How DNA technology led to murder charges — nearly 40 years later - The Fifth Estate

In this edition of the Fifth Estate... Two women. Two lives cut short. And the decades of search to bring his killer to justice. I think not having answers for so long is devastating for a family. We have clues and suspects in mind. But we cannot establish anyone directly responsible at this stage of the investigation. Psychologically, I guess... there's always a void. The questions always arise why did this happen? And I think that never, ever goes away. We'll take you inside the investigation, as the police try to solve a cold case. We believe, through the genealogical process, that these are the great-grandparents of the person who

murder

ed both Susan Tice and Erin Gilmour.

And the news that two families have waited for what seemed like a lifetime: the arrest of a suspect. It finally gives a name and face to someone who, for all of us, has been a ghost. I'm Mark Kelley, outside Toronto Police Headquarters. Tonight, an investigation that the Fifth Estate has been following for

years

. This is the story of a family seeking justice, the police searching for a suspect, and a small strand of DNA that unravels a mystery, tracking the ghost of an unsolved case. This is the Fifth Estate. This is a moment that has been almost 40

years

in the making.

Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us. Today we are here to announce that Toronto Police Services arrested an individual for the

murder

s of Erin Gilmour and Susan Tice in 1983. This past Thursday, November 24, this individual was arrested and taken into custody in Moosonee, Ontario, and returned to Toronto on Friday, November 25. Joseph George Sutherland, 61, of Moosonee, has been charged under the 1983 penal code with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Erin Gilmour and Susan Tice. Detective Sergeant Steve Smith believes he has finally found the missing piece to solve the case. Reviewing this case, I will tell you that the only way this was solved was with the advances of science.

We were able to use investigative genetic genealogy to narrow down a suspicious family and from there we were able to locate a suspect who is obviously under arrest today. Those scientific breakthroughs couldn't come soon enough for Erin Gilmour's siblings and, sadly, too late for her mother. Good morning, the last few days have brought me a whole spectrum of emotions as you can imagine. And this is a day that I and we have been waiting for almost our entire lives. In one sense, it's a real relief that someone has been arrested, but it also brings back a lot of memories of Erin and the brutal, senseless murder of her.

Our mother, Anna, passed away two years ago and she would have been very relieved that there had been an arrest. And very happy that someone is finally facing justice after remaining anonymous for 39 years. Sutherland has no criminal record. But armed with the suspect's DNA, police are convinced she is his man. He wasn't in our boxes as they say. He was not a suspect or person of interest in this case. If we had not used this

technology

, we would never have come up with his name. Detective Smith, what was his reaction when the police showed up at his door?

I think when you commit these crimes, you're just waiting for the knock on the door. If I could feel it, it would probably be a relief that it's finally over. So why did it take so long to make an arrest in this case? You see, Toronto police were searching for a suspect for years, until science intervened. We have over 700 unsolved files, and I started looking into some of the files that we had, that we knew we had what is believed to be criminal DNA, one of which was the Erin Gilmour file. I am very interested in seeing this movie, it is the first time I have seen the actual footage of Erin's murder.

The body of Toronto native Erin Gilmour was taken by police to the city's morgue this morning. The blonde part-time model was found by a friend at around 9:30 the previous night, tied to her bed and stabbed in the back. She was found in her second-floor apartment on Hazelton Avenue, located directly above a fashion clothing store where she worked as an employee. Friends visited the house all day to comfort family members and described Erin as a beautiful socialite who dressed stylishly and frequently traveled abroad. Today, relatives were too overcome with grief to speak to the media. Erin was stabbed multiple times in the torso and neck.

We can't imagine what she was going through, and we think about 20 minutes of our life and what she went through, it must have seemed like a lifetime to her. My name is Andrew Doyle, I am a detective with the Toronto Police Service. I work specifically in the unsolved case unit of the homicide squad. Yes, she lived upstairs. So here's the entrance, so you're talking, she would have gotten off work, walked and climbed the stairs here. We believe she finished her shift around 9 p.m. She went up to her apartment. Her boyfriend at the time, Mr. Munk, arrived around 9:20 p.m.

