one other that means. Regardless of the flowery reward he provided her in public, Jordan privately fumed over Stanford’s interference in issues of hiring and firing.
The tensions between Stanford and Jordan got here to a head over the destiny of the economics professor Edward Ross. Ross had advocated publicly for populist causes resembling including silver to gold because the financial customary, the general public regulation of personal utilities, and a ban on Japanese immigration—reportedly saying the U.S. ought to flip its weapons on each ship crossing the Pacific. Stanford was outraged by the assertion, much less due to its horrifying genocidal implications than as a result of it represented an assault on the labor practices of capitalists like her husband and herself. Jordan tried to steer Stanford to retain Ross within the title of freedom of speech, to no avail. Ross resigned, at Stanford’s behest and amid nice scandal, forcing Jordan to take the blame for the choice and defend his benefactress with a purpose to save the college’s fame. For as soon as, the general public wasn’t fooled. “Mrs. Stanford selects a president and college as she would a butler with a employees of footmen, cooks, and scallions,” one newspaper reported.
The injury to the college’s standing ensuing from the “Ross Affair” and different tutorial scandals set the stage for what White argues was Jordan’s cover-up of Jane Stanford’s homicide. Wills and trusts had been susceptible to authorized problem if the testator was deemed insane, and people episodes had impressed whispers about Stanford’s erratic decision-making and her communions with spirits. A homicide trial would convey extra undesirable consideration to a few of the much less savory elements of the benefactress’s previous, and solutions of suicide might be taken as proof of madness. With the college’s monetary and reputational grounds threatening to break down underneath the load of one other scandal, the one answer was to redirect the general public’s consideration away from the suspicious circumstances of Stanford’s loss of life.
Solely as soon as in her biography, on the third-to-last web page, does Bertha Berner come near telling one thing like the reality about Jane Stanford. “Mrs. Stanford got here to rule individuals by her wealth,” Berner writes, “and no crown or title might have made her rule extra absolute nor the conclusion of her energy extra clear in her thoughts.” Nonetheless, Berner couches that blunt evaluation in reward. She tells us that Stanford modelled her monarchical fashion on Queen Victoria’s, doggedly devoting herself to the welfare of her individuals. When Stanford had performed all that she might to enhance their lot, Berner writes, she was able to die.
White additionally lays out his playing cards in his guide’s remaining pages. Berner, he concludes, killed Jane Stanford—possibly due to the cash that Stanford left her in her will, possibly as a result of Berner feared that Stanford would discover out concerning the kickbacks, possibly as a result of she’d merely had sufficient. Jordan, too, had a believable motive for homicide—Stanford deliberate to fireside him upon getting back from her journey—however White thinks that the bumbling administrator didn’t have it in him. As a substitute, the historian concludes, Jordan hid Berner’s crime to guard the college’s picture, and his personal.
White helps his theories with some essential items of neglected proof, resembling a short point out in a newspaper story connecting Berner to a druggist who would have had entry to strychnine. However, greater than something, it’s the continually shifting tales that Berner and Jordan instructed about their employer that appear to show their guilt. Like Debs, each Berner and Jordan had incentives to uphold Stanford’s picture as a guileless widow.
The thriller of Jane Stanford’s loss of life seems to hinge on the thriller of her life: how a lady on the flip of the 20th century might amass such energy, and the way she might disguise that energy from the general public. As a substitute of in search of equality with males, Stanford insisted on her distinction, and capitalized upon her authority as a spouse and mom. She prolonged her dominance properly past the family by working underneath the pretense of female care and generosity. Her achievement, ultimately, was not emulating her husband, however performing with a ruthlessness that was fully her personal.
California
A California doctor said his wife died in an accidental fall. Her injuries told a different story.
On Nov. 13, 2016, Dr. Eric “Scott” Sills, a renowned California fertility doctor, called 911 and reported finding his wife and business partner Susann Sills unresponsive at the bottom of the stairs. An initial investigation revealed some evidence that was consistent with an accidental fall. But as “48 Hours” correspondent Tracy Smith reports, other evidence pointed to something more sinister.
A PUZZLING SCENE
On that Sunday morning, Orange County Sheriff’s Homicide Detectives Eric Hatch and Dave Holloway had more questions than clues.
Tracy Smith: At that point in time that morning November 13th, was Scott Sills a victim or a suspect?
Det. Dave Holloway: To us … he was a victim. … We were going to a house where two kids and a husband just lost their wife and mother.
Tracy Smith: Is it a steep stairway?
Det. Eric Hatch: Yeah, it’s pretty high. I believe it was 13-and-a-half feet from the floor to the top of the stairs.
Tracy Smith: Did it seem plausible that a 45-year-old woman, in pretty good shape, would’ve fallen down the stairs to her death?
Det. Eric Hatch: At the time, it sounded believable.
Det. Dave Holloway: Susann had injuries to pretty much her whole body. … Her face … was all bruised up. Her … back was bruised up. … Both arms and legs were — had bruising and abrasions.
And around her body was an odd collection of items — a stainless steel soup pot, a purse and an empty medication bottle. A scarf was found off to the side.
Det. Eric Hatch: They definitely stood out … especially that steel pot. … It almost looked like it was placed there. It wasn’t upside down or leaning against anything.
Det. Dave Holloway: We had to … figure out why those things were there.
