Man accused in 1983 murders of 2 Toronto women pleads guilty

WARNING: There are graphic details in the following story. 

A 61-year-old man accused in the grisly murders of two Toronto women who were killed four decades ago has now pleaded guilty to the crimes.

On Thursday, Joseph George Sutherland, 61, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in connection with the deaths of 22-year-old Erin Gilmour and 45-year-old Susan Tice, who were killed four months apart back in 1983.

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Tice, a mother of four, was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death at her home on Grace Street in the city’s Bickford Park neighbourhood in August 1983.

Gilmour, an aspiring fashion designer, was found dead at her Hazelton Avenue apartment in Yorkville in December of that year. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed.

Details of the investigation, which spanned forty years, were outlined in an agreed statement of facts submitted to the court this week after Sutherland’s guilty pleas.

According to the court documents, the homicides were investigated separately using only the “limited forensic capabilities available at the time,” including fingerprint, hair and fiber analysis, as well as blood grouping.

• READ MORE: What we know so far about accused murderer Joseph George Sutherland

Through the advancement of DNA technology, police eventually linked the two murders in the year 2000 but no suspect was identified at that time.

Nineteen years later, the Toronto Police Service began using genetic genealogy to generate new investigative leads in unsolved cold cases. This new investigative technique led to a breakthrough in the case in 2021, ultimately pointing investigators to Sutherland.

A warrant was obtained to collect a sample of Sutherland’s DNA to compare it to the semen found on the bodies of Tice and Gilmour.

Officers travelled to Sutherland’s home in the small northern Ontario town of Moosonee on Nov. 23, 2022 to collect the DNA sample. Before the results came back, Sutherland reached out to a friend, who was a retired police officer, and confessed to murdering the two women during the time he lived in Toronto, the court documents read.

The friend contacted police and made arrangements for Sutherland’s arrest, which took place on Nov. 24, 2022. He was initially charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

Sutherland has admitted that he broke into the homes of both women, sexually assaulted them, and stabbed them to death.

Tice was alone in her home on the night of Aug. 16, 1983 when Sutherland broke in, attacked her in her bedroom, and sexually assaulted her. According to the statement of facts, there was evidence of defensive wounds, indicating that Tice fought back against her attacker. She was stabbed 13 times and her body was discovered the following day by her brother-in-law.

According to the court documents, Gilmour had just finished work on the night of Dec. 20, 1983 and had intended to return to her Yorkville apartment only briefly before heading out for the evening with a friend. When the friend returned to pick her up less than an hour later, he discovered a gruesome scene. Her apartment door was ajar, and when he walked into the bedroom, he found Gilmour’s body underneath a comforter. She had been bound and gagged and his attempts to resuscitate her were unsuccessful. Gilmour had been sexually assaulted and stabbed twice in the chest.

There is no known evidence that the victims knew each other or that they knew Sutherland, the court documents state.

Sutherland is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 14, 2023 at 10 a.m.