So it's a very, very short period for all of this to have happened. Erin Gilmour's murder was random. Without sense. Brutal. She was 22 years old. The only daughter of a prominent Toronto family. An aspiring fashion designer. A promising life ended in an attack that lasted only a few minutes. It's a terrible situation, there are no forced entries. There probably aren't any security systems either. No, absolutely. Actually, we focus on two different theories. One was that the offender was in the alley when Erin left her work, and when she opened the door, he pushed her and followed her to her apartment.

But with the door ajar, you would think that if he had planned this beforehand and was going to kidnap, sexually assault and murder a woman, he probably would have locked the door. One theory I'm jumping on is that it was probably a robbery at the time, and he, the criminal, was actually in her apartment looking for valuables, and she may have walked in and surprised him. I'm Sean McCowan and I'm Erin Gilmour's brother. She was an amazing sister. I was 13 and she was 22 at the time, she was 9 years older. My brother and I were like the proverbial little brothers who got tied up on her excursions.

My name is Kaelin McCowan and Erin Gilmour was my sister. It's a little difficult to summarize how... my sister's presence. But she...she was just beautiful and kind and warm and...in her presence you always felt special. My name is Kristen Basso and Erin Gilmour is my first cousin. And my uncle David was Erin's father. Erin was Anna and David's long-awaited daughter. She was a little beauty. My uncle had always wanted to be close to her, he simply adored her. I mean, in his book he referred to her as the jewel in her crown. Erin's father is David Gilmour, a well-known financier who owns this company located just down the street from his daughter's apartment.

Gilmour used to own Clairtone Stereo Company with his partner, Peter Munk. The last time I saw Erin was the day before she was murdered. It was December 19 and my brother and I had gone to stay the night at her apartment. It was five days until Christmas, so we all woke up the next morning. Erin took my brother Kaelin back to my mom's house. And I actually went off to do some Christmas shopping. We said goodbye and that was the last time I saw her. I remember feeling worried about her and scared and thinking that she should have some kind of protection because she lived alone.

The day Erin was murdered was a bitterly cold day. No one in her right mind, even if it were the last few days, the shopping days before Christmas, would have gone out that day, that night, if it weren't necessary. I had talked to Erin earlier that day and she really wasn't feeling very well. but she was at work doing what she had to do. Homicide detectives began an intense round of witness interviewing today in the Hazelton Avenue area of ​​Yorkville. They are part of a group of five investigation teams who have been ordered to find clues to Gilmour's death.

My mom gently shook me, woke me up and mentioned... and obviously she was very, very upset, she was excited. And she said, "It's Erin." And then she said they had killed her. And I remember screaming. Yes, I remember screaming and I remember literally... Excuse me. I literally turned around and punched a hole in the wall. So far, the police are confident. We have clues and suspects in mind. But we cannot establish anyone directly responsible at this stage of the investigation. And we are hopeful and confident that we can solve this murder. The Gilmour case, unfortunately at that time, they didn't have the luxury of having DNA evidence, that's not... we didn't really start using DNA evidence until the early mid-'90s, and as we went on we were able to do more with less. with DNA evidence.

But back then they didn't have that luxury. The funeral was a real blur. David just broke down and I remember seeing Guido cradling him in his arms and David saying, "I want to die, I just want to die." It's been just over a year since Erin Gilmour was discovered murdered in her Hazelton Avenue apartment. Since her murder, homicide detectives have interviewed more than 700 people and have amassed reams of notes and files on the case. But the murder of Erin Gilmour remains unsolved. And here we are, 37 years

later

. And always, psychologically, I guess there's always a void, there's always the questions of, why did this happen?

Not just why did this happen... but who did it? Someone got away with it. But investigators had a key piece of evidence: the killer left DNA at the crime scene. But it would be another 17 years after Erin's murder before DNA took the investigation in a new direction. Coming soon... They found the body of a woman in her thirties. Her body was discovered on the second floor of 341 Grace Street in a pool of blood. DNA from the crime scene creates an unexpected connection to another unsolved murder in 1983. You know that the guy who did this committed two violent murders in the span of three months, and someone knows something.

After the murder of Erin Gilmour in 1983, Toronto police dedicated all their resources to catching her killer. A staggering 700 people were interviewed. The suspects were eliminated one by one. But after more than a year the investigation reached a dead end. Sergeant Rocco Cleveland knows the frustration of a case that doesn't come to fruition. He was assigned to investigate the murder of Erin Gilmour. A computer-printed file more than four inches thick details the hundreds of pieces of evidence collected during the investigation. But a year after the murder, there is still no answer. It would be 17 long years before the police found a solution to the case.