The detectives say Scott Sills didn’t seem nervous that a homicide team was in his home asking questions.
Det. Eric Hatch: He was just kind of going with the flow.
Tracy Smith: How cooperative was he?
Det. Dave Holloway: Oh, very. … Everything we asked of him … he, he gave us.
Det. Eric Hatch: He signed a consent form, that … gave us the permission to search his house.
And when they interviewed the Sills’ children, 12-year-old twins Mary-Katherine and Eric, each told a similar story to their dad — that Susann Sills had not been feeling well that night.
Det. Dave Holloway: Susann … had a history of migraines. … They were typically debilitating … requiring … a dark room, quiet … and bed rest. And she had been suffering from a migraine that weekend.
The migraine seemed to explain that large pot.
Det. Dave Holloway: Sometimes she carried around a bowl … in order to have it near her bedside in case she threw up in the middle of the night.
And the empty pill bottle was for a pain medication Scott Sills said his wife took to treat her migraines.
Tracy Smith: So, did that make it sound more possible that she could’ve fallen down the stairs because she was suffering from a migraine?
Det. Eric Hatch: Maybe.
And there seemed to be nothing in the couples’ relationship to suggest another reason.
Tracy Smith: What did you learn about the Sills’ marriage?
Det. Eric Hatch: According to Scott, everything was fine. They had a, you know, a good relationship.
Both children attested that their parents loved each other — and said they rarely argued and were never violent. Detectives started piecing together a timeline of the weekend.
Det. Dave Holloway: Saturday night … she … was on the couch. … Eric came down to see her, check on her, make sure she was OK.
It was around midnight when Eric Sills and his mom went back upstairs, after Eric said she put the dogs away in their crate. Mary-Katherine had gone to bed in her parents’ bedroom. Susann Sills was going to spend the night in Mary-Katherine’s room, which was the quietest.
Det. Dave Holloway: It was … Mary-Katherine’s idea for Susann to spend the night in that room. It was clean … according to Mary-Katherine … and done up … like a little hotel suite … for Susann to convalesce in there.
Mary-Katherine had left a note on her door with what would be her last words to her Mom. “I know you are tired,” she wrote, “but you need to know that I love you …”
Around 4 a.m., Eric Sills said he woke to the sound of his parents arguing in the next room.
Det. Dave Holloway (pointing up at windows outside Sills home): The two windows, that’s … Eric’s room.
Tracy Smith: So Eric is right next (to) Mary-Katherine’s room … where his mom was.
Det. Dave Holloway: Yeah.
Tracy Smith: And what did he tell you he heard?
Det. Dave Holloway: Well, he heard loud voices arguing, but … he didn’t describe hearing any physical confrontation.
Eric Sills told detectives that after about five minutes he decided to go to sleep in the main bedroom with his sister. According to Mary-Katherine’s statement, she thought he’d come in around 3:40 a.m. and told her their parents were arguing about a work email.
DETECTIVE: How do you know she — she got an email?
MARY-KATHERINE SILLS: Because Eric said they were talking about that.
DETECTIVE: Oh, OK. So Eric told you that she got an email and that she was, it was about something …
MARY-KATHERINE SILLS: Something about work.
Scott Sills told detectives he had argued with his wife because he found her working late on her laptop, which made her migraines worse.
Tracy Smith: When you heard that they had an argument shortly before she was found at the bottom of the stairs dead, what was going through your mind?
Det. Dave Holloway: Well, again that’s … one more piece of data that we’re gonna collect. … It doesn’t mean one way or the other that it was a murder. But that’s definitely an avenue that we would have to pursue.
Neither Eric nor Mary-Katherine heard their dad return to the bedroom.
MARY-KATHERINE SILLS: I woke up and my dad was just like on the covers just laying there like there wasn’t enough room to get in I guess. So, he was just laying there.
DETECTIVE: On top of it?
MARY-KATHERINE SILLS: Yeah.
It was around 6:30 a.m. the next morning when Scott Sills and the twins woke up. He asked them if they wanted to go to the pool and get some doughnuts. Mary-Katherine said when she left the bedroom and looked over the banister, she saw her mom’s body at the bottom of the stairs — that long red and white scarf around her neck.
Det. Dave Holloway: That was … Mary-Katherine’s scarf … It was found in the same room as … Susann’s body.
Tracy Smith: But the scarf wasn’t on her body?
Det. Dave Holloway: When we arrived, it was not. … Mary-Katherine told us that she had to remove the scarf. And she did that … not to impede mom’s breathing.
Adding to the mystery were the injuries to Susann Sills’ neck the deputy coroner had noticed during a preliminary examination of the body earlier that morning.
Det. Eric Hatch: Especially with the ligature mark across her neck … it just didn’t make sense.
Tracy Smith: Is it possible that she could have fallen down the stairs and then somehow the scarf strangled her?
Det. Dave Holloway: Could have caught on a banister … sure I suppose so, but we didn’t have any evidence of that.
As detectives continued their investigation, the questions mounted.
Tracy Smith: Did anybody in the house hear a fall down the stairs?
Det. Dave Holloway: No. Nobody described hearing a fall down the stairs. Or, if Susann had been carrying that … stainless steel pot, no one heard that bounce down the stairs or land on the tile floor.
