ARREST MADE IN 1983 COLD CASES

60-year-old man faces murder charges in deaths of two Toronto women

Soon after Susan Tice was found dead inside her Toronto home in August 1983, police admitted they had few leads on who sexually assaulted and stabbed the 45-yearold mother and social worker. As a detective said at the time: “We have no suspect at all.”

It was the same story four months later, when the body of another woman, 22-year-old aspiring designer Erin Gilmour, was discovered inside her Yorkville apartment by a friend picking her up for a cocktail party. Like Tice, she’d been stabbed, assaulted and found in her bedroom. Police canvassed door to door, to no avail.

For years, then decades, investigators knew little about the killings except their similarities, and the deaths became cold cases whose unsolved status left a lingering unease. Then, in 2008, advances in DNA technology brought a break, confirming through evidence at the scenes that one man was responsible for both murders.

But it would take nearly 15 more years and even greater scientific advances to identify who he was, police say.

Last week — via a combination of advanced genetic sequencing, forensic genealogy and traditional police work that’s now regularly cracking open decades-old cases — investigators arrested 60-year-old Joseph George Sutherland from Moosonee, Ont., a remote community far removed from the slayings that police allege he committed nearly 40 years ago. The charges against Sutherland have not been proven in court.

He was arrested without incident Thursday and charged with two counts of first-degree murder. It’s believed to be the first time he’d been arrested, said a source close to the investigation, speaking confidentially in order to discuss the case.

Det.-Sgt. Stephen Smith, the lead Toronto police investigator, speculated that Sutherland had been “waiting for that knock to come at the door.”

Smith told reporters Monday that a second phase of the investigation must now begin: a painstaking review of Sutherland’s whereabouts in the intervening 39 years.

“Obviously we’re going to look into every possible connection to any possible case throughout Ontario to ensure that he isn’t responsible for any other offences,” Smith said.

Sutherland’s arrest prompted “the best call I’ve ever received,” Sean McCowan, one of Gilmour’s brothers, told a news conference at Toronto police headquarters Monday, where police Chief James Ramer announced the arrest alongside detectives who’d worked on the case.

“This is a day that I — and we — have been waiting almost an entire lifetime for,” McCowan said.

For nearly four decades his sister’s killer had been a “ghost,” said McCowan, adding that his mother, who died two years ago, never recovered from the loss of her only daughter.

“She would have been so relieved that there had been an arrest, and so happy that someone will face justice after being anonymous for 39 years,” McCowan said.

The cases are just the latest advanced through genetic genealogy, a cutting-edge process that has breathed new life into old cases all but declared unsolvable.

In 2020, the technique was used by Toronto police to identify Calvin Hoover as the killer in the highprofile 1984 murder of Christine Jessop.

Genetic genealogy describes the process of taking DNA from a crime scene, using DNA sequencing to build a genetic profile of a family, then submitting it to ancestry site GEDmatch — allowing investigators to compare the sample to the scores of other genetic profiles submitted by people seeking genealogical information. (Toronto police say they only use ancestry services where users have consented to having their information accessed by law enforcement.)

Like they did for the Jessop case, Toronto police turned to U.S.-based lab Othram Inc. to develop the profile. It was challenging, Othram chief development officer Dr. Kristen Mittelman said in an interview Monday: the sample was contaminated, degraded and had been mixed in with the genetic material of Sutherland’s alleged victims.

The stakes are high, Mittelman noted, because DNA sequencing is a destructive process: the genetic material can be wrecked in the process of building a profile. They only run the sequencing “if we know we can build the profile,” she said.

From there, forensic genetic genealogists build out a family tree, a process that can produce multiple potential familial connections, requiring further research by a genealogist who may scour public records such as obituaries. There is also typically traditional police work such as interviews, Smith said.

Smith told reporters Monday that the scientific advances were the only way the cases were ever going to be solved. Sutherland — who was around 22 years old at the time of the murders — was never a suspect in the case, nor had he ever been interviewed.

He had been living in Toronto at the time of the murders, but had later moved to Moosonee, a remote town of 1,500 near James Bay.

“If we hadn’t used this technology we would never have come to his name,” Smith said.

A Facebook profile for a Joseph George Sutherland, with photos that show the same man pictured in a mug shot released by police, reveals a person going about a seemingly normal life in Moosonee, enjoying the outdoors and requesting recommendations for services like an electrician, while griping about everyday problems.

The page has since been inundated with commenters reacting to the news of his arrest in the high-profile murders. Meanwhile, on pages dedicated to missing and murdered loved ones, news in the murder cases was bringing hope to others that their unsolved mysteries may also find a resolution.

Tice, mother of four teenage children, was found dead in the upstairs bedroom of her recently purchased home on Grace Street near Harbord Street on Aug. 17, 1983. She had moved to Toronto from Calgary in July, and separated from her husband, who was living in a downtown townhouse. By the time her body was found by a relative, the mail had piled up outside her home. She’d suffered multiple stab wounds to the chest, though an autopsy could not determine when she’d died.

Four months later, on Dec. 20, Gilmour — an aspiring clothing designer from a wealthy family — was found dead in her nearby Yorkville apartment. Her father, David Gilmour, had been the business partner of tycoon Peter Munk, cofounder of the mining company Barrick Gold; the Star reported at the time that Munk’s son was the one who found her body.

Smith said Monday that police got a DNA warrant to obtain Sutherland’s genetic sample, though he did not provide further details. When the sample came back with as a match to the profile they’d developed, there was momentary exuberance — “it was surreal,” Smith said — before he realized he had to get back to work.

The same is true now, as they begin reviewing Sutherland’s movements to determine whether he may have been involved in crimes in the intervening years; police released a mug shot of Sutherland Monday, saying it was for investigative purposes.

Smith said Toronto police will be contacting other services in Ontario where police believe Sutherland has resided or visited — “we’ll be going through all the cases, all the way back for 39 years.”

Retired Toronto homicide detective Mark Mendelson told the Star that investigators can also turn to classic techniques to identify any other crimes they believe Sutherland may be responsible for, including photo lineups, if previous cases had eyewitnesses, as well as fingerprint analysis now that Sutherland’s fingerprints will be in a centralized system known as AFIS.

Mendelson said it’s also not clear if Sutherland himself, who has not yet entered a plea in court, is cooperating with investigators.

He said it’s also entirely possible that the person responsible for the murders never went on to commit other violent acts, but said there isn’t enough statistical data about serial criminals to have an “informed discussion” about it.

The former cop said one thing is certain: “It’s a clear example of ‘ain’t science wonderful.’ ”

Ramer, the Toronto police chief, acknowledged the announcement Monday, while a step toward closure, was bittersweet.

“As relieved as we are to announce this arrest, it will never bring back Erin or Susan,” said Ramer.

Sutherland is scheduled to appear in court Dec. 9.

‘‘ If we hadn’t used this technology we would never have come to his name. DET.- S GT. S TEPHEN S MITH TORONTO POLICE I NVESTIGATOR