The year was 2000, and crime scene DNA found in Gilmour's murder led police to make a surprising connection to another unsolved murder from 1983. Shortly before noon, police were called to an apartment in the Bathurst St. and Bloor area. They found the body of a woman in her thirties. Her body was discovered on the second floor of 341 Grace Street in a pool of blood, and homicide detectives say she was apparently stabbed to death. The woman's brother called police to the scene and became alarmed: Susan Tice was new to Toronto. She was a mother of four, 45 years old, and from Calgary.

Unfortunately, she hadn't been in Toronto long when things went tragically wrong for her. Uh, her kids, I think, were in school. She was stabbed several times in the chest. She was also stabbed in the back and Mrs. Tice was sexually assaulted. Because at that time the front door was locked and she was going in and out through the back. So it might be an idea for us to travel around the back... There was probably, there's probably an alley, so... Yeah. Okay. Do you want to walk around the back? Yes, let's try it. A next-door neighbor remembers hearing four screams around 1:30 in the morning.

Then about 15 minutes

later

, the same neighbor I talked about who heard the four screams, heard someone walking by. So this door back here, the back door of the house, was open at the time her brother-in-law came to check on him. -Yes. It was open, it was half open, he says in the report. - Yes. - So you're wondering... It seems like that was your access then. Yes, I would suggest that would be the access point. The front door was locked when she got there. In fact, she had to walk alone like we did here, and she gained access to the house this way.

And you wonder: was she the target or was he just here? Was it a crime to see a woman alone? Yes. Until DNA arrived in 2000, we had no link between the two cases, even though they were about four or five months apart, a very similar modus operandi, but there was nothing that could say that these cases were related. until we were able to put together the DNA from both crime scenes and say definitively that it is the same criminal. Forensic scientists use DNA to identify suspects. Islike a genetic fingerprint. Each one's profile is unique. It is not foolproof, but it is a valuable tool used by police to convict or clear suspects.

Toronto police entered the killers' DNA into the RCMP's national data bank. It's a collection of

nearly

half a million profiles that can help investigators solve cold cases. But the bank has limitations. It only has DNA samples from convicted criminals, collected over the last 22 years. In the cases of Tice and Gilmour, there was no match in the database. And the researchers went back to the drawing board. If there is absolutely no scientific evidence and we have exhausted all leads in the case, we can take the people who were witnesses and go back and re-interview the people, see if anyone has changed their mind or if anyone knows something that maybe they don't.

They told the original researchers. Short of that, maybe wait for someone to give a deathbed confession, something like that. And for the family who had waited two decades for answers, it was another dead end. With Erin's case, nothing had happened for years. And she had sort of decided that maybe they would never find this person, and that, you know, seeing a therapist and dealing with this, she needed to let it go. She needed to let it go. I needed to let go of the anger and hatred, you know, towards the person who could have done this.

So I had decided that this might never be resolved. I think the first thing you feel is that you hope there is a resolution. And I think you go through a loss like that and you expect there to be a response and a processing and... I think that never, ever goes away, you know, and I don't know. , you know, if this is ever resolved, it will be an answer, but not closure, I think it left a really big void in a lot of people's lives. Our family and friends and, you know, obviously everyone who loved her.

But Sean McCowan kept putting pressure on the police to make sure his sister's cold case didn't become a forgotten case. Susan Tice and Erin Gilmour did not meet in life. Unfortunately, the two women are forever linked in their deaths. The same man is responsible for both murders. In 2016, Toronto police made this plea for help public, convinced that someone knew something. If you wish to remain anonymous, that is perfectly fine. We have his DNA. All we need from you is your name, nothing more. It is your duty to include your name in this investigation so that you can be held accountable.

It was an event south of the border that changed everything, giving police a new tool to solve cold cases. Police in California say they have captured the man they believe was a serial rapist and murderer in the 1970s and 1980s. They have charged former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo with two murders. But if he is the so-called Golden State Killer, he is believed to have killed 12 people and raped dozens more. In 2018, FBI investigators entered DNA from the crime scene into a public DNA family tree website and eventually identified the killer. Shortly after that, Detective Smith was contacted by a laboratory in the US.

