Dateline NBC - Talking Dateline: Evil Walked Through the Door

Episode Date: April 24, 2024

Andrea Canning interviews Josh Mankiewicz about his newest episode, “Evil Walked Through the Door.”  The 1983 murders of Toronto women Erin Gilmour and Susan Tice four months apart left police stumped for nearly four decades.Finally, a breakthrough in investigative techniques led detectives to a freezing town in northern Canada in search of their killer. Josh and Andrea discuss the different ways of handling grief highlighted in the episode, and Josh plays a podcast-exclusive clip from his interview with Erin Gilmour’s brother. Josh describes his chilly journey to Moosonee, Ontario, and Andrea explains how, as a native of Canada, she no longer has a Canadian accent. Then, Josh answers viewer and listener questions about the episode.Watch Josh’s travelogue of his journey to get the story here: https://x.com/DatelineNBC/status/1781106464355938813Listen to the full episode of "Evil Walked Through the Door" here: https://link.chtbl.com/dl_evilwalkedthroughthedoor 

Hi, everyone. It's Andrea Canning here, and I am here with Josh Mankiewicz, and we are talking Dateline. Hi, how are you? Good. All right. This is a really, oh my gosh, this episode had me on the edge of my seat. It's called Evil Walked Through the Door. It's about the brutal murders of Aaron Gilmore and Susan Tice in Toronto in 1983. Their cases went cold for 40 years until new technology led investigators to a small town in Northern Ontario. If you haven't listened to the show yet, it is the episode right below this one on the list of podcasts you can choose from. So go there and listen to it. Or if you want to watch it,

you can stream it on Peacock and then come back here. All right, Josh, let's talk Dateline. Quite a story. It really was. So for me, what I really found so fascinating was that 99% of the time, the killer we've met, it's often a spouse or a boyfriend, girlfriend. In this case, I was so curious because I had absolutely no idea who did it. So then, you know, I found myself really invested in finding out who the killer was. You know, when you close a cold case, you frequently discover that that person was someone who had been interviewed at some point or somebody that you just missed. But this wasn't that. George Sutherland's name is not in those files anywhere.

He was never talked about. He was never talked to. That name's just, that was completely out of the blue. They did a lot of work on this for a lot of years. And he really just was a ghost. He really was. And our viewers have picked up on this. We don't do a whole lot of old stories, especially old going back to early 80s. And I'm really glad that we did this.

It made no difference to me what year this was from. I was just as riveted if this had happened in 2018 as I was that it happened in 1983. And there was video from back then. And I thought it seemed, you know, pretty current. It didn't feel to me like an old case. Of course, you know, like the 80s doesn't feel ancient to me anymore. I was a TV reporter in the 80s, kind of like now. But yeah, I thought the case did not suffer from being 40 years old. And it was interesting also, I mean, sort of one important element of the story was the way in which police were sort of looking for all those 40 years for connections.

And they were looking for the connections of how Susan Tice and Aaron Gilmore either crossed paths or were in the same place at the same time, or then there's no evidence that they knew each other. Nobody could figure out what they had in common with each other. And now that we know who the murderer was, we still don't know what they had in common with each other or what the murderer had in common with them. Aaron, young, from a wealthy family, sort of just starting out in life. She was 22. She was living in Yorkville, which, as you know, really nice part of Toronto. Susan Tice was in her 40s, not living in as nice a part of Toronto, but a perfectly okay area a couple of miles away. Erin Gilmore lived alone in a really nice apartment over the boutique that

she worked in. And her dad, who was quite wealthy, he had, I think, found that apartment for her and encouraged her to live there because he thought that apartment in that area of Yorkville was a safe place. And so he was particularly, I think, broken by all of this. I don't blame him for thinking it's safe. It is safe.

My family's had a condominium in Yorkville for years. That's like a second home to me. You ever feel unsafe there? Never, never. There's many times I've walked around there at night just without a care in the world. I went to college in Toronto and lived with my cousin just a couple of blocks outside of Yorkville. I knew you were doing the story in Canada. I did not realize it was Yorkville. So when right off the bat, you said Yorkville, I'm like thinking, oh my goodness, wow, this is really hitting close to home. Have you ever been to Moosonee? So I have not been to Moosonee. I've been to Thunder Bay, North Bay, Timmins, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie.

