COLD CASE CRACKED

DNA Evidence Leads Toronto Cops to Charge Man in 1983 Slayings of 2 Women

Joseph George Sutherland, 61, is accused of killing Erin Gilmour and Susan Tice within months of each other in their homes.

A 61-year-old man in Ontario has been arrested in the slayings of two women nearly four decades ago, police said Monday, attributing the break in the cold case to advances in forensic technology. Joseph George Sutherland was taken into custody on Thursday and charged with first-degree murder in the cases of Erin Gilmour and Susan Tice. Gilmour, a 22-year-old aspiring fashion designer, and Tice, a 45-year-old family therapist, were each sexually assaulted and killed in their homes within months of each other in 1983. They did not know one another. Their murders were linked using DNA evidence in 2000, though Sutherland was not looked at as a person of interest in the killings until recently. “As pleased as we are to announce this arrest, it will never bring Erin or Susan back,” Toronto Police Chief James Ramer said at a Monday morning news conference. “This is a day that I, and we, have been waiting almost an entire lifetime for,” said Sean McCowan, Gilmour’s brother. “It finally puts a name and a face to someone who for all of us had been a ghost.”