0:01

Tonight on Dateline. I

0:03

said goodbye to her outside her house. I

0:05

walked across the street. I was

0:07

lost in my shower. Emergency.

0:10

Emergency please come in. Everything

0:12

is possible. Aaron had

0:14

been stabbed multiple times. Anthony

0:16

was seeing Aaron. He's

0:18

the prime suspect at that point. After

0:21

him, it's basically everybody.

0:24

She'd thrown a party. Suddenly all these

0:26

people showed up. People that weren't invited. No.

0:29

The investigation just keeps ballooning. But

0:31

it's not really leading us anywhere. Years

0:34

of waiting. It

0:37

was like this person was a ghost. All

0:39

of a sudden the police were, we've got another case.

0:42

There was much more of a fight with

0:44

Susan. I was convinced there's

0:46

going to be a connection between these two

0:48

victims. This is technology

0:50

that is cutting edge. We're

0:53

down to one family, five brothers. It

0:57

was very eye opening how remote we can get

0:59

up there. Somebody that's

1:01

cornered, they become the most dangerous.

1:05

He said you don't need helicopters. You

1:07

don't need tactical teams. You say to them what? I'll do it. Yeah.

1:10

I'll get them. An

1:12

ice cold case takes investigators to

1:14

the frozen north to catch a

1:16

killer. I'm Lester Holt.

1:18

This is Dateline. Here's

1:29

Josh Mankiewicz with Evil Walk Through

1:31

the Door. This

1:39

much we know. It

1:41

doesn't matter where you live. It

1:45

doesn't matter if you're well-to-do or barely

1:47

making it. Whether

1:49

you're cozied up in a nice part of town.

1:52

Starting over. Someplace simple.

1:56

Or hold up in a far off

1:58

place. Evil can

2:01

come through any door. On

2:06

one awful night a long time

2:08

ago, it found its

2:10

way here. Yorkville's

2:13

one of the top neighborhoods

2:15

in Toronto. There's high-end hotels,

2:17

high-end boutiques, high-end

2:19

restaurants, bars. Steve

2:21

Smith is a homicide detective with

2:23

the Toronto Police Service. He

2:26

doesn't get a lot of calls to this part of town.

2:29

It's where people with money gravitate to.

2:31

When the film festival comes to Toronto,

2:33

most of the stars stay in that area. Not a

2:36

lot of violent crime there. Not

2:38

a lot of violent crime. Not

2:41

now and not then. Emergency?

2:46

Emergency. Please come as soon

2:48

as possible. It was just a

2:50

few days before Christmas, 1983, when

2:54

this Luxe neighborhood became an epicenter

2:56

of police activity, news cameras, and

2:59

fear because of what happened

3:02

to 22-year-old Erin Gilmore. What's

3:05

going on? Some clothes, your time. Okay,

3:08

stand alone with me. Oh, yeah, please.

3:10

The caller was Erin's boyfriend, Anthony Monk.

3:13

When police arrived at the scene,

3:16

they knew right away it was

3:18

anything but suicide. They find

3:20

out that she was bound and gagged.

3:23

She had been stabbed multiple times in the

3:25

front, up in her upper

3:27

torso, as well as in the back. And

3:30

it was believed right away that she was

3:32

most likely sexually assaulted. Andrew

3:35

Doyle is also a homicide detective

3:37

in Toronto, Canada's biggest

3:39

city. There was

3:41

a significant fight before she died. There

3:44

was definitely a fight before she died.

3:47

Unfortunately, it was one that she

3:49

couldn't win. Detective Smith

3:51

and Doyle weren't the original detectives,

3:55

but they know the case well, beginning

3:57

with the forensic sweep of the crime

3:59

scene. Obviously, they would collect

4:01

any and all specimens, hair,

4:04

fingerprints, blood, saliva,

4:06

any other liquid that they could get. You

4:09

found blood in the apartment that wasn't hers? Yes.

4:13

Because during stabbings,

4:15

frequently you're going to end up cutting

4:18

yourself. Absolutely. It happens all the time.

4:20

Back then, DNA analysis

4:22

was years away. Researchers

4:25

could still tell a lot by determining

4:27

what blood types were at the scene.

4:30

You know, they did a lot of blood grouping. So

4:32

they could, at the

4:34

time in 1983, they would eliminate

4:37

people through blood grouping. So obviously,

4:39

looking back, it just wasn't that

4:41

advanced. But they collected it and you guys

4:43

hang on to it. Correct.

4:45

They held on to all of it. Once

4:49

police realized the victim was Aaron Gilmour,

4:51

they knew this would be a high-pressure

4:53

case. This was the kind

4:55

of story the papers write about and

4:58

the chief calls about. Aaron

5:00

came from a well-known family in

5:02

the Toronto area. She had

5:05

a pretty large family. Aaron's

5:08

family was wealthy and influential. She

5:11

had enjoyed a privileged upbringing,

5:13

good schools, world travel. Her

5:15

mother, Anna, the woman with the dark hair,

5:18

was a former model and dancer. Her

5:21

dad was pretty well-known back then. He was. The

5:24

first guy to market Fiji water? That's correct.

5:26

From which I gather he made some

5:29

money. You'd be correct. And

5:32

in a matter of hours, that

5:34

family was getting the call that

5:36

changes families forever. Aaron's

5:38

brother, Sean McCallen, was 13 at the time.

5:42

He had been with Aaron just the day

5:44

before. I just remember waking up the

5:46

morning of the 21st and my mom was sitting on

5:48

my bed. Took a look around. There was a

5:51

few people in the room. My mom leaned

5:53

over and said, there's been an accident with Aaron. And

5:56

she then proceeded to tell me that Aaron

5:58

had been murdered. the

6:00

best that she could. And then I literally leaned over and

6:03

put a hole through my wall. You punched the wall.

6:05

Yeah. Yeah. I

6:07

think the quote my mom used was

6:09

that Aaron had been killed by a

6:11

bad person. You're 13

6:13

years old, it's a couple days before Christmas

6:16

and you're trying to figure out what, number

6:18

one, how that happens to Aaron. Police

6:23

found no evidence of forced entry or

6:26

robbery. They quickly developed

6:28

theories as to how Aaron's killer

6:30

got inside. So if

6:32

you see the rooftops behind us, they're all

6:34

connected. So he could have got up on

6:36

the rooftop anywhere on this row of houses

6:39

and walked straight across until he saw somebody

6:41

that was in there. Was

6:43

it somebody that had been stalking her? Was

6:46

it somebody that just happened to be in

6:48

there doing a break and enter? Was

6:50

it somebody that she knew? They

6:53

paid close attention to the boyfriend's

6:55

version of events. Anthony

6:58

Munk told police he was supposed to pick up

7:00

Aaron at 9 p.m. for a date, but

7:03

stopped at an ATM on the way over.

7:05

Now Mr. Munk was running a little bit late and

7:08

he didn't arrive there until 9.20. When

7:12

he approached the door, he noticed that the

7:14

door was a little bit open, ajar. So

7:17

knowing that he was going to be picking her up,

7:19

he thought she may have left the door a little

7:21

bit open for him. So he's not sure exactly what's

7:23

going on because usually her apartment is fairly neat, kept

7:26

very well. So he's seeing

7:28

that there's a bit of disarray. By now he's

7:31

calling her name and not getting an answer. Calling

7:33

her name very loudly, yeah, absolutely. Went back into

7:35

the bedroom, noticed the duvet was completely covering

7:39

the entire bed, but thought maybe she

7:41

could be underneath there. So

7:44

he went up to the bed, pulled

7:46

the duvet down just to her shoulders

7:49

and found Aaron there laying in

7:51

the bed. And he noticed there

7:53

was something around her neck, something black as

7:55

he described it, and there was

7:58

blood everywhere. So... She

8:00

went back downstairs, got

8:02

on the phone, called the operator, asked for

8:05

an ambulance, asked for police. It's

8:08

the kind of event that cuts the timeline

8:10

of your life in two, the

8:13

part before and the part after. Aaron's

8:16

brother Sean would never be the same. He

8:19

was still just a kid, but from

8:21

that moment on, he would be driven

8:23

by the question, who

8:25

did this to his sister? Sean

8:28

was on a mission. Oh yeah. Like

8:33

40 years of waiting.

8:38

Police wanted the same answers.

8:41

He's getting away. Just

8:43

disappointment after disappointment. Finding

8:46

the killer would take detectives to the

8:48

limits of their patients and to the

8:51

ends of the earth. No,

8:53

he says I did some really, really bad

8:55

things. So I just

8:57

shut up and listened. I often

8:59

wonder, did he try to put

9:01

this out of his mind and forget about it? Or was he

9:03

thinking about it every night when he went to bed? Were

9:06

you just waiting for that knock on the door? ["The

9:14

Little Star-Spangled Banner"]

9:21

Five days before Christmas, someone

9:23

had murdered 22-year-old Aaron Gilmour

9:25

in her apartment in

9:27

a fashionable section of Toronto. The

9:30

story made headlines. Police

9:32

felt the heat. This

9:35

was obviously a big deal in Toronto. I

9:37

mean, every homicide, every

9:39

murder is a big

9:41

deal, but when it's a prominent

9:43

family and a prominent

9:45

young female that's murdered,

9:48

it kind of stays in the forefront for

9:50

longer. And I'm sure, I

9:52

have no doubt that there was pressure as

9:54

to, we need to solve this. from

10:00

some serious man in trench coats. The

10:03

two original detectives on the case, I remember

10:05

sitting in my mom's kitchen with them,

10:08

and I think they were sort of on either side

10:10

of me and taking statements or taking

10:12

notes on what I was saying. What did they ask you?

