Canada Global (Web News) According to authorities, a suspect has been apprehended in the 1983 deaths of two women in Toronto, one of whom was the daughter of a founder of the massive gold mining company Barrick Gold.
In late 1983, after having been sexually raped, Erin Gilmour, 22, and Susan Tice, 45, were found stabbed to death in their respective bedrooms four months apart.
After authorities used DNA evidence from a genealogy inquiry to link Joseph George Sutherland to the crime scene, he was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder last week at his residence in Moosonee, Ontario.
Gilmour was a budding fashion designer and the daughter of David Gilmour, who co-founded Barrick, the largest gold mining corporation in the world until rival Newmont overtook it in 2019.
Tice had four children and worked as a family therapist.
The two women did not know one another, despite living only a few kilometres apart in downtown Toronto, according to authorities.
Detective Steve Smith of the Toronto police department stated during a news conference that “the only way this (crime) was solved was through breakthroughs in science.”
He said that the suspect’s DNA left at the scene in 2000 allowed authorities to link the two homicides.
Then, he claimed, recently “We were able to identify a suspicious family using investigative genetic genealogy. We were able to focus on a suspect after that.”
The suspect was not a person of interest in the killings, according to Smith. Without using this technology, Smith claimed, “we never would have discovered his name.”
After 39 years, Erin’s brother Sean McCowan expressed the families’ relief on their behalf, saying, “Erin and Susan are finally having their day.”
I and we have been waiting for this day for almost a lifetime, McCowan remarked.
“It also brings back a lot of thoughts of Erin and her needless, horrific murder.”
The 61-year-old Sutherland may be connected to other unsolved cases, according to the police.