Det. Dave Holloway: There was no evidence on the stairs of someone going down, uh, like broken baluster or anything like that.
And something else the detectives thought was strange.
Det. Eric Hatch: It was a warm day even though it was November. But when we spoke with Scott, and during the whole time we were … in the house doing our investigation, he was wearing a beanie over his head. … And he said that he slept with it ’cause it was cold.
Tracy Smith: Did you ask him to remove the beanie?
Det. Eric Hatch: Yes.
As it turned out, Susann wasn’t the only one with injuries that morning.
BLOOD FOUND IN A BEDROOM
Det. Dave Holloway: We discovered that Scott had some injuries … He had … a … cut up here on his forehead. … and on his arm, he had … a bruise.
Scott Sills said there was a simple explanation for the injuries. He had hurt himself while working on his car in the garage with his son, Eric. There was just one problem.
Det. Dave Holloway: Eric told us dad didn’t hurt himself.
Tracy Smith: Did he say to you, I left the garage so maybe he hurt himself while I was gone?
Det. Dave Holloway: No. He told us they came in the house together.
And investigators said they found something Scott Sills couldn’t explain on that day.
Tracy Smith: You found blood?
Det. Eric Hatch: Yes.
Blood in Mary-Katherine’s room — where Susann Sills had been staying — on the curtains, the wall, and the nightstand.
Tracy Smith: So, that morning when you asked Scott about the blood, what did he say?
Det. Eric Hatch: He didn’t know where it came from. … He was unaware of it.
Mary-Katherine told investigators the room was “perfect” when she left it. She also said she’d turned down the bed, but now it was made.
Det. Eric Hatch: It didn’t really make sense. … Why would Susann … take the time to make the bed in the middle of the night?
Tracy Smith: So if you found blood in Mary-Katherine’s bedroom, you know that there are ligature marks on Susann … why not take him down to the station at this point and question him?
Det. Dave Holloway: Once you arrest somebody … that starts processes that … you can’t stop. … Besides the blood in the bedroom … we didn’t really have … enough evidence of a fight occurring. … So, at the end of the day, there wasn’t enough probable cause legally to arrest him.
Susann Sills’ autopsy four days later didn’t provide any definitive answers.
The forensic pathologist noted that Susann Sills had injuries all over her body that could have resulted from a fall, including a fractured C3 vertebra near the base of her neck, which can be fatal. Then there was that ligature mark across her neck and hemorrhaging of the blood vessels in her eyes, which pointed to strangulation. It would take months to make an official ruling.
Det. Dave Holloway: It’s … not something they wanna rush into. It’s not something they wanna make a rash judgment on. … The doctor … wanted to examine the whole case more clearly.
In the meantime, detectives requested DNA testing on evidence collected from the Sills home, and forensic analysis on Susann Sills’ phone and laptop. They also dug deeper into who the Sills were.
Det. Dave Holloway: None of their immediate neighbors knew anything about the family. …
Eventually… we … contacted whoever we could out of their contact list to try and find out more.
Sandi Roberts: In high school I thought this must be what genius means … his humor, his quick wit.
Sandi Roberts and Jamie Aikens have known Scott Sills since their high school days in Harriman, Tennessee.
Sandi Roberts: He was something we had never seen before. In a small town in Tennessee at that age … He was very special.
Jamie Aikens: He was hilarious … How many people come to class in a three-piece suit … and it’s not dress-up day.
Sandi Roberts: He’s flamboyant. He’s bigger than life. … He was very, very kind.
Jamie Aikens: I grew up, uh, pretty poor, I didn’t have a car in high school or anything like that and a lot of times no lunch money. … And he always pulled out his wallet and paid for it. It just wasn’t a question.
His future seemed limitless. He was accepted to both law school and medical school.
Sandi Roberts: We were kind of all … on the edge of our seat, wondering what he was going to decide to do.
And it was no surprise when the hometown boy became a renowned IVF specialist – a profession that would lead him to Susann.
Chris Solimine: Susann was going through fertility treatment, trying to get pregnant with her first husband.
Chris Solimine met Susann Arsuaga in business school, where she earned an MBA. She had confided in him about her struggles to get pregnant.
Chris Solimine: Having kids was everything to Susann. … She’d cry about it. I mean, it was so important to her. … And … Eric Scott Sills was her fertility doctor.
But soon, Solimine says, they were a couple.
Chris Solimine: She started talking about Dr. Sills after she had told me she was getting divorced … and that she was now dating him. … I just remember her saying … he’s a … brilliant doctor.
Scott Sills, who was also coming out of a previous marriage, seemed to have met his match.
Chris Solimine: Susanne was … smart, witty, sarcastic, but not in a mean way, you know, just enough to – to dig at you. … incredibly driven, a loyal friend.
Sandi Roberts: She … was so … classy, so beautiful … very engaging.
Jamie Aikens: Seemed like to me he found one that — it was a good fit.
Susann Arsuaga fit right in at Scott’s 20th high school reunion.
Sandi Roberts: She danced the whole time. … They were lovely together. … He just seemed really … happy.
The couple married and welcomed twins through IVF, adding to Dr. Sills’ two older kids. And eventually, Susann Sills’ business acumen would lead them to start their own IVF practice in April 2015.
Chris Solimine: She started the business … She built it. … Susann pretty much ran everything with the exception of actually doing the procedures.