10:15

Well, we had been there the night before, so

10:18

they wanted to sort of, you know, was

10:20

anything unusual and, you know, was anything strange

10:22

happening? How was Erin acting? It

10:25

seemed Erin was happy. Looking

10:28

forward to her evening and the

10:30

holidays ahead. She was

10:32

just starting out in life. She had a lot

10:34

of friends. It was very social. She

10:36

had a lot of things going for her, and her future was endless. She

10:40

could have done anything that she had wanted. Erin

10:43

was coming to a room, and the whole atmosphere

10:45

would change because she was just this, you know,

10:47

beautiful, dynamic woman who everybody

10:49

wanted to be friends with. What

10:51

was she up to at that point in her life? She'd

10:54

gone to university. She graduated. She

10:56

had recently traveled to Australia and had

10:59

returned back to Toronto. She was working

11:01

at a clothing store, and she

11:03

was living above that clothing store. Her dad had

11:05

rented her that apartment. Correct.

11:07

She loved it. Erin's cousin,

11:10

Kristen Basso. And she

11:12

was working right downstairs at Robin's Knits in

11:14

her, you know, during her part-time whatever. She

11:16

loved it. What could

11:18

be better? Exactly. No commute.

11:21

Her parents were divorced, but the Klan remained

11:23

close. Her mother had remarried

11:25

and had two boys, including Sean.

11:28

My mom was busy starting up a valley school in

11:30

a business, and Erin would sort of fill the gaps

11:32

a lot of the time. She had a cheap, an

11:34

old-grade, a cheap YJ that she used to drive us

11:37

around everywhere, and it was, you know,

11:39

adventure time effectively. It was great. One

11:43

of those adventures was a sleepover at Erin's

11:45

the night before she was killed.

11:48

We went over and had dinner and crawled in her bed,

11:51

watched a movie, and then we

11:54

all sort of crashed out relatively

11:56

early. earlier

12:00

that day. The

12:03

two little boys were hanging off her because they just

12:05

adored her. They just would hang off

12:07

her. And as I watched her, I thought, you look, you're

12:10

so beautiful and you're so fragile. I

12:12

hope nothing awful ever happens. Everyone

12:15

loved her. Yeah. Vanessa

12:18

Vancetart, another of Aaron's

12:20

cousins. She's a really

12:22

nice, caring, sweet

12:25

person. For the

12:27

people who loved her, Aaron's loss was

12:29

overwhelming. All the money and

12:31

care in the world hadn't kept her

12:33

safe. This is a

12:37

hole that we'd never be able to fill

12:39

in or fix, basically. Aaron's

12:42

father, David, could not be

12:44

consoled. Maybe because

12:46

he had encouraged his daughter to live in

12:48

that apartment. David practically

12:51

committed suicide. He literally was

12:53

on the verge of it. He

12:56

was taking drugs just to try and

12:58

keep his sanity. Well, he planned

13:00

himself, right? Oh, yeah. He did. He

13:02

was sending her back here. What did this do to

13:04

Aaron's mom? Oh, it tore her apart. It

13:07

totally tore her apart. Well,

13:09

it's a horror movie that is your

13:11

life. It never

13:13

goes away. Never goes away. The

13:17

notoriety of the murder put a family's

13:19

private grief on public

13:21

display. The

13:24

funeral felt like a mafia funeral just from

13:26

the point of view of all the press

13:28

that were there photographing and the police photographing

13:31

everybody going in and out.

13:34

800 people packed the church. Everybody

13:37

looked ghost-like. There was

13:40

just such a feeling of silence.

13:42

The choir was the only thing that had

13:44

any kind of feeling of humanity in it.

13:47

It was just broken hearts everywhere. I

13:49

remember at the end, my mom

13:52

asked us to go up to Aaron's coffin and go

13:54

and touch it and say goodbye. And

13:57

that was a hard one. You

13:59

did this. Yeah,

14:02

we did that. That's

14:04

13-year-old Shawn in the red coat, walking

14:07

behind his sister's casket. Her

14:10

funeral. A lot of people

14:12

there. Oh, yeah. Your guys

14:14

among them. Correct. What

14:16

are you looking for at the funeral? Is

14:19

there anybody that's not invited that shows up

14:21

to the funeral and then also

14:23

who doesn't show up for the funeral? You

14:26

never know. Anybody not fit in?

14:29

Not really. Nobody that

14:32

drew any sort of attention.

14:35

At that point, police were just collecting

14:37

every bit of information they could. Maybe

14:40

the funeral would pay off. And

14:43

maybe not. There was

14:45

one person who certainly required more

14:47

scrutiny. Aaron's boyfriend,

14:49

Anthony Monk. Police

14:52

listened carefully to his 911 call. And

14:59

the first thing he said was that he

15:01

thought she'd committed suicide. That's correct.

15:03

And then what? Put herself back in

15:05

bed and covered herself up? You know, I think,

15:07

according to Mr. Monk and his statement that he

15:10

gave the police at the time, I don't think

15:12

he knew what else to think. He didn't have

15:14

any reason to think of anything else, I guess,

15:16

in his mind. Police

15:19

wanted to know if Anthony Monk was

15:21

just a young man in shock or

15:24

a young man with something

15:26

to hide. You want to follow

15:28

him. You want to see what he's doing in his

15:30

life. See if he's got another girlfriend. See if

15:32

his squeaky clean life isn't quite as squeaky

15:35

clean as we thought it was. Just

15:50

two days after burying 22-year-old

15:52

Aaron Gilmour, her

15:55

family faced the first of many

15:57

Christmases without her. It's

16:00

hard to believe you could even have

16:02

Christmas after what had happened, but

16:05

everybody tried to be supportive.

16:07

What was Christmas like that

16:09

year? Yeah, no, Christmas that year

16:11

was extremely difficult. Mom tried to sort of

16:13

make sure that everything was as

16:16

normal as it could be, but there was no possible

16:18

way it could be. And

16:20

you're trying to sort of go through the motions,

16:22

and we would have our regular routines and traditions

16:25

that we'd gone through, and there's

16:27

a bunch of gifts from Aaron

16:29

under the tree that she had put

16:31

there before she had been taken. So

16:35

I took mine back to my room, which

16:37

had been Aaron's room previously. I

16:39

had moved into it after she moved out, and yeah,

16:43

I opened them. It was

16:45

a rare moment of solitude for Shawn

16:48

in those chaotic first few days. Cousin

16:51

Christen took on the task of

16:53

cleaning up Aaron's apartment. I

16:56

didn't want anybody else. It was desecrating

16:58

Aaron's space. I wanted to be

17:00

the one. What was it like being

17:02

in that apartment afterward? I can't imagine how

17:05

terrible that must have been. It was, and

17:07

yet I felt close to her. It was another way of

17:09

being close to her. It

17:11

didn't freak me out that way. What freaked me out was

17:14

how she died. That's what freaked

17:16

me out, just trying to imagine that and

17:19

wishing I could have been there. I

17:21

had dreams of wishing I could have been there to

17:24

have helped. As

17:26

family members did what they could to nurse

17:29

their grief, detectives took

17:31

a closer look at Aaron's boyfriend,

17:33

Anthony Monk. Their fathers

17:36

were business partners. They

17:38

interacted socially. They'd known each other forever.

17:41

Were you aware they were going out?

17:43

Yes. So everybody was.

17:45

That was no secret. Yeah. They'd

17:47

known each other for much longer than they'd just been

17:49

dating. Yes. They've been friends for

17:51

a long time. They've been friends. They've been childhood

17:53

friends and eventually they've evolved into a romantic relationship.

17:56

Nobody had any problem with that. No, not

17:58

at all. So, Anthony

18:01

Monk was seeing Aaron Gilmour, and

18:03

they had a prearranged date at

18:06

the vote for dinner around 9

18:08

p.m. that night. Which

18:11

put Anthony Monk at the scene of the

18:13

crime right about the time it

18:15

happened. If you have a

18:17

case like this and you have a boyfriend,

18:20

domestic violence is something that we

18:22

take very seriously. And

18:26

it happens daily in this city,

18:28

unfortunately, and probably around a lot

18:30

of major cities. Because he's the boyfriend,

18:32

he's the person who found the body. He's

18:35

the person that would

18:38

be heavily scrutinized for sure about his

18:40

actions, his where, his why, his what,

18:42

his how, all of that. And he

18:44

was. He very much was. Mr.

18:46

Monk's word was not taken as gospel.

18:49

He was heavily investigated. This

18:51

was 1983. Digital

18:54

police work was still science fiction.

18:57

The investigation into Anthony Monk had

19:00

to be done the analog way. I

19:03

mean, we're spoiled today with the

19:05

investigative aids that we have. We

19:07

have video, we have electronic

19:09

tracking, we have cell phone tracking. When

19:11

you don't have those types

19:14

of tools, you have to

19:16

go back to traditional policing

19:18

means. So you have to do

19:20

surveillance and you have to find out their

19:22

lifestyle, who they're talking

19:26

to, who they're meeting with. What do you think you're

19:28

going to find by following him around? You never know.

19:31

You just kind of go with the flow and

19:33

see what comes up. You never know if he's

19:35

going to talk to somebody, if he's

19:37

going to tell somebody. So you want to follow

19:39

him, you want to see what he's doing in

19:41

his life, see if he's got another girlfriend, see

19:43

if he's, you know, if

19:46

his squeaky clean life isn't quite as squeaky

19:48

clean as we thought it was. Anything

19:50

in his background that makes you sit up and

19:52

take notice? Nothing. Nothing at all

19:55

in his background. No criminal record, no trouble

19:57

with the law. No. That

19:59

wasn't... enough to clear Anthony

20:01

Monk. It also wasn't

20:03

enough to arrest him. He's

20:06

definitely the prime suspect at that point.

20:09

And then after him, it's

20:12

basically everybody in Toronto or that was in

20:14

Toronto that night. That's

20:17

a lot of potential suspects. And

20:19

narrowing down the list would take

20:22

detectives from Aaron's inner circle all

20:25

the way to her father's business dealings, including

20:28

one deal with a controversial head of

20:30

state half

20:32

a world away. He

20:35

would have upset a lot of people. And they'd take

20:37

it out on his daughter? As

20:50

they searched for Aaron Gilmour's killer, Toronto

20:54

police took a hard look at her

20:56

short life, places she went,

20:58

people she met, parties she

21:01

attended, and one she threw

21:03

at her own place just weeks

21:05

before her murder. That one,

21:08

a pink themed birthday party for a friend,

21:11

drew particular interest. Somehow

21:13

word had gone out, I don't know how,

21:15

and nor did Aaron. But suddenly all these

21:18

people showed up in her apartment. People that

21:20

weren't invited. No, and they were spilling

21:22

wine and they were, you know, basically trashed

21:24

the place. So we had to, you know,

21:26

have everything cleaned and whatever. And Aaron was

21:28

totally distraught, of course. You know, this was

21:30

just beautiful little place, a little nest, and

21:33

then all these strangers. So that was way

21:35

more the connection that I thought at that

21:37

point. You thought somebody who had shown up

21:39

uninvited maybe later came back. Exactly.