I've been all over up there, but not to Moosonee. I was talking to Bobby, our sound guy. He was on my shoot last week, and I know he went with you. And he said that you drove through Barrie up Highway 400. And so that was one of my first TV jobs. People were holding up signs as we drove by and it said, where is Andrea? So that was, yeah. The one thing that was funny to me, the Moosonee accents are so much like the town I grew up in. It was so familiar just hearing them talk.

You appear to have lost whatever accent you had because I never think to myself, oh, that must be a Canadian accent. After living here for so long, it kind of part of it just naturally disappeared. But then some of it was the way that you say words in Canada would get funny looks or, you know, someone would laugh at you or whatever. So you just kind of stop saying it that way.

I'm so jealous that you got to go there. I do not know how you Canadians deal with that cold. You know, for this California boy here, that was the coldest I've ever been. You know, we've all been uncomfortably, unpleasantly cold before, you know, at a sporting event or you realize, you know, you didn't bring the right clothes and you're miserable, you're freezing cold, or you get soaked by the rain. And this is not that. This was the first time where I thought to myself, you know, if the car breaks down, we're going to die. Like nobody's going to come. There's no cell coverage. You know, if you walk, you'll get eaten by a polar bear. I mean, it was unbelievably inhospitable. And like our gear started to fail, the camera stopped working. The light stopped working.

You know, I was doing these little brief on camera things up there. And I would do one take of it, which would take like, you know, 35, 40 seconds. And they'd be like, all right, we'll do it again. I'm like, I'd be like in a second. And I'd get back in the car for a minute. And then I'd get back out and try another one. And like within seconds, I was in pain. What was the temperature when you were up there?

Oh, you know, like minus 12 with a wind chill. It was brutal. And also, I mean, I got a winter coat, but I don't have a winter coat for that kind of weather. I was joking with my dad and his girlfriend. I was telling them how you were going up there. And I was like, yeah, Josh won't stick out at all in Moosonee. You know, he'll just blend right in with the locals. And we were all laughing. Well, you know, the interesting thing is like, it's not on the Canadian road system.

You can only fly or take the train to get up there. You cannot drive. And just getting on the train and starting that five, five hour plus train ride to Moosonee, we were already like, it was already widely known on the train. And then in town, the Dateline was here and they knew why too, because they were not like this, a lot of, not like there's a lot of murder stories solved in Moosonee. I mean, forget about sticking out. Like everybody knew our business. And also, by the way, they were unfailingly nice and friendly and helpful. And a woman that we interviewed in the story, the local genealogist, we met her on the train. We didn't even know about her before that train ride. Oh, amazing. So do we as Dateline have fans in Moosonee?

Well, you have fans everywhere. But we bumped into some guy in the lobby of the hotel we're staying in, which was the only hotel in Moosonee. And he's like, I watch Dateline all the time. And I recognize your voice. And then we chatted with him for a minute. Yeah, it was good. Yeah. When we come back, we've got an extra clip from Josh's interview with Aaron's younger brother, Sean. You know, cops always say that the cold cases are solved by either changes in circumstance or changes in technology which is this case which is dna science got better and better and better you know in 1983 leaving dna behind at a crime scene uh essentially posed very little risk to

any offender you have to wonder whether sort of around the time of the OJ trial, like 12 years after these murders, right? And then in the years going forward, was George Sutherland reading more and more and more about DNA technology and how it was getting better? And then in this century, sort of, you know, touch DNA and the familial DNA connections that more and more law enforcement agencies are using, whether he was thinking to himself, you know what, they're coming eventually. I'm going to get caught. Imagine living your life for that many decades, wondering if they're coming for you. And, you know, this was the thing that the cops were worried about. You know,

when they show up at his door up in little tiny Mussini, they were afraid he was going to answer the door with a gun or that he was going to kill himself. But instead he was like, okay, let's, let's go, let's go to the police station. And then he does say to them on the ride in, what's this about? What are you investigating? And they tell him, and he gets very silent and the cops thought it was interesting that he didn't say, well, I don't know what you're talking about. I they tell him, and he gets very silent. And the cops thought it was interesting that he didn't say, well, I don't know what you're talking about. I mean, what, Susan Tyson, Aaron Gilmore, like, I don't, those names don't mean anything to me. I don't know why you're

talking to me for that. He doesn't say that. He didn't say anything. And then he gave him the sample. They didn't have any actual evidence against him at that point, which is why they had to let him go after they take the blood. The DNA results are not back yet. And they thought, you know, this is a guy who was a very experienced outdoorsman. So he could have gotten on his snowmobile and headed out of town. I mean, he's somebody who could have lived out in the wild for a while. And they were concerned about that.