The practice soon took off. And Dr. Sills was often featured on the TV program “The Doctors,” which was distributed by CBS.
Dr. Julio Novoa: He was in many eyes, a saint. … He was loved by his patients.
Dr. Julio Novoa is an OB/GYN who co-authored a book with Dr. Sills.
Dr. Julio Novoa: Dr. Sills … was a great doctor … And Susann was a — a great advocate for women as well. … They were a team not just married, but a team and working well together.
But about a month before her death, Rick Leeds, another of Susann Sills’ friends, says she left him a troubling message.
Rick Leeds: She sounded like she was whispering … It was so different from the happy, jovial, excited voicemails I got before. This one was definitely … things weren’t good.
When they spoke, Leeds says it sounded like there was tension over a photo.
Rick Leeds: She said it was a topless photo of her that had appeared on a … blog. … this was some discussion she didn’t wanna have.
IN SEARCH OF A MOTIVE
When news of Susann Sills’ death reached her friends, they were stunned.
Rick Leeds: It was devastating.
Chris Solimine: I couldn’t believe it. … It didn’t seem plausible to me that she just fell down the stairs with a migraine headache.
It didn’t sound like the vibrant Susann they knew. Scott Sills’ friends say they were equally perplexed.
Sandi Roberts: Scott would not discuss anything with us.
Jamie Aikens: He quickly changed the subject. … We never spoke again. … you don’t know how tragedies affect people.
Tracy Smith: What were your impressions of Scott Sills throughout the investigation?
Det. Dave Holloway: I would describe him as emotionless. … He never … acted as though Susann was even his wife … He talked about what a good manager she was and how she kept … their business flowing. … But he never once mentioned that she was a good mother or that he loved her …
Tracy Smith: All very businesslike?
Det. Dave Holloway: Yeah.
In fact, the day after Susann Sills’ death, the doctor had gone to work.
Joanie Rickers: I was shocked. … Who goes to the office the next morning when your wife died.
Joanie Rickers’ daughter was a nurse at the Sills’ IVF clinic and had called her in a panic.
Joanie Rickers: She said her patients are in cycle and they have to be treated.
Rickers volunteered to help manage the office — something Susann Sills did — and ended up working there for two years.
Tracy Smith: Did Dr. Sills talk about his wife?
Joanie Rickers: Oh, never.
Tracy Smith: Didn’t ever say how she died?
Joanie Rickers: Oh, we — it was never discussed.
Pretty soon, she says the doctor started changing his appearance.
Joanie Rickers: He started to dress like a movie star. … I mean, he was very simple before.
And she says the once-balding doctor now had a full head of hair.
Sandi Roberts: We definitely noticed, um, new hair.
They also noticed Dr. Sills’ flashier online persona.
Sandi Roberts: I said to one of my friends, now is Sills a doctor or a model? … I personally don’t know any doctors on social media… that are takin’ selfies in the gym … in their — blazers and their sunglasses and in their Porsches … I mean, it was a little much.
Rick Leeds: All of a sudden, there started to be another woman in photos, and he was out on dates and they were going around town.
The behavior raised eyebrows, but it was hardly evidence. Then, in November 2017, a year after Susann Sills’ death, there was finally news from the coroner’s office: Susann’s cause of death was cited as ligature strangulation and the manner a homicide.
Dr. Sills was now the prime suspect. DNA results on the blood in Mary-Katherine’s room showed a mixture of his and Susann’s DNA.
Det. Dave Holloway: They were both there.
Tracy Smith: There was a fight.
Det. Dave Holloway: There’s a fight. And he killed his wife.
On Aug. 8, 2018, nearly two years after Susann Sills’ death, Detectives Holloway and Hatch made a surprise house call at the doctor’s home.
Tracy Smith: Did you ask Dr. Sills at this point, just flat out, did you kill your wife?
Det. Eric Hatch: Yes. … He … started stressing — started sweating. … He became more defensive.
They say the doctor denied killing his wife. And he now offered an explanation for his blood in Mary-Katherine’s room: he said he had injured himself replacing a window screen.
Tracy Smith: Wouldn’t Mary-Katherine have seen the blood that he left from replacing the screen?
Det. Eric Hatch: For sure.
Tracy Smith: And she didn’t mention it?
Det. Eric Hatch: Nope.
Despite the death being ruled a homicide, detectives said they still had more investigating to do, like finding a motive. A search of Susann Sills’ phone provided some clues. Text messages hinted at problems in the marriage.
Det. Dave Holloway: There was one in particular where she … had some pretty strong words towards Scott.
In texts sent in late August, less than three months before her death, Susann Sills wrote, “I am trapped”… “You are killing me”… “I just want out” and “We just aren’t right for each other.
And about a month before her death, Susann had confided in Rick Leeds.
Rick Leeds: She and Scott were in a really rocky place and she was thinking about leaving him.
He said Susann Sills was also upset about a photo she had posted online.
Rick Leeds: Whatever was going on between her and Scott … and this picture … was just … a pivotal point for her.
Susann Sills had posted a topless photo after making a bet in a political chatroom called Patrick.net.
Det. Dave Holloway: Susann apparently was one of the few women who was involved in this forum. … She … kind of threw out … that … if Donald Trump won the presidential nomination, that she would post a picture of her bare breasts.