21:41

That's what I was thinking. Detective

21:43

Doyle says everyone at that party

21:46

also crashed the list of potential

21:48

suspects. All of those people

21:50

were very thoroughly looked

21:52

at. The majority of them were very willing

21:55

to assist in this investigation. So you've got

21:57

a lot of information coming. A lot of

21:59

information. All of them have to be followed up.

22:01

Perhaps every bit of it. Investigators

22:04

went even further back to

22:06

Erin's 21st birthday party the year

22:08

before. Should be party at

22:10

the Four Seasons turning 21. She

22:13

did. That sounds like it was quite a party. It

22:16

would have been a who's who of the

22:18

social network of the upper

22:20

echelon of Toronto. You have to speak to

22:22

everybody on that guest list? We

22:25

have to try. So you

22:27

can see how exponentially

22:30

the list grows of people that

22:32

we have to talk to. What about sexual

22:34

offenders who live in the area? That was

22:36

a big theory. So they would find

22:39

out any sexual offenders in the area and

22:41

they would look into all of those persons

22:43

as well. Everybody who had a criminal record

22:45

for a sexual offense who lived what within

22:47

a mile or two of there was probably

22:49

interviewed. Absolutely. The investigation

22:51

expanded beyond Canada's borders

22:54

as the business empire of Erin's

22:56

wealthy father came under police

22:59

scrutiny. So all of Erin's

23:02

father's business dealings have

23:04

to be looked at at the time to see

23:06

if there is anybody that

23:09

may have lost

23:13

large sums of money and

23:16

maybe been desperate enough to

23:19

try to exact revenge on her father

23:21

by killing Erin. One

23:24

of those deals involved building a resort

23:26

near the Great Pyramids in Egypt. Erin's

23:30

father, that's him on the left, met

23:32

with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat about those

23:34

plans multiple times in the mid to

23:37

late 70s. Sadat was

23:39

for that. He liked that idea. Absolutely. He

23:41

just thought this would be a terrific idea.

23:44

Erin's cousin, Kristin, remembers that

23:46

not everyone in Egypt agreed.

23:49

There were some protests about those developments.

23:52

Some people didn't like it. Yes, absolutely. She

23:55

says Erin's dad caught wind of a plot

23:57

to kill him because of his involvement in

23:59

the... project. David Gilmour

24:01

took that seriously. The

24:04

deal fell through in 1978. President Sadat was

24:08

assassinated in 1981. Aaron was killed two years later. And

24:15

we had to look into this because he would

24:19

have upset a lot of people if he was

24:21

going to build a resort by

24:23

the pyramids. And they'd take it out on

24:25

his daughter? Well, it's

24:28

a wild theory, but

24:31

we have nothing else, so we have to look

24:33

into everything. The

24:35

investigation grew. Dozens of

24:37

detectives chased hundreds of leads and

24:40

interviewed more than 700 people,

24:42

generating box loads of notes

24:44

and files. Except,

24:47

as the first anniversary of Aaron's murder

24:50

approached around Christmas 1984, they seemed

24:54

no closer to finding her

24:56

killer. Because as

24:58

many witness interviews as you're doing, and

25:00

as much as you're collecting and all

25:03

the forensics, it's not really

25:05

pointing at any one person at all. No,

25:07

it's not. And I think that

25:10

was a frustrating thing for the investigators

25:12

is they wanted to

25:14

solve this so badly, but

25:16

we just had absolutely no traction.

25:20

Obviously what police knew is who it wasn't. It

25:23

wasn't one of those party guests or

25:26

a known sex offender in the area. It

25:28

wasn't connected to political unrest in

25:31

Egypt. And it

25:33

wasn't their one-time prime suspect. He

25:36

was cleared. How

25:38

does Anthony Monk finally get off police

25:40

radar? Well, eventually we're able

25:42

to get the receipts

25:44

of his transaction at

25:46

the bank. Those

25:49

receipts were time stamped. Anthony

25:51

was at the bank at 9 12 p.m. He called 911

25:56

at 9 27. Anthony

25:58

Monk's bank alibi. Holds up.

26:01

Yeah, his time frame holds up. We're able

26:03

to prove that he

26:06

when he arrived was About

26:09

but only a couple minutes before he actually made

26:11

his 911 call. We've done

26:14

enough interviews with them. We've

26:17

basically looked into his entire

26:19

life to make sure that there wasn't anything that

26:21

we were missing and We

26:24

just don't believe that it was Anthony More

26:28

years past Any

26:30

picture of Aaron's killer remained

26:33

elusive This guy's a

26:35

ghost. He was a ghost He

26:38

stayed a phantom for 17 years Until

26:41

a revolution in crime solving

26:43

offered Toronto police their first

26:45

real break The police

26:48

were all of a sudden. Okay. Hey, this is crazy. We've

26:50

got another case Aaron's killer may

26:52

have been a ghost but like

26:54

all ghosts this one had a past

27:00

A Aaron

27:11

Gilmour's murder had been a huge

27:13

story in Toronto an urgent priority

27:15

for police And

27:18

it was going nowhere The

27:21

case had gone cold. It

27:23

stayed that way for years The

27:27

reality had sort of set in that, you know, this was

27:29

probably not going to Go

27:31

anywhere. I was gonna go unresolved. Could you live with

27:33

that? I mean you were living with

27:35

that Yeah, I was living with it. I won't tell

27:37

you that it was That

27:41

that I wanted to live with it. You always wanted to

27:43

get to the bottom of it by

27:46

2017 years after Aaron's

27:48

murder police had developed

27:50

a DNA profile of her killer and

27:53

Then they discovered something else You

27:56

know the police were all of a sudden. Okay. Hey, this

27:58

is crazy. We've got another case A

28:02

second victim, actually a

28:04

first victim. Susan

28:06

Tice had been found raped and stabbed

28:09

to death inside her home following

28:11

a ferocious struggle. It

28:14

happened only four months before Erin

28:16

Gilmore was killed and just two

28:18

miles away. DNA

28:21

from the Susan Tice crime scene

28:23

showed she and Erin were killed

28:25

by the same man. The

28:28

DNA didn't say who it was, even

28:30

so, this was huge. It's

28:34

one offender, sexually assaulted

28:36

and murdered both Susan Tice

28:38

and Erin Gilmore. And

28:41

that is just a huge leap forward even

28:44

without any other evidence. Absolutely.

28:46

Because now you're looking at what those two

28:48

victims might have in common. That's right. Well,

28:51

the crimes had a lot in common. The

28:54

victims did not. Susan

28:56

didn't come from money or a prominent

28:58

family. At 45, she

29:00

was a generation older than Erin. Susan

29:03

Tice was a mother of four children. She

29:06

was a therapist. Susan's

29:10

son Ben was 20 years old

29:12

at the time. As

29:15

we got to a certain age, she decided

29:17

that she wanted to go back to school.

29:20

So she did two master's

29:22

degrees. She was mother, wife,

29:25

confident, best friend, advocate.

29:29

She sounds like sort of part mom and part best

29:31

friend. All of that and more. She

29:34

traveled with the guitar and

29:37

she was always sort of singing Helen Reddy, Hear

29:39

Me Roar, I Am Woman. She

29:41

used to belt that out during dinner prep.

29:43

When she felt that need. In

29:46

the summer of 1983, Ben Tice was 2,000 miles from home, working at

29:48

the historic Chateau Lake

29:53

Louise in the Canadian Rockies. He

29:56

called his mom one day just to check in.

29:59

That call. didn't go well. We

30:02

had a horrible conversation about what I

30:04

don't remember. Unfortunately,

30:06

I ended it and I hung

30:08

up. I called her back the

30:10

next day. No answer. I left

30:12

a very long-winded message on our

30:14

answer machine. Susan

30:16

didn't return Ben's message or

30:19

anyone else's. And

30:21

when she was a no-show for a family

30:24

dinner, her brother-in-law drove to check on her.

30:27

Brother-in-law went to the front door.

30:30

Front door was locked, rang

30:32

the doorbell, called out

30:34

Susan's name, did not

30:37

get any response, went around to

30:39

the back of the house. From

30:41

the alley behind the house, it

30:43

was obvious something was wrong. Back

30:46

door was open, walked inside the back

30:48

of the house. There was some music

30:50

playing in the home

30:53

softly. He went upstairs,

30:55

hauling out Susan's name, and ultimately

30:58

went into her bedroom. It

31:00

was a brutal, bloody scene.

31:02

Susan had been stabbed multiple

31:04

times. And drawers were

31:07

pulled out, but it appeared nothing

31:09

was actually stolen. Susan herself

31:12

was on the ground beside

31:14

the bed, but her feet were still up

31:16

on the bed. She was covered with a

31:18

blanket, the majority of her body, but her

31:20

feet were showing. No

31:23

eyewitnesses. A neighbor heard

31:25

something. There's a scream 1.30 in

31:28

the morning. And that's Sunday into

31:30

Monday. That's Sunday into Monday. So

31:32

I think that's your timeline for when the

31:34

actual incident occurred. Her

31:36

final moments must have been terrifying. Susan

31:39

Teiss was in a fight for her life, and

31:42

she lost. A

31:45

long-time friend of my father's had

31:48

called. I just remember hearing that she had

31:50

been murdered. I

31:52

remember picking myself up off the floor with

31:55

the phone in my hand. Being...

32:00

breathless. Susan

32:03

and her husband had recently split and

32:06

he became an obvious early suspect.