But on the other hand, there's no way to hold somebody when all you have against them is a DNA sample that hasn't been tested yet. And you're pretty sure he's the guy. What an interesting scenario that Randy was in, you know, to this guy that he considered to be such a good friend. He's former law enforcement. And then he's being told that this guy killed two women. George confesses to him and says, I did these break-ins, right? 40 years ago, and the cops just came to take my DNA. And Randy's like, yeah, cops don't come for DNA for a 40-year-old break-in. And then George talks about, well,

they're going to find out that I did some murders too. You know, what's interesting is that George Sutherland, even in the moment of confessing his terrible sins to his best friend, he can't bring himself and still hasn't been able to bring himself to say, I raped and murdered these women, and that was my intention. He says, I was there because I needed to steal something. You know, nothing was stolen, as far as we know, from either crime scene. He ended up taking a plea. He pled to two counts of second degree murder. Certainly in the United States, prosecutors might very well have insisted as part of the

plea agreement that he specifies certain things. Like, let's talk about exactly what happened. You have to say, how did you meet Aaron Gilmore and Susan Tice? What made you select them as victims? Exactly how did those crimes happen? We don't have any of those answers because they have the DNA, they have him, he's off the street, he's locked up for what's probably going to be a life sentence. I mean, he'll be in his 80s before he's eligible for parole and there's no guarantee that he's going to get it the first time. Hard to get around that. I really admired Sean and just really came to like him, you know, throughout the two

hours. So sad that he had to lose his sister like that. My heart really went out to him and just such different ways of handling things. The son of Susan, he really chose to almost put his head in the sand because it was too difficult. Where Sean, you know, didn't stop talking about it. So it was interesting seeing the two men and the two different ways that they handled such a brutal crime that rocked their family. You know, it's impossible to look at either one of those men, either Sean McAllen or Ben Tice, and think, oh, they did it the wrong way. That's the wrong way. Because each of those is the right way if that's how you feel. Ben Tice essentially said to police, I don't want to hear about this

until you have something to tell me. Then I want to hear. Sean McCown was more of the classic way to engage law enforcement. When I say Ben stuck his head in the sand, I want it to be clear that I did not mean that as any type of insult. That was like- No, I think he would agree with you. I think he would exactly agree with you. I mean, he said, I ran away from it. We said that in the story. I mean, there's no rule book on this, but yeah, I mean, that's the point is there's no right way to handle a member of your family being taken from you by, by violence like that. And so I think Sean and, and, and Ben both, I think they both did the best they could. And I think they both feel a lot better now. So speaking of you have a soundbite that you want to play from Sean that didn't make the show.

Right. There's part of him talking about what happened after he realized that the arrest had finally been made. Let's listen to that. So shortly after the arrest in December, a group of friends of mine who are very, very familiar with the story took me out to lunch, and I was the last one to arrive. and sitting at my space was a gift box and I sat down I didn't really understand what was happening and you know they were all very sort of quiet and solemn and sort of said we've got something for you and I sat there and opened up the gift and inside was this bracelet and they said take a look at the inscription and engraved in it is 14,219 and still confused I didn't really understand what the numbers meant.

And I sort of, you know, inquired what it was all about. And they said, that's the number of days since your sister was murdered and the arrest has been finally completed. And that number of days it took to get justice for Aaron. Oh my gosh, what nice friends. Right? Yeah. I mean, and it's a sign of, you know, how clear it was to everybody else in his life, how much this had mattered to him. This was something that was always on Sean's mind for every one of those 14,000 plus days. And I, you know, that was a great story. Unfortunately, like a lot of stories on Dateline, we ran out of time.

But what a great little extra for Talking Dateline. After the break, we'll be back to answer some of your questions from social media. So we have a lot of viewer questions for this one, which I would like to pick your brain about. So let's start with at Jake Sundell. And this is referring to Aaron's boyfriend, Anthony, when he made the call to 911. He said it was suicide. How would he know? Yeah. You know, I think the fact that Anthony Monk, I think legitimately misidentified

this as suicide is one of the reasons why he was on police radar for like eight months or something. You know, I mean, look, this is law enforcement. I mean, the person who finds the body is frequently the person who committed the murder. I mean, obviously we know Anthony Monk didn't have anything to do with this. Why he thought it was suicide. I don't know. You don't want to talk to us. But, you know, sometimes people try to explain something terrible that they've seen in any way that sort of makes sense to them. And she's been murdered, I think, was a crazier idea than she had committed suicide. Yeah, and this is a really good question. At LMR413, does it really take five months to get a DNA match or is it a matter of the lab's workload?