And on the day of her death, detectives had found a printout in Dr. Sills’ home office of an exchange between Susann and another Patrick.net member from Aug. 30, 2016, discussing the photo. The man, who went by “tenpoundbass” wrote: “All I’ve got to say is you must have a super cool husband.”
Susann Sills aka “turtledove” replied, “He’s exhausted, actually. It isn’t easy being married to a woman who is partially naked and posing alluringly, all the time …”
Dr. Sills denied that he had printed that chat. But when investigators later searched his phone, they found a photo of the same exchange.
Tracy Smith: Does this sound like this could lead to motive?
Det. Dave Holloway: Yes, … if it’s … something that’s building up in him, some kind of anger … or jealousy about … what his wife’s doing online without him …
Tracy Smith: Enough to kill her?
Det. Dave Holloway: Mm-hmm.
Detectives also learned that Dr. Sills had tried to collect on a $250,000 life insurance policy on Susann, but he claimed the insurance company had called him.
Det. Eric Hatch: He wasn’t able to collect because … ’cause that death certificate was ruled as a homicide.
Tracy Smith: Do you think Scott Sills thought he’d gotten away with it?
Det. Eric Hatch: I think so.
Det. Dave Holloway: Every day that went by, he felt a little bit more at ease, I think.
On April 25, 2019, nearly two-and-a-half years after Susann’ Sills’ death, Dr. Sills was arrested for her alleged murder on his way to surgery. He quickly posted a million dollar bond. But investigators were about to get an unexpected tip from a woman who said she had met Dr. Sills while Susann was still alive.
Det. Eric Hatch: They met through Facebook … He was infatuated with her.
She shared an email Scott Sills had sent her about two weeks after Susann Sills’ death.
Tracy Smith (reading email): “Pour ma chère Marie.”
Det. Eric Hatch: Yes.
Tracy Smith: So it’s … in French: “This is probably the most important manuscript I have ever written….I am asking you to seriously rethink our suspended, but once intense relationship.”
Tracy Smith: When you first read that email … what was your reaction?
Det. Eric Hatch: I thought … I was shocked … This is a motive.
Tracy Smith: So could Dr. Sills have killed his wife to get her out of the way?
Jack Earley: Oh, I just don’t see that at all.
Dr. Sills’ defense attorney Jack Earley denies that there was a romantic relationship. And he says that email was merely a devastated father’s desperate attempt to find a new mother for his children.
Tracy Smith: Did you feel in your gut that you could win this case?
Jack Earley: Oh, yes.
THE DEFENSE OFFERS A UNIQUE THEORY
In November 2023, just over seven years after Susann Sills’ death, Scott Sills – now stripped of his medical license — went on trial for her murder. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office declined our request for an interview, but cameras were allowed in court for portions of the trial where Senior Deputy D.A. Jennifer Walker laid out her case to the jury.
JENNIFER WALKER (in court): November 13th of 2016 … this man killed his wife and hid it.
Walker argued that Scott Sills beat, and then strangled, Susann Sills to death before staging the scene to make it look like she had fallen down the stairs.
JENNIFER WALKER (in court): This is a murder, not an accident.
The prosecution’s case relied heavily on Susann Sills’ autopsy. But Scott Sills’ defense attorney, Jack Earley, came to court armed with a unique theory. He suggested that Susann fell — either going up or down — the stairs and that one or both of the family dogs then tugged on the scarf that was wrapped around her neck.
Tracy Smith: Do you honestly think that the dogs pulled hard enough to strangle her to death?
Jack Earley: No, no — I didn’t. That was not the main theory that the dogs actually strangled her to death.
Instead, Earley focused on another injury identified in Susann Sills’ autopsy: that fractured C3 vertebra. He says that injury is consistent with a fall, and that it would have left Susann incapacitated.
Jack Earley: Let’s assume that someone trips and falls and fractures their C3 … their breathing is compromised. If they’re then choked, it doesn’t take much to kill ’em.
The defense had the scarf tested for dog DNA and it came back positive. And there was testimony that the dogs were known to play tug-of-war. as seen in this video. And when Susann and Scott Sills’ now-19-year-old daughter Mary-Katherine took the stand for the prosecution, her testimony supported the defense’s theory. Investigator Dave Holloway was at the trial.
Det. Dave Holloway: Mary-Katherine testified that she … saw the dogs pulling at the scarf around her neck. And none of that came up during—the—the day we interviewed her the first time.
Tracy Smith: How did that strike you?
Det Dave Holloway: Well, (sighs), um, I know that she was still close with her father …
Tracy Smith: Do you think she’s trying to protect her dad?
Det. Dave Holloway: I would say so.
Earley denies that. He says the reason Mary-Katherine didn’t tell investigators is simple.
Jack Earley: It wasn’t asked. … Why would she think the dogs were important? She doesn’t even know that … there’s any question of being choked.
He says Scott Sills did tell first-responders. And he argued that Susann Sills’ toxicology tests point to an accidental fall. She had a muscle relaxant and pain medication in her system. And Earley told the jury that Susann suffered from a fainting disorder and that vertigo would accompany her migraines. But the prosecution said the defense’s theory just doesn’t make sense.
JENNIFER WALKER (in court): Strangulation is a silent killer. You know what’s not a silent killer? Falling down multiple stairs … You have to believe she bounced her head, neck, back, shoulders, inside of her arms, legs and feet, multiple ways against approximately six stairs. Like being in a soundproof pinball machine. … Then was strangled by her dogs. Not reasonable.