32:10

Even their son Ben wondered. Did

32:13

I have a suspicion about my father? Yeah, of

32:15

course you do. I think that's only natural. And

32:18

she was in the middle of a divorce. She

32:20

was in the middle of divorce. She was a

32:22

strong woman doing her thing. You know, my

32:24

father wasn't happy with it.

32:26

She was flexing her independence, her womanhood.

32:28

You can't stifle a forced fire. She

32:31

was just a force.

32:33

When people separate and

32:35

you have a murder quickly thereafter,

32:37

obviously it makes sense to

32:40

look at the other party. And

32:42

you did look at her mother. Yeah, we sure did. He

32:44

was under suspicion for a while. He was.

32:47

You followed him around the same way

32:49

you followed around Aaron's boyfriend? Absolutely.

32:52

What else do you have to do at that time? It

32:54

has to be boots on

32:56

the street. Eventually they were able to conclude

33:00

that Mr. Tice was

33:02

not responsible. Back in

33:04

the 80s, detectives did notice

33:06

striking similarities between Susan's and

33:08

Aaron's murders. They found

33:11

no hard evidence to connect them. They

33:14

always believed that these two crimes

33:16

were related. But again, in

33:20

the 80s, there's no way to say

33:22

that unequivocally. You don't have a print

33:24

that matches both scenes. We don't have

33:26

a print that matches both scenes. Or

33:28

a witness at both scenes. Absolutely not.

33:31

When detectives learned definitively this was

33:33

all the work of one killer.

33:36

It was a jolt of energy for

33:39

the investigation. We

33:41

now take those cases and

33:43

lay them over top of each other

33:45

to see if there's anyone or anything

33:48

that may have had contact with

33:51

both Susan and Aaron. Suddenly

33:53

it's a whole new ballgame. Two

34:09

murders had spawned nearly two decades

34:11

of frustration until finally

34:14

a promising lead. DNA

34:16

showed the killer of Susan Tice

34:18

and Aaron Gilmour was the

34:20

same man. And there was

34:22

this hit that all of a sudden sort of

34:25

pumped new air into the tires for lack of

34:27

a better word. And it was a revelation. We

34:29

now knew that this person had to be in

34:31

Toronto for at least a four

34:33

month time frame,

34:36

which gives us a little more

34:38

investigative ability to go back and

34:40

look at offenders, sexual offenders.

34:43

You find any other cases? No

34:45

other cases. It

34:48

didn't really help us in any way. And

34:51

so the Tice and

34:53

Gilmour cases remained tantalizingly

34:55

unsolved and they went

34:57

cold once again. The

35:00

mystery of the twin killings would

35:02

stubbornly outlast generations of

35:05

detectives. In

35:07

2015, more than 30 years into the

35:10

investigation, Detective Sergeant Stacy Gallant

35:12

took over as head of the police

35:14

cold case unit and

35:16

started something he called Project

35:18

Never Give Up. I

35:21

started looking at the files and we

35:23

started doing some, I'll call it advertising.

35:25

Susan Tice and Aaron Gilmour did not

35:28

know each other in life. Unfortunately

35:30

the two women are forever linked together in

35:32

their deaths. The same

35:34

man is responsible for both of

35:36

these murders. Gallant's appeal was posted

35:39

on the Toronto Police Service website.

35:41

It is your duty to bring his name into

35:43

this investigation so he can be held accountable. And

35:47

people in Toronto did come forward. I

35:49

did get one tip, a lead that

35:51

I pursued very actively. It was a

35:53

very similar murder in that it was

35:55

a sexual assault and a stabbing. That

35:58

case was from 1985. Two

36:01

years after the Tice-Gilmore murders, the

36:04

victim was Nancy Eaton, like

36:06

Erin, a young woman from a

36:08

prominent family. The

36:11

Eaton case was solved quickly. The

36:13

killer declared not criminally responsible

36:16

because of mental illness. He

36:18

was institutionalized and later released.

36:22

I found that we never had a DNA

36:24

sample from this person. So I

36:26

got in touch with the local police

36:28

service in that area and requested they

36:30

do surveillance on him and

36:32

obtain a covert DNA sample from him.

36:36

They got the sample and sent

36:38

it in for testing. You feeling

36:40

encouraged? Very. Six weeks later,

36:42

the lab results were back. As

36:45

soon as I saw the envelope and kind of

36:47

started pulling out, it's not him. Gallant

36:49

went back to the case files. Forty

36:52

boxes filled with thousands of pieces

36:54

of paper, looking for

36:56

something else to connect the two

36:58

cases. He came across

37:01

a note handwritten by

37:03

Susan Tice. It made mention

37:05

of having to call a cleaning

37:07

company or getting a carpet cleaned. Here we go.

37:10

Here we go. That's looking interesting. Interesting

37:13

because Gallant knew Erin Gilmour

37:15

had hired cleaners after that wild

37:17

party in her apartment a

37:19

few weeks before her murder. Susan

37:23

and Erin did not live far apart.

37:25

So could they have

37:27

used the same company? That feels like

37:29

the connection you're looking for. It does.

37:32

I started looking into it. I'm encouraged

37:34

now and I call the company. They

37:37

knew nothing about a job at Susan's house

37:39

from so long ago. No surprise

37:42

there. However, incredibly,

37:45

the man who answered Gallant's call said

37:47

he was actually one of the workers

37:50

who'd cleaned Erin's apartment more than

37:52

30 years earlier. He

37:54

provided the names of three others who'd

37:56

helped on that job. a

38:00

criminal record. Yes. And? One

38:03

person in particular came back with a

38:06

history of violence against women.

38:08

Here we go again. Here we go. Let's

38:11

start tracking these people down. Gallup was

38:13

able to get DNA samples from all

38:15

four men. Sent

38:17

them all off to our Center of Forensic Science once again. But

38:21

I got to wait. And it's again waiting

38:23

and waiting. This case has been all about

38:25

waiting, hadn't it? Yeah. Only about a

38:28

month and a half later. Get

38:30

the news again. Nothing. Okay, now

38:32

what? I got... There's nobody

38:34

else on my list that I'm looking for now.

38:38

So Gallup switched gears. Instead

38:40

of using DNA to identify the killer,

38:43

he began using it to eliminate

38:45

potential suspects. For

38:47

two of Toronto's most notorious murder

38:49

cases, that was a lot

38:51

of people to rule out. By

38:54

now, Detective Smith and Doyle had joined the

38:56

team. They went to work

38:59

on that very long list of suspects.

39:01

You can go back to anybody who was

39:03

any kind of even faint suspect in either one

39:06

of those two cases and ask for DNA.

39:08

And that's what we did. And how many

39:10

people were we talking about? Hundreds.

39:13

It was an extraordinary effort. More

39:16

than 30 years after the murders, police

39:19

collected DNA samples from hundreds of

39:21

people listed in the cold case

39:23

files. And it's none of them? None

39:26

of them. You still can't figure out who it

39:28

was. You know who it wasn't, but not who

39:30

it was. Yeah, we're probably further away from figuring

39:32

out who it was because now

39:35

all the people that we believed may

39:37

have committed this did

39:40

not. Whoever it

39:42

was had committed two murders and

39:45

then disappeared into the atmosphere

39:47

like a hot breath on a

39:49

freezing night. A lot of

39:51

work had led nowhere. That's

39:54

when something happened thousands of

39:56

miles away. investigators

40:00

say they have finally caught a

40:03

notorious serial killer who has

40:05

terrorized California for decades. That

40:07

California suspect had no connection to

40:10

Aaron or Susan, but

40:12

very soon he would have

40:14

everything to do with the search to

40:16

find their killer. And I

40:18

just remember, oh god that's it, was like a

40:21

lightning bolt. A lightning bolt

40:24

that would take detectives on a long journey

40:26

to the vast frozen Canadian

40:28

north. It's not for

40:31

the faint of heart, it's bush roads, it's

40:33

you're going over frozen rivers and creeks and

40:35

the road is treacherous. He says it gets

40:37

worse, and I say it can't get

40:39

any worse. There

40:52

is no rule book for how to live with

40:54

the murder of someone you love, especially

40:57

when the killer is still unknown

40:59

and still at large. After

41:02

Susan Tice and Aaron Gilmore were

41:04

murdered and first years

41:06

went by and then decades, their

41:09

families coped in different ways.

41:12

Susan's son, Ben Tice. I

41:14

wanted to show them sons, yeah. You

41:17

know I talked, they know and they've

41:19

always known that their grandmother had died.

41:21

I've done my best to tell stories

41:24

to them in instances about

41:26

her. Happy stories. Happy stories, yeah. Life

41:29

stories. You don't want them to only remember her

41:31

as a murder victim. No. That

41:33

word victim, we were all victims, just

41:37

by the circumstance and being placed in

41:39

that situation where victims, and I really

41:41

didn't like that. You have

41:43

to believe that somehow it will be solved,

41:45

but you just don't know. I

41:47

just kept hoping somebody would come out of

41:50

the bush who would just want to snitch

41:52

or want to come clean. I know who

41:54

it was. Yeah. And I think

41:56

the biggest fear was that whoever did it might

41:59

be dead. And you're kind of at a

42:01

dead end. No

42:04

one wanted justice more than Aaron's

42:07

brother Sean. I walk

42:09

and think of her all the time. I

42:11

will go by the house slash apartment and

42:13

sort of sometimes stand outside. I talk to

42:16

her. And what do you say? I hope that

42:18

we're going to get you an answer and get some justice for you.

42:21

Sean was on a mission. Oh yeah.

42:24

As much for Aaron and their

42:26

mom and for himself. But he

42:29

was a dog on a bone. I didn't want

42:31

to be that guy that was calling

42:33

and they'd see my number and be like, let it

42:36

go to voicemail. But at the same time you sort of were

42:38

trying to just, I

42:40

wanted to be updated. Let them know that you're out there

42:43

and you still want to know. Yeah,

42:45

yeah. I want the answers. Police

42:47

wanted answers too. And after three

42:49

decades, they still didn't have

42:51

any. He's getting away. At

42:55

this point, there's no

42:57

connection yet. Again, it just

42:59

disappointment after disappointment. Nope, it's not him.