Because we do hear all the time how long it takes. I mean, look, rushing DNA still takes a few days. You know, those shows about forensics on TV, those make it look like you can get a DNA test back, like within about 15 seconds. And also it has the suspect's address in it and their current photo. And it's a match too. And that's law enforcement fiction right now that one day that may happen, but right now that's not real life. If you don't put a rush on it, it absolutely can take months because DNA labs are frequently overloaded, overworked, and there's a lot of stuff in there to be tested. And it is not something that is done in five seconds in a machine on your desk it'll be great if that happened but it does not so this this shout out from at d lee writes was specifically for the editors the music score for this episode

was moving poignant and spot on would love for josh to share how music choices are made in post-production for each episode considering the tough subject matter. Here's an easy answer to that. I have nothing to do with that. The music choices are almost always done in production sort of after I'm finished with the words. The production choice is about which shots to use and how to introduce music in a way that sort of takes you into the story but doesn't distract you. I think it's just a feeling they have too, right? Like they've been doing this for so long and our editors are so fantastic. They're such an integral part of our show. You know, I'd never seen that before to that level of how involved they are and how important they are to the show

and making it look the way it does. So props to the editors. I agree. No, no, this is a, this is in a lot of ways an editor's show. Yeah. Yeah. This is from at Margo WD. And this is in response to your interview with Danny, the Canadian dental surgeon, who's been watching Dateline since he was a kid with his mom. Yes. That's in my travelogue. Yes. But in your travelogue. Okay. So Margo wrote Dateline was a TV tradition I had with my dad when I visited him after dinner on a Friday night, he'd say Dateline tonight. I miss him and his commentary on the twists and turns of the case. And, you know, it's really about, you really about Dateline being a ritual for people, something they look forward to every Friday, maybe a family affair. It's great when you can

talk to people about it. We have a chain at Dateline. We call it the Real Housewives of Dateline. So a bunch of us at work all comment on the Housewives episodes, but I feel like people do that with Dateline because it's another one of those kinds of shows that you can bounce things off of other people, clues, who did it. I mean, I don't know that I think of Dateline as family viewing because some of those stories are not things

you want to share with your kids. But clearly some people, there are families that watch this together. That's absolutely true. Maybe older families. Josh, I can tell you that Tri Trip and I are not snuggling up and, you know, with some popcorn and watching Dateline together. He's four.

You know, it's a little. Not yet. Not yet. A little premature. There's a big sort of social Dateline family out there on X or Twitter and on Facebook. And I think on Instagram, too. You know, I mean, I read an article today that Taylor Swift, who's a Dateline fan, credits Dateline with the genesis of one of the songs on her new album.

So, I mean, yeah, everybody's watching Dateline, and they're talking about it. I put it right up there on my Instagram page, the Taylor's quote about Dateline. And it was so nice to hear that from her. Because I know her dad says she'll watch like five episodes in a row. She's like that hooked on the show, which is so fantastic. Something she doesn't come with a lot of people in our audience, I think. I had a flight attendant come up to me last week coming home from Dallas. And she said, you know, as flight attendants, we have these crazy schedules.

We're up at all hours. We're, you know, coming and going. And she said, Dateline is my constant. I turn it on and it brings me like just comfort, like being with all of you. I do hear that also from flight attendants when we're flying around the country. I hear two things. I hear that. I hear I watch Dateline all the time. And I hear that also from flight attendants when we're flying around the country. I hear two things. I hear that. I hear I watch Dateline all the time. And I hear, you know, Keith has started so many fistfights on the plane that he's going to get on the no-fly list. So those are the two things that sort of are. Yeah.

Lester says the same thing about the flight attendants as well. So it's definitely a thing. So thank you to all the flight attendants. And thank you for talking Dateline this week. Josh, what an incredible story. Thanks, Andrea. All right, everyone. Thanks for listening to us.

Remember, if you have any questions for us about our stories or Dateline, reach out to us on social at Dateline NBC. And we'll see you on Fridays on Dateline on NBC. See you soon.