And why would Susann Sills have a scarf around her neck that early in the morning to begin with? Prosecutors suggested that Scott Sills used it to strangle her and then left it around her neck to cover the marks. But Earley told the jury it wasn’t unusual for Susann to wear a scarf, especially when she wasn’t feeling well.
Jack Earley: Because if she got sick, that was something that she would wear — a scarf to wipe … your mouth with it.
But the prosecution also pointed out that Susann and Scott Sills’ son Eric told investigators he saw his mother put the dogs away in their crate in the hours before she died.
Tracy Smith: Eric said that his mom put the dogs in the crate.
Jack Earley: Yes. … Sometimes, dogs, when they’re crate-trained, when they go to bed, will go lay in the crate, even with the door open.
There was also no blood on the stairs or damage to them.
Tracy Smith: There are all these injuries that you say come from the fall down the stairs, all over her body, but she leaves no marks on the stairs.
Jack Earley: But there’s no marks anywhere in the house …
But there was that blood in Mary-Katherine’s bedroom, and the prosecution argued it was evidence that a fight occurred. A forensic scientist testified that the stains on the nightstand and drapes were consistent with Scott Sills’ DNA. Earley did acknowledge that his client’s blood was in the room, but he told the jury about Scott’s claim that he hurt himself there on an earlier date.
Tracy Smith: From Scott replacing a screen?
Jack Earley: Yeah. From getting cut on a nail that was in the back of … the nightstand that was there.
That forensic scientist though testified that one of the stains on the wall was a mixture of DNA—and Scott and Susann Sills were likely contributors. Earley says that doesn’t mean it was Susann’s blood and that it could have been her touch DNA that was picked up.
Jack Earley: Susann had touched that area before at some point in time. And she lived there.
But the prosecution pointed out that there were also clumps of Susann Sills’ hair found in Mary-Katherine’s room, and there were blood stains on Susann’s clothing that were found to be consistent with Scott Sills’ DNA, too. Earley had a rebuttal to it all, starting with the hair.
Jack Earley: She has hair extensions. And you know what hair extensions cause? Loss of hair. …
And the blood on the clothes?
Jack Earley: You don’t know how old it is.
The jury was also shown pictures of those injuries that were observed on Scott Sills. Remember how he told investigators that he hurt himself while working on his car with his son? And how, according to investigators, Eric Sills said that his father didn’t get injured? Well, when Eric Sills took the stand, his testimony allowed for the possibility.
Jack Earley: What he testified is, well, I didn’t stay there the whole time he fixed the car. …
Tracy Smith: Does that seem like a discrepancy to you?
Jack Earley: Well … it’s not a discrepancy. … nobody’s asking him that full story at — at the age 12.
Tracy Smith: So he didn’t necessarily say at age 12, dad didn’t get the injury from the car?
Jack Earley: No … he basically said I wasn’t there when he got the injury. …
While Eric Sills did testify that a loud discussion between his parents had woken him up shortly before his mother’s death, the defense told the jury that there was nothing to it. And those texts between Scott and Susann Sills in the months before Susann’s death?
Jack Earley: If you have 40,000 texts and there’s five of them with hard language in it, that’s a perfect marriage.
The jury didn’t hear about the life insurance policy, that e-mail Scott Sills sent to another woman or his social media photos in the wake of his wife’s death, but they were told about the Patrick.net posts. And the prosecution argued that topless photo that Susann Sills posted on the site enraged Scott Sills.
Jack Earley: It wasn’t a big deal.
Tracy Smith: It’s not striking to you that he had this photo in two places on his phone and then on the printer?
Jack Earley: No, first of all, I don’t know really who printed this stuff up.
Earley maintains there is no motive for murder.
Jack Earley: There was never any physical violence. … Their working and marriage relationship … everybody looked at it as loving.
Scott Sills chose not to take the stand. The trial spanned three weeks, and then the case went to the jury.
Erin Ellis: My heart was just pounding.
A JURY DECIDES .. BUT QUESTIONS REMAIN
Jurors Erin Ellis, Jack Van Camp, and Susan Blaho say that when deliberations began, they felt the pressure.
Jack Van Camp: It’s just so intimidating that you got someone’s life on the line …
Tracy Smith: It weighs on you.
Erin Ellis: Oh, yeah. And the ripple effect …
Jack Van Camp: The kids, and uh —
Erin Ellis: Yeah.
Tracy Smith: Did you think about that? That these kids didn’t only lose their mom? That if you convict him, now they’re losing their dad.
Erin Ellis: Of course.
Jack Van Camp: Yeah.
They say they also felt a clear motive was lacking.
Erin Ellis: I mean, it’s hard to imagine … why something like this would happen.
Jack Van Camp: Somebody would do that.
Erin Ellis: Yeah.
After about three hours, they came to a decision. The clerk read the verdict:
COURT CLERK: We the jury in the above-entitled action find the defendant, Eric Scott Sills, not guilty of the crime of first-degree murder …We the jury in the above-entitled action find the defendant, Eric Scott Sills, guilty of the crime of second-degree murder.
Guilty of second-degree murder. Scott Sills, who gave the gift of life to so many through his IVF practice—now convicted of taking the life of his wife, the mother of his kids.
