Man accused in 1983 murders of 2 Toronto women pleads guilty
CTV
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.
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.
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.