43:01

It's not him. Add the name

43:03

to the list of who it isn't. In

43:06

2018, an arrest in that California

43:08

cold case changed the course of

43:11

the Tice Gilmore investigation. Police

43:13

arresting a man they believe is a so-called

43:16

Golden State Killer, responsible for a slew of

43:18

murders and rapes in the 70s and 80s.

43:21

The Golden State Killer case

43:24

was solved by something called

43:26

Investigative Genetic Genealogy, IgG

43:28

in cold case slang. At

43:31

the time, a revolution in

43:33

DNA analysis. Here's how

43:35

it works. Unknown DNA from

43:37

a crime scene is identified

43:39

by matching it to relatives

43:41

whose DNA was uploaded to

43:43

public genealogy websites. It

43:46

certainly piqued my interest and I started digging

43:48

into how we could use it here in

43:50

Canada. Detective Gallop

43:52

partnered with Houston-based Othram

43:54

Labs, a leading innovator

43:56

in DNA forensics. Dr.

43:59

Kristin Middleman. is one of

44:01

Othron's founders. You've figured

44:03

out how to get more information from a

44:05

smaller amount of DNA. Yes, and the case

44:07

that we're talking about today is an example

44:10

of why you would need more

44:12

information. The DNA from

44:14

the Tyson-Gilmore crime scenes had been

44:16

all but used up from

44:19

a lot of testing over the years. What

44:21

you're doing is figuring out how to get

44:23

that information from DNA that probably

44:26

wouldn't have been available to be tested

44:28

or wouldn't even have qualified for testing

44:30

before. Yes, what we're doing here is

44:32

give you a productive profile that can

44:34

be uploaded to these genealogical databases and

44:36

give you an answer. Othron

44:40

has helped solve hundreds of cases and

44:43

assisted on hundreds more. We

44:45

like to build DNA profiles that are

44:48

so comprehensive that you can actually

44:50

point down to the family they belong to

44:52

in a family tree. Toronto

44:54

Police decided to try out the

44:57

new technology on another notorious cold

44:59

case, the 1984 sexual

45:02

assault and murder of

45:04

nine-year-old Christine Jessup. Christine

45:06

Jessup is a name that people

45:09

in Canada know, the way they know,

45:11

Jomanae Ramsey in the United States. They

45:13

do. It was one of the biggest unsolved

45:16

child murders in

45:18

Canada. And the DNA sample

45:21

in that case was, what, small

45:23

and degraded? Yes, because a lot

45:25

of it had been used. It had done some other

45:27

DNA testing. Despite that, Othron

45:30

was able to create a profile

45:32

that led police to Christine's killer.

45:35

On Friday, October 9th, 2020, we

45:38

positively confirmed the identification of the

45:41

person responsible for the DNA sample

45:43

found on Christine's underwear. When

45:46

Sean learned how Christine Jessup's murder

45:48

was finally solved, he

45:50

wondered why that same technology hadn't

45:52

been applied to his sister's case.

45:55

And I remember I gave Toronto Police a day and I followed

45:57

the next day. And I was like, okay, what the hell is

45:59

going on? By then,

46:01

Stacy Gallant had retired and Detective Steve

46:04

Smith was in charge of cold cases.

46:07

Basically when he called me, he asked, can

46:10

we apply this to Aaron's case? And

46:12

I was able to tell him, we already

46:14

have. We put in Aaron's case

46:16

and Jessup's case at the same time. Aaron's

46:19

is going to take a little bit more time. And

46:22

sort of that became a bit of a

46:24

mantra for Toronto Police and me. In the

46:26

world of DNA, the Jessup case wasn't difficult.

46:29

No, it was ordinary.

46:32

Ordinary for this type of technology. Not

46:34

so, Aaron Gilmore. No. Othron's

46:37

other co-founder and Kristen's husband,

46:39

Dr. David Mittleman, showed

46:41

us why. This is unknown

46:43

suspect DNA from the Gilmore and Tice murders.

46:46

That's correct. What are we looking at here

46:48

for that suspect? There is a small European

46:51

component and then a large America's component. And

46:53

this American component is characteristic with

46:56

First Nations in Canada. In

46:58

the U.S. they would identify as Native American.

47:01

Dr. Mittleman says that fact would

47:03

make the search for the killer

47:05

much more complicated. Not

47:08

a lot of people from First Nation and Canada have

47:10

sent their DNA into those sites. So there's not a

47:12

huge sample to start with. There's not a huge sample

47:14

and the samples that are there are going to be

47:16

very hard to uniquely place on a tree. Othron

47:19

sent police the killer's profile. Then

47:22

when detectives got a look at it, they

47:25

hit a big bump in the road. So

47:27

this is all one big family? It was all

47:29

one big family. It's like

47:31

trying to put a puzzle together and you don't

47:34

have a picture on the cover of the boss.

47:47

Meet Detective James Atkinson, in-house

47:50

genealogist for the Toronto Police

47:53

Service. This is the new shoe

47:55

leather. I tell my teams

47:58

that I work with that homicide... I'm just

48:00

the bird dog. I just pointed the bird and

48:02

after that it's their job. I stay at my

48:04

office. It's like trying to put a puzzle together.

48:07

It really is. And the problem is you

48:09

don't have a picture on the

48:11

cover of the box to guide you. It's

48:14

like trying to put a puzzle together with all the

48:16

pieces turned upside down. His job

48:18

was to assemble a genetic puzzle

48:20

of Susan and Aaron's killer, beginning

48:23

with the killer's extended family. And

48:26

extended is exactly the right

48:28

word. Each of those

48:30

little squares is a familial connection among

48:33

the 100 people most closely related

48:35

to the killer. Where's

48:37

the suspect in this? He's

48:40

in the background. And now it's up to me

48:42

to try and figure out who is the person.

48:44

What could you tell about the suspect from his

48:46

DNA profile? I could tell that he was definitely

48:48

from James Bay. James

48:51

Bay is a remote area in

48:53

Northern Canada where thousands of years

48:56

of near isolation have

48:58

led to a mostly homogeneous gene

49:00

pool. This happens when

49:02

communities marry within themselves. That's right,

49:04

small islands, indigenous groups that

49:07

are isolated. This is what you

49:09

get. You get people that are related to each other many

49:12

times over. So this is all one big

49:14

family. It was all one big family. One

49:18

big family that included many distant

49:20

relatives still living near one another.

49:23

Which makes identifying a particular suspect a

49:25

lot harder. It made everybody, every male

49:28

in town look good. Finding

49:30

the proverbial needle in

49:32

this genealogical haystack was

49:35

going to take time. And also

49:38

more DNA samples. We

49:40

just need to get more matches. So we started

49:42

phoning people. I sent kits up there to people.

49:44

I got the help of a couple of First

49:49

Nations genealogists. Paula

49:51

Ricker is one of those genealogists.

49:53

Her knowledge of the local

49:56

population was approved invaluable. James

49:58

would give me a name. And I

50:01

would do some research and tell

50:03

him, this is the

50:05

person, this is the couple, these

50:07

are the children. That

50:10

type of information I would give him based on the

50:12

records that I have. With

50:14

Paula's help and an influx of

50:16

new DNA samples to compare to

50:18

the killer's profile, this

50:21

mass of orange became more

50:23

manageable. We got to 26 families. And

50:26

you know it's one of them. And we knew that

50:28

of these 26 couples, one of

50:30

them was the suspect's grandparent.

50:33

And they tell you they're down to 26 families,

50:36

which is still a lot of people.

50:39

It's also enormously

50:41

reduced from the original suspect pool, which was

50:43

pretty much everybody on Earth. Right.

50:45

And you know that they're sort of getting really, really close.

50:48

Were you thinking every day, like maybe this is the

50:50

day, maybe this is it? Yeah, I

50:52

was getting more and more optimistic for sure. And you're

50:54

waiting for the call. You know,

50:57

normally I wouldn't tell a family that

50:59

because you don't want to create false hope. Right.

51:02

Right. But our relationship with Sean

51:04

was so close and he understood

51:06

the amount of work that we had

51:08

put in over the years. And

51:10

Sean is somebody that wants that

51:13

knowledge. And I had to keep telling him,

51:15

it's just time. We just need more time and

51:18

we will get there. What

51:20

did you tell the Tice family? I

51:22

didn't tell the Tice family too much because they didn't want to

51:24

know at that point. They didn't want the procedural stuff. No.

51:29

Atkinson and his team sifted through the lineage

51:31

of those 26 families, looking

51:34

for a close DNA match to the killer. Homicide

51:37

detectives just stayed out of the

51:39

way and let the DNA

51:41

folks do their job. So

51:43

our genealogists are working on a daily basis.

51:46

Building family trees. Building family trees.

51:50

We don't give our genealogists the

51:52

investigative files. So they

51:54

work strictly off the DNA. So

51:56

that when they provide us a

51:59

name, that name... brought to us

52:01

organically. And they have no idea whether that person

52:03

has a criminal record or not. That's right. By

52:05

the process of elimination, we got

52:07

down to one. Like for example... One

52:09

family. It had taken Atkinson and

52:12

his team a year to

52:14

prune the killer's family tree down

52:17

to a single branch. I

52:19

got to five brothers and I went to my bosses,

52:21

the lead investigators, to say, I've got it down to

52:23

five brothers. Five brothers.

52:26

Now, from a list of suspects

52:28

that once numbered in the thousands, they

52:31

finally felt they were closing in on

52:34

identifying Susan and Aaron's killer.

52:36

Somebody has to go find those five brothers

52:38

and get DNA from them. That's right. Well,

52:42

that was easier said than

52:44

done. As soon as we asked

52:47

one of them for the DNA, the

52:49

others would know it. He's going to call his brothers

52:51

and say, guess what just happened? He might take off,

52:54

right? As investigators closed

52:56

in on their suspect, this

52:59

man would suddenly hear a

53:01

mind-blowing secret from a

53:04

close friend. I said, listen, just

53:06

stay put. Don't talk to nobody.

53:08

Don't answer the phone. Don't answer the door.