Erin Ellis: I just felt sad. I mean, I was tearing up on the way out … This whole family had been through so much, you know— now this is the next phase of it.
Susan Blaho: It was finality.
Jack Van Camp: But he did that.
The jurors we spoke to say that no one on the jury bought the defense’s theory about the dogs.
Jack Van Camp: The dogs would have to choke her on the stairs. And my dog was as big as hers and my dog cannot get a grip on wooden stairs with their nails to do anything. They just slide.
Erin Ellis: The scarf had no puncture wounds either. … I would’ve expected holes.
Jack Van Camp: And the fall down the stairs wouldn’t create that scenario on her body.
Instead, what they spent the most time grappling with was whether Scott Sills was guilty of first-degree or second-degree murder. First-degree murder requires premeditation and deliberation.
Jack Van Camp: I just didn’t think he planned it.
Erin Ellis: I don’t.
Jack Van Camp: If he had planned it or done any kind of forethought, it wouldn’t be a hot mess crime scene that it was.
Susan Blaho: It was kind of like a snap.
But investigator Dave Holloway says while Scott Sills may not have planned his crime, he certainly had the time to think about what he was doing.
Det. Dave Holloway: He had plenty of time from when he applied pressure to Susann’s neck, till she died to stop what he was doing. … And he still did it. … I was a little disappointed that it was a second degree.
On March 15, 2024, about three months after the verdict, court reconvened for sentencing. Susann Sills’ mother, Theresa Neubauer, addressed the court, and kept the focus on her daughter.
Theresa Neubauer: She was a dynamic person. She had hopes and dreams …
Hopes and dreams, Neubauer said, that one day Susann would see her daughter, Mary-Katherine, walk down the stairs of the family’s San Clemente home on her wedding day.
Theresa Neubauer: It was a very painful, uh, thing for me to learn of the role the staircase eventually played in real life.
Mary-Katherine also addressed the court and spoke of all the loss she had endured at such a young age. She and her brother were taken in by a family friend after their father’s arrest and that family friend died suddenly of a health condition around the end of the trial. She asked the judge to show her father mercy.
MARY-KATHERINE SILLS (in court): I want my father to walk me down the aisle at my wedding someday. When I have a family and children, I want my father to be there to hold my baby. I have been left orphaned and I feel so lost without my parents.
Judge Patrick Donahue sentenced Scott Sills to the mandatory sentence under California law: 15 years to life in prison. His fate was decided, but for so many, questions remain. Exactly what led up to Susann Sills’ death?
Tracy Smith: Do you think we’ll ever know exactly how it happened?
Det. Dave Holloway: I don’t think so.
Det. Eric Hatch: No.
Scott Sills declined “48 Hours”‘ requests for an interview. But in the end, no explanation will suffice — or ease the profound sense of loss that lingers. Patients now without their doctor —
Dr. Julio Novoa: Thousands of women felt him to be a saint. … From the saint all the way down to the devil, that’s how it ended up being.
— and children without their father or their mother.
Chris Solimine: Her kids were so important to her and everything she did revolved around her children. … She was an incredible human being. … You know, I—I miss her (emotional).
Scott Sills will be eligible for parole in 2033, though it could be sooner with good behavior.
He is appealing his conviction.
Produced by Gayane Keshishyan Mendez and Stephanie Slifer. Alicia Tejada is the coordinating producer. Chelsea Narvaez is the associate producer. Michelle Fanucci, Cindy Cesare and Michelle Sigona are the development producers. Danielle Austen is the development associate producer. Gary Winter, Atticus Brady, Michelle Harris, Jason Schmidt and Michael Baluzy are the editors. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer
California
Trees, not asphalt: The $1 billion effort to build ‘cooler’ California school playgrounds
As summer approaches and temperatures soar, one of the most dangerous places for Bay Area students might actually be the playground.
On a hot, sunny day, the asphalt on school playgrounds can reach 149 F, while a rubber mat can reach 165 F, according to UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation. That’s hot enough to cause a third-degree burn. But a little shade can go a long way to help kids cool off.
In an effort to provide more green on Bay Area schoolyards — many of which are expanses of barren asphalt without grass, shade or trees — and lower the impact on students’ health, the Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit that works to create parks and protect public land, is campaigning for $1 billion from the state legislature to transform those playgrounds.
“If you look at our elementary schools in many cases, you don’t see nature. It’s all about blacktop, asphalt,” said Guillermo Rodriguez, the Trust for Public Land’s California director. “(At) some of the schools that we’ve targeted for green schoolyards, playgrounds have turned into parking lots for teachers and staff because the kids weren’t using it.”
Rodriguez said the core feature of a green schoolyard is the replacement of asphalt with natural materials, but can also include planting more trees and incorporating nature into the space.
“The policies of how we build public schools are still so antiquated,” Rodriguez said. “(It’s) very much focused on four walls and a roof and not the campus. We’re really trying to change the way that schools are built, designed and redeveloped.”
The Trust for Public Land partnered with Oakland Unified School District in 2018 to begin transforming the district’s playgrounds into green spaces. Through the Oakland Green Schoolyards program, the nonprofit has revamped four campus schoolyards — including the Cesar E. Chavez Education Center — to be safer and more eco-friendly.
