DA Charges San Clemente Doctor Accused of Murdering His Wife in 2016

By Eric Heinz

The San Clemente doctor who was arrested in April has been formally charged with one count of murder after his wife was found dead in 2016 at the couple’s home.

Dr. Eric Scott Sills, 53, San Clemente, was arrested on Thursday, April 25, by homicide investigators with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD), according to a report from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

Deputies were called to the home on the 10 block of Via Cancion in the city of San Clemente in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2016. At the time, the DA reported Sills told deputies that he woke up to find his wife, Susann Sills, 45, of San Clemente, “deceased at the bottom of the stairs after an apparent fall.”

Because of the unknown cause of death, the OCSD Homicide unit investigated the scene.

“In November 2017, after an extensive investigation including an autopsy, the OCSD Coroner division determined that the death was a homicide,” the report stated. “Since that time, OCSD Homicide investigators in conjunction with the Orange County District Attorney’s Office have continued to investigate the death of Susann Sills. In April 2019, as information continued to develop, an arrest warrant was issued for Dr. Eric Scott Sills, 53, of San Clemente.”

According to the report, Sills was going to work when he was arrested on April 25, 2019 on suspicion of murder and booked into the Orange County Jail. He posted a $1 million bond on April 29. He is scheduled to be arraigned on May 23.

Sills is listed as a medical director at the Center for Advanced Genetics, an in vitro fertilization program in Carlsbad. According to the center’s website, Sills received his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt and holds a Ph.D. from London’s University of Westminster. He was awarded a medical degree from the University of Tennessee in 1992.

“Dr. Sills published his first clinical article while still in medical school, and is among an elite group of physicians with more than 100 peer-review papers,” the website stated. “In addition to books, Dr. Sills has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and has collaborated on the discovery of three previously unknown human gene mutations.”