53:12

I'll be right back. Almost

53:25

40 years into the Tice-Gilmore

53:27

investigation, police had narrowed

53:29

the suspect list to one family.

53:32

One family, five brothers. That's when

53:34

I do my bird dog and say, here

53:36

you go, here's the five names. Five

53:39

brothers, all with the

53:42

last name, Sutherland. That's

53:44

like the first really good news

53:46

you've had in a long time. Yeah,

53:49

yeah. It was just such a

53:51

burst of hope. Like

53:54

it was crazy. It was amazing. Sean

53:56

had tracked every step of

53:58

the investigation. waiting for

54:01

news like this. Susan's

54:03

son, Ben, had chosen not

54:05

to be in the loop. Your

54:08

attitude was sort of, when you get

54:10

somewhere, I want to know. Until then,

54:13

I'm good. Let me be really straight

54:15

with you, Josh. I ran away. I

54:18

retreated. It's awkward. How

54:21

do you carry a conversation from,

54:24

hi, I'm Ben Tyson, yes, my

54:26

mom was murdered into a social

54:28

conversation. People don't know how to react.

54:30

So you just don't talk about it? You just don't talk

54:32

about it? Detective zeroed in

54:35

on the five brothers. In

54:37

all those boxes, in 40 years

54:39

of files, there was

54:42

no mention of anyone named

54:44

Sutherland. It was always

54:46

said that the name is always in the box. The

54:48

name is always in the box. That's a saying

54:51

here. When you solve

54:53

it, it's gonna be somebody that

54:55

you had previously interviewed or heard

54:57

about or showed up at the

54:59

investigation in some way. Absolutely. Not

55:01

here. Not here. You're tantalizingly close

55:03

and yet also so far. That's

55:05

right, because you still have to

55:07

get DNA from all

55:09

of those brothers to trim that

55:11

down to actually finding out who

55:15

it is. And it would take a

55:17

lot of detective work to get that done.

55:20

They were all living in Toronto in and around

55:22

the early 80s. And

55:25

then they'd kind of spread

55:27

out throughout Northern Ontario. The

55:30

five brothers lived five very different

55:32

lives. Some were model

55:34

citizens and family men. Others were

55:37

already familiar names to law enforcement.

55:40

More than one had a police

55:42

record. Yeah, some for very minor

55:44

offenses, some for more serious

55:46

offenses. So we

55:50

did our due diligence in trying

55:52

to narrow down who

55:54

was who. So who were they? We

55:57

started with the person that

55:59

we thought. was, in our

56:01

opinion, the most likely to have committed

56:03

this offense. Because he was a registered

56:05

sex offender. He may have been

56:08

involved in some sexual offenses over the years, and

56:10

he was deceased. But

56:13

he was alive at the time of the two

56:15

murders. He was on the National DNA Data Bank,

56:18

so we knew that immediately he was

56:20

excluded. The second brother

56:22

detectives looked at was a murder victim

56:25

himself, killed during a

56:27

drunken brawl. One of

56:29

the brothers, unfortunately, got hit

56:31

and stabbed with a bottle, and that ended up

56:34

taking his life. That was alcohol

56:36

plus guys equals murder. That's exactly what that

56:38

was. It's a good way of saying it.

56:40

And his DNA was on file, and

56:42

he's not your guy either. He's not your

56:45

guy. Not our guy. Two

56:47

brothers down, three to go, all

56:49

then living in the far reaches of

56:52

northern Ontario. Getting samples

56:54

would be a challenge for big city cops. So

56:57

Smith went to Detective Inspector Sean

56:59

Glasford of the Ontario

57:01

Provincial Police. We're used

57:04

to working in the north, and we

57:06

know the communities, and that's what we can help

57:08

them with. The police thing's a little

57:10

different up here. It's maybe a

57:13

little harder to do surveillance on somebody in

57:15

some of these small towns. Definitely

57:17

in small towns it is. And

57:19

the last thing police wanted

57:21

was anyone knowing what they

57:23

were doing, especially those three

57:25

brothers. Why couldn't you

57:27

in this case just call these guys

57:29

and say, we need your DNA? Well,

57:32

you could, but it wouldn't be the best way

57:34

to do it. As soon as we asked one

57:36

of them for the DNA, the others would know

57:38

it. He's going to call his brothers and say,

57:40

guess what just happened? Right. He

57:43

might take off. Right? So

57:45

this would be a covert operation. They

57:48

started with a brother who worked in a

57:50

mine and lived in a small town about

57:53

an eight-hour drive north of Toronto. We

57:56

would watch that brother and see where he went. If

57:58

he dropped something or threw something away, we... He would

58:00

obviously pick it up. They

58:02

followed him for days, but

58:04

he either didn't litter or

58:06

he was covering his tracks. They

58:09

staked out his house. We collected

58:11

some garbage that he had put out at

58:13

the end of the road. Within the garbage

58:15

were two pop cans and a COVID mask

58:17

that were collected and sent to Toronto and

58:20

sent to the lab, DNA profile

58:23

generated. It

58:25

was a very low-tech operation to

58:27

get to a high-tech DNA test.

58:31

The lab took five long months

58:33

to report the results to

58:35

Detective Smith. And

58:37

it's not him, so now

58:39

we've got two brothers in northern

58:42

communities, very remote

58:44

northern communities. Two

58:46

to go, and when they looked at

58:48

the two remaining brothers, the

58:51

likely suspect seemed obvious. One

58:54

had some history of violence, and

58:56

the other was basically squeaky clean. So

58:59

you go after the first one? That's

59:01

right. He lived in a

59:03

tiny First Nations town of 1200 on

59:07

the shores of James Bay. This

59:09

brother was actually a witness in

59:11

another case Detective Glassford was working.

59:14

So you bring him in to talk about that

59:16

and what he takes a couple of sips out

59:18

of a cup. Yeah, just had

59:20

a drink of water and left the cup

59:22

behind when he left. The cup

59:25

went to the lab. You

59:27

think he's the guy? I thought absolutely

59:29

he was the guy. Wrong

59:32

again. For the

59:34

fourth time, we do the DNA testing.

59:37

He's not our offender. So you got one brother

59:39

to go that you

59:41

know of? That we know of. Unless

59:44

there's another one out there somewhere that you

59:46

don't know about or that isn't reflected in

59:49

birth records. Every investigative means

59:51

we used led us to believe there was

59:53

only five brothers. But if

59:56

somebody was adopted as a child.

1:00:00

And there was no record of it? You wouldn't necessarily

1:00:02

know. We wouldn't necessarily know. A

1:00:05

decades-long investigation was about to

1:00:07

take detectives to another tiny,

1:00:09

isolated town. And to

1:00:11

one man. And they still couldn't

1:00:13

be sure if he was their

1:00:16

man. The

1:00:29

search for Susan's and Erin's killer had

1:00:32

taken police from a DNA lab in

1:00:34

Texas to the frozen expanses

1:00:36

of Canada. Years

1:00:39

of scientific work now pointed to a speck

1:00:41

of a town way up

1:00:43

in northern Ontario. It's

1:00:46

called Musinee, about 600 miles

1:00:48

north of Toronto. A

1:00:51

five-hour train ride from the nearest town.

1:00:54

They call that train the

1:00:56

Polar Bear Express. The

1:00:59

train or plane is the only way in and

1:01:01

out of Musinee. Don Crawford runs

1:01:03

a taxi service in town. The

1:01:06

Polar Bear Express brings in all our freight,

1:01:08

all our fuel, all the locals. They

1:01:11

have no choice but to take it. Flying in and

1:01:13

out is just way too expensive. Everybody's

1:01:15

on that train. Everybody,

1:01:18

including us. On

1:01:21

Dateline, we tell a lot of stories

1:01:23

about small towns where everyone knows everyone.

1:01:25

Well, welcome to Musinee,

1:01:28

Canada. Population about 1,300. Here,

1:01:31

everyone does know everyone. Which

1:01:33

means, if you're an investigator and you

1:01:35

come into town looking to surveil someone

1:01:37

or arrest them or get their DNA,

1:01:40

you'll be an outsider, and everyone

1:01:42

here will know your business, including,

1:01:44

quite possibly, the person you're here

1:01:46

to find. Toronto

1:01:49

detective Stella Carras joined the

1:01:51

investigation and knew she'd

1:01:53

be walking on unfamiliar ground. Oh,

1:01:56

yeah, there's no sneaking around up there. Everybody knows

1:01:58

who belongs there. there and

1:02:01

strangers are instantly recognized. Like you

1:02:03

will stand out. So Detective Karis

1:02:06

wrote a warrant to take DNA

1:02:08

from the final Sutherland brother. In

1:02:11

late November, 2022, Karis,

1:02:14

Doyle, Smith, and a forensic tech

1:02:16

arrived in Moussinee with

1:02:18

their gear for collecting a blood

1:02:20

sample. It was very eye-opening

1:02:22

just to see how remote we

1:02:25

can get up there. For

1:02:27

me being a city boy here, that's

1:02:29

the definition of isolation up there. Police

1:02:32

came here to Moussinee to find the

1:02:34

last and in many ways, the most

1:02:36

unlikely brother on their list. A

1:02:39

60-year-old IT guy named

1:02:41

George Sutherland. Father,

1:02:44

friend, solid citizen.

1:02:47

Back in 1983, Sutherland was 21 and living in Toronto.

1:02:54

Randy Cota is a retired

1:02:56

provincial police officer who

1:02:58

lived just down the street from Sutherland.

1:03:01

In my policing world, you got to know everybody. Every

1:03:06

couple and you knew their dogs' names and their

1:03:08

kids' names. If you knew everybody, that means you

1:03:10

knew George Sutherland. Yeah. I

1:03:12

knew George very well. Yeah. I first

1:03:15

met him down at the store. There are

1:03:17

only one store in town. He

1:03:21

was a hunting kind of guy, hunting fishing

1:03:23

kind of person. He was easy going. So

1:03:27

I struck up a conversation with him. And suddenly

1:03:29

you made a friend. Yeah, I had a great friend, probably

1:03:31

one of my best friends. A hat. At

1:03:34

this point, they had been friends for more than 10 years.