The first electric school bus fleet in the US will also power Oakland homes
The district has 14 additional schools with planning projects in the works, including Horace Mann and Fruitvale elementary schools, West Oakland Middle School and Coliseum College Prep Academy.
“Hundreds of students at Oakland schools have already gotten to play, learn and be closer to nature on Trust for Public Land playgrounds and we’re excited for all students whose schools will receive these same kinds of upgrades,” said district Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell.
In his budget revision unveiled last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom eliminated the remaining $375 million for the School Facilities Aid Program, which provides funding to school districts for facility-related repairs and construction.
But the state legislature is currently considering two bills – Senator Steve Glazer’s SB 28 and Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi’s AB 247 – that would place a $14 billion to $15.5 billion bond measure on the November ballot to fund construction and modernization of school facilities.
The Trust for Public Land’s request would include a $1 billion allocation in the bond for green schoolyard funding.
Rodriguez said the nonprofit was inspired to campaign for the $1 billion allocation after witnessing the success of the 2022-23 CAL FIRE Urban and Community Forestry Green Schoolyards grant program.
Under CAL FIRE’s grant, the state awarded a total of $117 million to nearly 30 schools and nonprofits to design and build their own projects. Awards ranged from $200,000 to $21 million.
Rodriguez said $1 billion could fund projects at nearly 500 high-priority schools. But he acknowledged the risk that voters might not support a multi-billion dollar bond measure.
The last statewide school bond proposal, Prop 13, was rejected by California voters in 2020. The bond measure would have borrowed $15 billion to modernize and build public schools and colleges.
“I think there is some general concern,” Rodriguez admitted. “Are voters in California comfortable, willing and ready to make important investments in public infrastructure, like our public schools?”
Rodriguez said by including green schoolyards in the facilities bond, they gain climate-focused voters and increase the likelihood of passing the bond measure.
“Over 100 million people don’t live within a 10-minute walk to a quality park or open space,” but they probably live within walking distance of a school, he said.
“If California does this, it’ll be the first state in the country to really do this in earnest from a state policy perspective,” Rodriguez said. “We can really move the park equity needle significantly in this country.”
The stock market’s venerable yardstick, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, just made history – crossing 40,000 for the first time.
Yes, this milestone set Thursday, May 16, is only a brief emotional victory for shareholders. Yet it can be seen as a historical milepost for the broader business climate, especially in California.
To honor the moment, the trusty spreadsheet reviewed the Dow’s 5,000-point markers and how California fared in those periods using an economic metric (California unemployment), an interest rate (the average 30-year fixed mortgage), and home prices from the California Association of Realtors.
As we begin our data-filled voyage, let’s note the Dow first crossed 5,000 in November 1995 — back when you could buy the median-priced California single-family home for $176,000.
5,000-point mileposts
Dow passes 10,000 in December 1999: It took the stock index just over four years to double from 5,000 compared with a 28% gain for California homes to $225,000 in the same timeframe. This was an era when the economy broke loose from its early 1990s slumber. California unemployment dipped between 1995 and 1999 to 5% from 7.9% while mortgage rates rose to 7.9% from 7.4%.
15,000 in May 2013: The Dow needed more than 13 years to gain 50% to hit this benchmark vs. an 85% surge for homes statewide to $417,000 in the same period. This extended gap came during the financial rollercoaster ride from the bubble period in the early 2000s bursting into a Great Recession and then the economy’s slow recovery. So, California unemployment was 9.2%, up from 5% at the beginning of this crazy period. Yet, cheap money was one salve: 3.5% mortgages vs. 7.9% in 1999.
20,000 in January 2017: The Dow took under four years to gain 33% to gain the next 5,000 while homes statewide gained 18% to $492,000 as the post-crash rebound continued. California unemployment fell to 5.2% from 9.2% as mortgage rates ticked up to 4.2% from 3.5% in 2013.
25,000 in January 2018: The Dow needed just one year to gain 25% for its next benchmark vs. a 7% gain for California homes to $528,000 as the recovery hit full stride. California unemployment dipped to 4.4% from 5.2% while mortgage rates slipped to 4% from 4.2% in 2017.
30,000 in November 2020: The index took just under three years to gain 20% vs. 32% for California homes to $699,000 in the middle of the pandemic’s business wild gyrations. California unemployment surged to 9% from 4.4% – but investors cheered historically cheap money such as mortgages hitting 2.8%, falling from 4% in 2018.
35,000 in July 2021: It took the Dow less than a year to gain 17% vs. 16% appreciation for California homes to $811,000 as the pandemic’s economic surge was in full force. Statewide unemployment fell to 7.4% from 9% and mortgages remained cheap – 2.9% vs. 2.8% in 2020.
40,000 in May 2024: The Dow took almost three years to gain 14% vs. an 11% gain for California homes to a record $904,000 in April. The economy struggles to find its new normal as statewide unemployment fell to 5.3% in April from 7.4%. But mortgages got expensive as the Federal Reserve fought and overheated economy – 7% in April from 2.9% in 2021.
Bottom line
So, the Dow is up eight-fold since crossing 5,000 just over 28 years ago. California homes are only five times more expensive.
That’s not the point, though. This stroll down memory lane reminds us that the markets typically need a solid economy for stocks or homes to appreciate. Cheap money is the icing on the cake.
Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com
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