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Toronto Police Explain How Investigative Genetic Genealogy Led to a Cold Case Arrest in Moosonee

Joseph George Sutherland, 62, was sentenced to life without parole for 21 years in two 1983 murders in Toronto. He is therefore scheduled to be released when he is 83 years old.

A Toronto detective says police would never have pinpointed a Moosonee man as the offender in the historic murders of two Toronto women, 40 years ago, if it weren’t for recent developments in investigative genetic genealogy. 

Erin Gilmour, 22, and Susan Tice, 45, were both killed in their Toronto homes in 1983; sexually assaulted and stabbed to death. 

Joseph George Sutherland, 62, pleaded guilty in October 2023 to two counts of second-degree murder in their deaths.

He was sentenced March 22, 2024 to life in prison with no chance of parole for 21 years on two counts of second-degree murder.

Detectives were able to link the two killings using DNA technology in 2000, according to the Toronto Police Service, with investigators determining the same man killed both women.

You can read more in an article by Kate Rutherford published in the CBC.CA News web site at: https://bit.ly/3wp9Pkd.