In Moosonee, a city in the Canadian province of Ontario, he has been arrested a man accused of killing two women in 1983, 39 years ago. The police managed to identify the man thanks to some advances in DNA analysis technologies, in particular thanks to the use of genetic genealogy, an investigation technique which consists of combining a DNA analysis and the method of finding sources usually used to reconstruct family trees. In recent years, this technique has made it possible to find those responsible for several murders that have remained unsolved for a long time.
The man who was arrested is called Joseph George Sutherland, he is 61 years old and has been formally indicted for the murders of Susan Tice (45 years old) and Erin Gilmour (22 years old), two women found dead in their homes respectively in the August and October 1983: they had been stabbed after being raped.
The detective who led the investigation into the case, Steve Smith, has explained that it took many years to trace Sutherland: the first important step was taken in 2000, when thanks to some analyzes of the DNA found at the crime scene, the police understood that the two women had been killed by the same person.
In 2019, then, the police did some cross-checking between the DNA found at the crime scene and a sample voluntarily sent to Family Tree DNA, one of the companies that offers do-it-yourself DNA tests. The police were able to identify Sutherland’s family and subsequently trace him back, then re-analyzing his DNA and comparing it with that found at the crime scene. The first hearing of the trial will be on December 9th.