1:03:37

I've met him a few times. Randy's

1:03:39

wife, Betty Sue. They just

1:03:41

seemed really compatible with one another. They had

1:03:43

the same interests with being out on

1:03:45

the land and the hunting and

1:03:48

that kind of thing. They just loved the

1:03:50

river. It was just a really good friendship.

1:03:53

Randy says most of their time together

1:03:55

was spent outdoors, snowmobiling,

1:03:58

hunting, trapping. George,

1:04:00

he says, was a quiet guy.

1:04:03

He wasn't one to really start up the conversation much.

1:04:05

He was more, let's get things done,

1:04:07

and if I needed to help, he'd come over and

1:04:10

help me in. We're

1:04:12

just friends, right? It's a guy you can count

1:04:15

on. Sutherland had lived in Moussinee for

1:04:17

years. Now divorced, he

1:04:19

lived with his grown son and had

1:04:22

a steady job. He

1:04:24

was an IT guy. An IT guy, yeah. He

1:04:26

was working at one of our child

1:04:28

and family services. Even though they

1:04:30

were good friends, while Randy was

1:04:32

still a cop, he did a check

1:04:34

on George's background. You ran

1:04:37

his name through the police computer? Absolutely. Because you

1:04:39

want to know who you're inviting in. That's right.

1:04:41

You never know who you're talking to right now.

1:04:43

Anyway, he was cleaned and even much as a

1:04:45

speeding ticket or parking ticket. Toronto

1:04:47

police learned the same thing. He's

1:04:50

not in your files anywhere either. Not in our

1:04:52

files. Never had

1:04:54

any contact with police from what we could see.

1:04:58

Detective Caris went to the Provincial Police

1:05:00

Office to set up for the DNA

1:05:02

collection. Doyle and Smith,

1:05:05

along with two armed local officers,

1:05:08

headed to Sutherland's house. He

1:05:10

doesn't know you're coming. He doesn't know we're coming.

1:05:13

And we get to George's house

1:05:16

and we contain

1:05:18

the home front and back. Steve

1:05:21

and I knock on the door. What's that

1:05:23

like when he opens the door and you see him for

1:05:25

the first time? It's

1:05:28

a bit surreal because we

1:05:30

know why we're there. Once

1:05:33

we introduce ourselves, he knows why we're

1:05:35

there. We have to be careful

1:05:37

of what's going to happen. And

1:05:39

lots of people up there have a gun in their

1:05:41

house. Pretty much everybody, I would say. George

1:05:44

Sutherland wasn't ready for battle.

1:05:47

Instead, he invited the man.

1:05:51

An older gentleman. Has

1:05:54

glasses. Looks fairly

1:05:56

distinguished. Looks harmless. He

1:05:59

does. He was very polite

1:06:01

when we were at the door. His son

1:06:03

is also home. We explained

1:06:06

to him who we are, why we're

1:06:08

there. We have a DNA warrant for

1:06:10

him, and that we are going to

1:06:12

be escorting him to the

1:06:14

nearest OPP detachment to take his DNA,

1:06:17

and he has to come with us

1:06:19

in order to facilitate that. If

1:06:22

they were right, they were face-to-face with

1:06:24

the killer they'd chased for 40 years.

1:06:28

And if they were right, he

1:06:30

knew it. The best word

1:06:32

that I can use to describe his

1:06:35

reaction is stoicism. Stoic.

1:06:38

That's his reaction. He doesn't look like a guy who knew

1:06:40

this day was coming. No, but

1:06:44

his reaction is also not one that I

1:06:46

would have expected. I guess to

1:06:48

be fair, I didn't know exactly what I was expecting

1:06:50

at that point. Speaks to

1:06:52

his son briefly, says, I gotta go

1:06:54

with the police. He puts on his coat, and

1:06:56

out he goes. That's right. I get a text message

1:06:59

from Steve. He's like, we got him. We're coming back.

1:07:01

So we're like, oh,

1:07:03

the folks. So we're jumping up, and we're like, we're trying to get

1:07:05

everything ready, last minute setting up the camera. Anyway,

1:07:08

we got it done. A

1:07:11

few minutes later, they were all at

1:07:13

the local provincial police station. That's George

1:07:15

Sutherland in the orange shirt. How you

1:07:17

doing, my man? What? They

1:07:20

pricked his finger and took his blood.

1:07:23

Did he say anything? Very

1:07:25

little. Very, very little.

1:07:28

He has an opportunity to call his lawyer. We'll

1:07:30

give you a private seat again. We'll have to do

1:07:32

the letter. And we're not getting caught pulling any of

1:07:34

the two lawyers. We'll just get a

1:07:36

little bit of a full-time chill lawyer first before the

1:07:38

day is home. We'll be okay. He

1:07:41

was just very compliant, very quiet. And

1:07:43

he's just what? Nodding, listening to you. He's

1:07:45

just nodding. And then, you know, we asked, do

1:07:47

you have any questions? Is there anything

1:07:49

you want to ask of us? No.

1:07:53

Well, we'll give you something. I

1:07:55

can have a few minutes. You

1:07:57

can read that. No results yet, of course.

1:07:59

So, also... no cause to

1:08:01

hold Sutherland. He went home.

1:08:04

Detectives headed back to Toronto to wait

1:08:06

for the DNA results and

1:08:09

to wonder. He was so

1:08:11

cooperative. What if it's not

1:08:13

him? Maybe they got something wrong. What's

1:08:16

the plan B if the DNA comes

1:08:18

back and it isn't George Sutherland? I

1:08:21

didn't even want to think of it, but I mean

1:08:23

we would be right back into the investigation

1:08:25

and we probably wouldn't be any closer than

1:08:27

we were because we'd be looking

1:08:29

for again another ghost.

1:08:32

George Sutherland was back home a

1:08:34

free man. Very soon

1:08:36

he did something that would send detectives

1:08:39

rushing back to Moussinee.

1:08:41

I said wow you're telling me

1:08:44

the truth right? And tears

1:08:46

are coming down his face and I

1:08:48

just was in a state of shock. On

1:09:03

November 23rd, 2022, Toronto police

1:09:06

flew home from Moussinee wondering

1:09:09

about the fate of their case. George

1:09:13

Sutherland had returned to his house. The

1:09:15

very next day he reached out

1:09:18

to someone he'd known for a decade, an

1:09:21

ex-cop named Randy Coda. Randy

1:09:24

was busy dealing with his own

1:09:26

family concerns when George texted him.

1:09:29

Our grandchildren were going out on the train and

1:09:32

it was about shortly

1:09:34

after four o'clock in the afternoon the train leaves at

1:09:36

five. So we I got

1:09:40

a text message and said I need you over here. So

1:09:42

I messaged him back and I said hey you

1:09:45

know our doctor was here at a stiff shoulder

1:09:48

and my doctor was giving me a cortisone shot. Randy

1:09:50

would soon be resetting his

1:09:52

priorities because his

1:09:55

pal George messaged again. He

1:09:58

really wanted Randy to come back. over.

1:10:01

So Randy told his wife he had to go

1:10:03

see what George wanted. So I

1:10:05

told Betty I got to get going and then she

1:10:08

was on me about the train because he didn't want the kids to

1:10:10

miss the train to go back out. Because you only got one car

1:10:12

and you're gonna go over to Georgia. That's right. Randy

1:10:15

got in the truck and drove over. So

1:10:18

he called me in so I came in and we pulled

1:10:20

a chair over we were about this same distance

1:10:22

as you and I and he

1:10:26

said I've done some things I'm

1:10:28

not very proud of. You're thinking where is this going?

1:10:30

Yeah well I said to him I said well join

1:10:32

the club you know we've all done things we're not

1:10:34

very proud of and he says well he

1:10:37

said I did some break-and-enters in

1:10:39

Toronto. I

1:10:41

said okay and I said well how long

1:10:43

ago was this? And he says 40 years ago. I

1:10:48

said why are you

1:10:50

confessing this stuff to me? And he

1:10:52

said well Toronto Police came and took my

1:10:55

DNA and

1:10:57

I said George Toronto

1:11:00

Police doesn't come into your DNA for breaking-enter 40

1:11:02

years ago. Now it's

1:11:04

the cop thing kicking in. And

1:11:06

he says no he

1:11:09

says I did some really really bad things.

1:11:13

So I just shut up and listened. He

1:11:15

says well I was in a house and I was

1:11:17

stealing jewelry and pawned it and

1:11:21

I come out of the kitchen and this

1:11:23

woman come out of a room that was dark

1:11:25

and grabbed the knife and I held her

1:11:28

at night point took her into her room I raped

1:11:31

her and I stabbed her death and

1:11:35

I just was in state of shock

1:11:38

and just like that he

1:11:40

confesses. Yeah but

1:11:42

he says it gets worse and I said George

1:11:45

it can't get any worse. He says yeah about

1:11:48

three four months later he said I was

1:11:51

in stealing jewelry and same thing happened a

1:11:53

woman confronted me and I held her at

1:11:55

night point and she

1:11:58

saw my face so I I stabbed

1:12:01

her to death. And

1:12:04

I said, wow. I said,

1:12:07

you're telling me the truth, right? And

1:12:10

his tears are coming down his face and he

1:12:13

says, yeah, I'm very

1:12:15

ashamed of what I've done. It's been

1:12:17

a long time. He says, I don't know what

1:12:20

I should do. And

1:12:23

my phone's buzzing like crazy because Betty wants the

1:12:25

truck to get the kids to the train. I

1:12:28

said, listen, just stay put. Don't talk

1:12:30

to nobody. Don't answer the phone. Don't answer

1:12:33

the door. I'll be right back. I

1:12:35

got to go get the kids on the train. So I came

1:12:38

back here and Betty

1:12:41

met me at the steps wanting the

1:12:43

keys to the truck. And

1:12:46

Randy came home and he had this look on

1:12:48

his face. It was like a look of despair.