I had opened a LinkedIn account, and in fact, an Othram member reached out to me and said, "I see that you investigate cold cases. We're a lab in Texas that specializes in this type of DNA coding, we create profiles and we would be willing to work with you if you have a case that interests you." So we started the dialogue there where I said: "Well, actually we have some cases, we are analyzing their viability." Next... the image of a possible suspect slowly emerges, one distant relative at a time. The process in this case is enormous. We are in the setting of a small town in Canada.

And the police finally get the break they were looking for. We believe, through the genealogical process, that these are the great-grandparents of the person who murdered both Susan Tice and Erin Gilmour. In 2019, the Toronto Police Cold Case Team focused on a handful of unsolved cases. The murders of Erin Gilmour and Susan Tice, and another violent crime that took place here north of Toronto in 1984. Christine Jessop, age 9, was murdered and her killer was never found. Toronto police had crime scene DNA from that case and were working with a lab in the U.S., hoping genetic genealogy could solve the case.

We originally sent the DNA sample to Othram Labs in December 2019. In February 2020, we received a notice that the coding was successful and they were uploading it to GEDmatch for us. GEDmatch is... I like to refer to it as a kind of clearinghouse for DNA matches, for people who are really interested in building their family trees. What GEDmatch has done is that it will allow you to upload your genetic profile from any of the pay-as-you-go sources, for free on their website, and will provide you with matches from all of the pay-as-you-go sources. It gives you a much larger pool to build your family trees on, to give you many more connections as to who you would be related to.

I got a "come here" phone call. Like, come on... and as soon as I got that phone call, those might have been the exact words, actually, to be honest. I hung up, I knew there was something. I didn't know exactly what, I didn't know exactly what case, but from the tone of Steve's voice I could tell that something had come up. And then, you know, he walked quickly into his office. It was October 3, 1984, when nine-year-old Christine Jessop disappeared from her home in Queensville, Ontario. Tragically, on December 31, 1984, Christine was found in Sunderland, Ontario, in Durham Region. They had stabbed her to death.

On Friday, October 9, 2020, we positively confirmed the identification of the person responsible for the DNA sample found in Christine's underwear. Calvin Hoover of Toronto, Ontario, was 28 years old in 1984. He died in 2015. We have used an investigation technique that is fairly new in law enforcement, certainly in Canada. It has been used... This technique has been used in the United States for the past several years. And it is genetic genealogy that we have really used. By reviewing numerous documents and doing so, you essentially build a family tree. I thank the members of the cold case homicide section for their determination in getting us to this point.

Thank you. Incredible. It's unreal that we actually did it. This worked. We go there. It was a very happy moment for all of us. We were, I mean, I was shocked, frankly. And it gives you the traction that you need or that you want: "Let's keep going. We've done this, let's keep rolling. Let's get some traction here, let's do this again. Let's do it again." and let's do it again." Then I got a call from Erin Gilmour's brother, who called me and just wanted to talk, and just wanted to see if there was any chance of using this technique to solve his sister's murder.

With the help of the American laboratory , Toronto police began the painstaking task of building a family tree for the killer in the Tice and Gilmour cases. But instead of a tree, investigators started with a forest. Oh, let me turn on my laptop here. I just have to log in. So they built our family tree on a couple of families. In a perfect world, DNA can help provide the police with a name or two as possible suspects. I've been going over it, it's pretty complex. It started with 8,000. Like this So we've basically narrowed it down to two families, we're looking at maybe 26 children, and then their children's children.

But, you know, there could be eight to ten children within each family. But in the cases of Tice and Gilmour, investigators only had profiles that matched fourth or

fifth

cousins. It would take more than a year to narrow down that list. We believe, through the genealogical process, that these are the great-grandparents of the person who murdered both Susan Tice and Erin Gilmour. It was March 2021 when Toronto police had an update on the Gilmour family. And I'm just going to talk to my brother Kaelin, who currently lives in New Zealand, so... put him on the phone. Hey. - Hello Brother how are you?