1:12:52

And I said,

1:12:54

holy, you're not going to believe what just happened. And

1:12:57

so he told me that

1:12:59

George had confessed to two

1:13:01

murders. And at that

1:13:03

point, I didn't really compute with me,

1:13:05

I'll be honest with you. It was just kind of like, I

1:13:07

looked at him like, oh, really? Like, oh,

1:13:10

wow. You'd never have thought of anything like that

1:13:12

of George in a million years. No,

1:13:15

never. Like he comes from

1:13:17

a incredibly loving family, like really good

1:13:19

people. You ever see anything

1:13:21

in George that made you nervous or

1:13:23

uncomfortable? No. You ever hear of

1:13:26

him making anybody else uncomfortable? Never. Never.

1:13:29

After they got the kids to the train, it

1:13:32

began to sink in. I

1:13:35

said, Randy, I said, my concern is that

1:13:37

he's going to hurt himself. She

1:13:39

looked at me and she says, you know, he's going to kill himself. Randy

1:13:44

Cota did not hesitate. He

1:13:46

called his old boss at the provincial police.

1:13:49

And soon, Inspector Sean Glassford's

1:13:51

phone rang. So

1:13:54

when I got that phone call, we decided

1:13:56

we needed to arrest George

1:13:58

Sutherland as fast as possible. He's

1:14:00

now confessed to killing two women. He

1:14:03

has firearms. Emotions

1:14:06

are high. There

1:14:08

are people that he lives with. It needed

1:14:10

to be done. And

1:14:13

talking with Toronto Police, we came up with a

1:14:15

plan. Then when they

1:14:17

talked with Randy, the

1:14:19

plan changed. I said,

1:14:21

you don't need helicopters. You don't need tactical

1:14:23

teams. I can get them. I'll

1:14:26

talk to them. Yeah. But

1:14:28

would it work? Detective

1:14:43

Steve Smith was at his daughter's hockey

1:14:46

game when he learned the killer

1:14:48

of Susan Tice and Aaron Gilmore might

1:14:51

finally, finally be

1:14:53

brought to justice. I

1:14:56

got a call from the provincial police

1:14:58

that stated that George

1:15:01

Sutherland had admitted

1:15:03

to the two murders to

1:15:05

an ex-provincial police officer in

1:15:08

Mucinee. And at that

1:15:10

point, we were going to have to arrest him. Back

1:15:14

up in Mucinee, that ex-provincial

1:15:16

police officer was George Sutherland's

1:15:19

longtime buddy, Randy Coda. And

1:15:23

he had some thoughts about how to arrest

1:15:25

his friend George. And

1:15:28

I said, you don't need helicopters. You don't

1:15:30

need tactical teams. You said on what?

1:15:32

I'll do it. I said, you know, I

1:15:34

can get them. I'll talk to them.

1:15:36

Yeah. I'll get them to turn

1:15:38

himself in. Randy

1:15:42

headed back to George's house with

1:15:45

a team of police officers parked

1:15:47

nearby, but

1:15:50

just out of sight. So

1:15:52

you knock on the door again. He

1:15:54

answers us? Yeah. We'd go

1:15:57

upstairs and sat down in the same two chairs

1:15:59

and I said, uh... George,

1:16:02

I got to talk. And

1:16:04

I said, there's two families here

1:16:06

that have gone through hell.

1:16:09

And you've had 40 good years.

1:16:13

And I said, it's time to do the right thing, man. It's

1:16:17

time to give those families a

1:16:21

good time. He

1:16:23

says, what do you want to do? I says, you can

1:16:26

turn yourself in. You're going to do it tonight. He

1:16:28

says, tonight? I said, yeah, right now. And

1:16:31

he looked at me for about two,

1:16:34

three seconds. And he says, OK.

1:16:37

So I walked him out to the end of the

1:16:39

road. Just waved like this

1:16:41

to the cruiser. And he turned their headlights

1:16:44

on. Two police officers

1:16:46

get out of the car. And the

1:16:48

handcuffs got him to the front. And they

1:16:50

walked him. I said, George, you're going

1:16:52

to be OK, man. He says, thanks. And

1:16:55

then the cruiser and I haven't seen him since. He

1:16:58

didn't get hurt. And no police officers got

1:17:00

hurt. But you felt terrible, didn't you? It's

1:17:06

really weird feeling. It's

1:17:08

really the height of a betrayal. You

1:17:13

feel betrayed. Very. You

1:17:16

almost look like a fool. You feel like a fool. Like, how

1:17:18

in the world did you not see this? You

1:17:20

a cop. You

1:17:23

got a murderer right under your nose. Right

1:17:26

under my nose. In

1:17:28

my house. It's a tough

1:17:30

one. But do what you

1:17:32

got to do. You say you do what

1:17:34

you got to do like it's nothing. But

1:17:36

it's not nothing. But there's a line.

1:17:39

There is nothing to do but to just do

1:17:41

what's right. And

1:17:45

I feel for those families. One

1:17:48

of the highlights of my career,

1:17:50

being able to tell the families

1:17:52

that after 40 years, we

1:17:55

knew who killed their loved ones. Aaron's

1:17:57

brother Sean was watching a football game.

1:18:00

When Detective Smith called. And

1:18:03

Steve said, do you have a minute to talk? I said, yeah, absolutely.

1:18:05

Only so much we got. You

1:18:08

know, I'm standing in the middle of Yonge Street, which is

1:18:10

one of the busiest streets here in Toronto, and I just

1:18:12

broke down in tears. It's like

1:18:14

screaming, tears alternating

1:18:17

back and forth, and and just

1:18:22

uh like

1:18:25

40 years of waiting.

1:18:31

Susan Tice's son, got a similar call. I

1:18:35

just went into question mode. How?

1:18:39

Why? Who? What are you feeling? Relief?

1:18:42

Happiness? Feels like the news

1:18:44

of the arrest kind of changed

1:18:46

something in you. It did. It... It

1:18:50

had been a really long time. You

1:18:52

can't complete the story and

1:18:54

the tragic sadness of her

1:18:56

death without bringing

1:18:58

this individual to justice. Joseph

1:19:04

George Sutherland, 61

1:19:06

years of age, of Moussinee, has

1:19:08

been charged under the 1983 Criminal Code with

1:19:11

two counts of first degree murder for

1:19:13

the deaths of Aaron Gilmour and Susan Tice. The

1:19:16

murder of Joseph George Sutherland,

1:19:18

61 years of age, and Susan Tice.

1:19:22

George Sutherland had already confessed. The

1:19:25

DNA test confirmed it. He's

1:19:28

basically the only person in the world that

1:19:30

could have left that DNA at the scene.

1:19:34

It was justice. It

1:19:36

was also justice delayed. There

1:19:39

is another way of looking at this which is, the winner

1:19:41

in this is George Sutherland. Because

1:19:44

he got away with murder for 40

1:19:46

years. He lived his life, he

1:19:48

got married, had a son, he did what he

1:19:51

wanted for 40 years. He

1:19:54

lived a life, free. He beat

1:19:56

the system. He beat the

1:19:58

system for quite some time. did. And you

1:20:00

know, these poor women, they didn't get to

1:20:03

live their life. On the other hand, the

1:20:05

rest of his life is going to be awful. So

1:20:07

there is that. There is that. George

1:20:10

Sutherland pleaded guilty to two counts

1:20:12

of second-degree murder and

1:20:15

was sentenced to life in prison

1:20:17

with the possibility of parole after

1:20:19

21 years, when he'll be 82.

1:20:21

He declined our

1:20:23

request for an interview, and

1:20:26

he wouldn't talk to police either. Now

1:20:29

he came across Susan Tice and

1:20:31

Erin Gilmore, we're maybe

1:20:33

never going to know. Right

1:20:36

now it's still a mystery to us. Other

1:20:38

victims? Right now

1:20:40

you don't know of any, but

1:20:43

who knows? We're still looking, and

1:20:45

we'll continue to look. We'll never, never

1:20:48

completely close this case. If

1:20:50

there is anybody else, we will find it.

1:20:54

After four decades without her, Ben

1:20:57

Tice remembers a canoe trip he took with

1:20:59

his mom. She'd buy all

1:21:01

that wine in a box, and we

1:21:03

would be paddling. My mom would sit in the

1:21:05

middle, and the classic

1:21:07

sort of saying of the trip

1:21:09

was, paddle, paddle, sip, sip, click.

1:21:12

And she took some amazing photos. When

1:21:14

you go back and read her journals,

1:21:17

what do you say? Hmm. I

1:21:20

mean, you're older now than she was when

1:21:22

she wrote them. Yes. To

1:21:25

read it is my way

1:21:28

of keeping her life,

1:21:30

her legacy, her essence alive. Erin

1:21:34

Gilmore's father lived long enough to see

1:21:36

his daughter's killer arrested in 2022. Her

1:21:41

mom, Anna, died two years before.

1:21:44

You know, there's still anger. I mean, you

1:21:46

know, you can't just put all that away

1:21:48

and just say, well, it's 40 years ago.

1:21:50

It's all good now. No.

1:21:54

I mean, it's, it's an excellent result.

1:21:57

Don't get me wrong. But, you

1:21:59

know. But it doesn't bring her back.

1:22:01

It doesn't bring her back and it doesn't change what

1:22:04

was lost. Yeah. This

1:22:10

is the photo that I took

1:22:12

of Erin the year before she was

1:22:15

killed. On this beach, she

1:22:17

loved to come here with her brothers. I

1:22:20

always think of her when I come here. I

1:22:23

think of her every single day. She

1:22:26

was special. I

1:22:28

think about her kids playing with my kids. I think

1:22:30

about who she would have married. I think about what

1:22:32

she would have been doing. I

1:22:35

think about celebrations, anniversaries. But

1:22:38

then I also think about, you know, she was, you know,

1:22:41

my big sister who would

1:22:43

bring a level of joy to everything. And

1:22:46

I miss that. Sean still

1:22:48

talks to her. And what

1:22:51

do you say? We got him. You

1:22:53

know what I mean? Happier

1:22:55

conversations lately. At

1:23:24

9 central, I'm Lester Holt.

1:23:26

For all of us at NBC

1:23:28

News, good night.