I'm good, you? So I'm going to put you on speaker and we have the detectives here, Steve and Andrew, and Krissi is here too, okay? Good, excellent. - Well. Yeah. Well, I just wanted to say that Andrew is the lead investigator on the case, so I'm the lead case manager, he's the lead investigator, so. But obviously we're here to give you an update on Erin's case. So far we have been able to reach our most recent common ancestors, who are the offender's great-grandparents, so we are that close. So the bottom line is that you are trying to find relatives of this person, is that it?

That's right, absolutely. And we are using those relatives to delineate who the person is. I mean, obviously we can eliminate any women from families, but again in these small towns there are a lot of large families, right? Sorry, it's Kaelin from New Zealand and I'm just asking a question. I was wondering in terms of these great-grandparents that have been found, are these... I'm just assuming this is geographically within Canada. Is there a specific region or province you can reveal? Yeah, I don't want to get into it too much now, but we're talking about a small town in Canada.

Very small town in Canada. And I know it's maybe not the easiest question to answer or ask you to put a marker on a date on the calendar, but in terms of... in terms of the progress so far and in terms of reaching, as mentioned, great-grandparents What would you imagine as a possible time frame in terms of reaching a final result? Well, put it this way, we've been working on this since we got the code for this case, for about a year. So we have made great progress. We're really starting to... to focus, so we're really starting to... what would you say?

For example, we're really digging deeper, focusing on certain families, and we're really using our research techniques to include or exclude people. Well, I think... I'll speak for... not speak for the family, but I think we're obviously... you know, obviously very, very happy that 38 years later we're sitting at this table and getting to this point. It's been a long time coming and I think we've been waiting for an update like this too, and... I will say it's the most optimistic I've had in 38 years of waiting. And that's crazy, it's like... that's fabulous... from my... from my seat on this side of the table, it's, you know, it's actually super encouraging and confidence building and everything, so thank you so much. it's great.

So, yeah... Like you said, you asked earlier how long... and it makes sense, how long does it take? It can take a month, a year, a day. It may take a week. Things change extremely quickly. But as families already knew, justice moves slowly, and genetic genealogy, for all the hope it offers, may move even more slowly. There we left the story almost two years ago. When we got back...Steve called and I kind of know how his phone number appears, it's not his number, but I know how it appears, and I picked up the phone and he said, "Sean?" He said, "Yes." He said, "It's me." I said hello." And he says, "We got it." Families' patience is finally rewarded.

Steve, did you ever doubt that this day would come? I knew from the beginning that we were on the right track in this. I knew that this day would happen. I just didn't know when. It was the moment the Tice and Gilmour families spent decades waiting for. And yet, when it happened this week, in some ways, it still seemed so sudden. Joseph George Sutherland, 61, of Moosonee, has been charged under the 1983 Penal Code with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Erin Gilmour and Susan Tice. Erin Gilmour's brother Sean had always said he just wanted the police to give him a name.

Now he had an arrest that finally provided him with some measure of comfort. This arrest finally brings an answer for all of us, after almost 39 years of asking "Who?" It finally puts a name and a face to someone we have all been a ghost Police arrested Sutherland after showing up at his home with what they say is the first time a DNA warrant has been used in a genetic genealogy case. Now that the suspect has been in Ontario for 39 years since these murders, we are obviously going to investigate every possible connection to any possible case across Ontario to ensure that he is not responsible for any further crimes.

Sutherland's lawyer obtained a publication ban preventing police from revealing details about him or any possible connection to the crimes. This is what we were able to rebuild. Sutherland was 21 when he moved to Toronto from northern Ontario. It was just a few months before the murders. He moved to the town of Moosonee in the early 2000s. It is a remote community of 3,500 people south of James Bay. There is no way in or out of the community. Sutherland's social media profile says that during theFor the last 13 years he worked as a computer scientist. manager of an indigenous agency that provides child welfare services in the region.

He is a single father of three and his Facebook page suggests that he is a man who loves the outdoors and was fully embracing life in this quiet corner of the country. While a trial is a long way off and a conviction is not guaranteed, the families are convinced the right man has been arrested. That felt good. Everything's fine. Let's have a good lunch. Yeah, I don't blame you. But I'd like to schedule drinks with you, Stacy Glotten, Andrew and the gang, and whatever. -Yes absolutely. Okay, sounds good. When you first got the news, how did you find out and tell me about it?

Steve called and I kind of know... I kind of know how his phone number shows up, it's not his number, but I know how it shows up. And I picked up the phone and he said, "Sean?" I said, "Yes." He said, "It's me." I said hello." And he says, "We got it." And... And I think I literally burst into tears. It was hard to keep us together and there was a lot of swearing, a lot of joy, a lot of tears and a lot... I could barely breathe. And ...he and I were both...it was a real moment for both of us.

It was the best phone call I've ever had in my life. Tell me how you found out. Sean has been the point of contact with Steve and I got a call from him : "Call me as soon as possible." And yes. We found out that they were making an arrest and I was stunned. I mean, we knew that actions were taking place that led to determining exactly who it was. But yes, it was so surreal and so strange. It still is. How do you describe this day? How do you describe this moment? I think it's so surreal to me that it's come to this.

It's a big day for our family and kind of a big relief to get some answers, know a name and see someone brought before the court. justice. For 39 years, this guy has been an absolute ghost to us. It wasn't just the senseless murder of Erin and Susan Tice, but now we finally have someone to at least bring some relief to the unknown. It is a true moment of justice. Describe it, what is it like to have this "ghost" in your life? For me, it was always not knowing who and potentially I'm walking next to this guy on the street, right?

And just having him live anonymously and having no sense of connection or any knowledge except a strand of DNA, basically, is all we really knew. He was probably a ghost to me, and it was always a question of... You know, who are you and are you a bigger risk to others? Or... and where are you? Researchers describe this moment as one of relief. Going from a DNA family tree of thousands to a single suspect. What was the conversation? It was very... He was very stoic and I think, and I could be wrong, but it seemed to me that maybe a lot of these things that he may have been feeling or thinking, I think the pieces started to fall into place, recognizing that for 39 years he has been... it has been cold, it has been almost a ghost.

I think the gravity and weight of this was getting to him. That's what I felt at that moment, whether I projected it onto him or not, I don't know. But that's how it felt. I think... I don't think he knew what to say. And he didn't say much. Steve, did you ever doubt that he would see this day? No, I did not do it. I knew from the beginning that we were on the right track with this. It was just a matter of team diligence. Like I said, no one got frustrated. Everyone worked on it. We continue working on it day by day.

I knew this day was coming. I just didn't know when. Because I imagine it's something like double. First, there are families searching for answers, as the Gilmours and the Tice family were. On the other hand, you have criminals who think they got away with it. Should they be looking over their shoulders? Yes, they should. Absolutely. We... This is a testament to that. It's 39 years. We will never stop. We are... As science increases, it gives us even more tools. If he was worried, he should be even more worried now than before. So yes, they should be looking over their shoulders because, to the extent we can avoid it, we're going to get there.

And this just shows it. For the Gilmour family, the brothers say there is no closure. Sean has been speaking publicly about the murder for years to keep Erin's memory alive. He says he always will. On this journey you've been on, what has it been like for you to put yourself out there again and again with no guarantee that anyone would ever be arrested? What has that been like for you? You know, it's not easy. It's hard every time it happens. There are times when interviews are sometimes easier than others. You know, it's... I guess it's a labor of love and I think it's something that I've been happy to do as hard as it is sometimes.

I think it definitely brings me back to this. And there are many people in my life who would attest to that. And sort of... over the years there have been a lot of people who have said to me, you know, maybe it's time to close this, and maybe it's time to move on, and it's been 40 years and maybe you should leave it. go. What would you say? No. No. You know... She would have done it for me and I can't let it go. It has to be present and it has to be there and it has to... with my last breath, I will do this.

And it's like... it feels... it seems like a lot of that has paid off today. It's... you know, as the expression goes, a job well done. You know, it's nice. You did it for your sister. Thanks for doing it, brother. This is an excerpt from a book in which Erin is largely responsible for me wanting to write about my family. "Three days after her death, I woke up from a convincingly realistic dream that ended with Erin treating me "to assure her family" that she was in a happy, light-filled place. "Erin had told me about her plan" to write a book about family. "In a way, writing this book "has become part of her legacy for me. "I will always remember Erin on our beach. "Her long blonde hair swirled around her" as she pirouetted in the sand, "and her delicate hands and secret smile" were exactly those in Botticelli's "beautiful and dreamy 'The Birth of Venus.'" She will be forever that eternal Venus in my heart".