Suspicion - S3 40 Years Cold | E3 The Killer

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

Who is Joseph George Sutherland? What would lead him to such depraved acts? In Moosonee, Ontario, we learn of the horrific circumstances that shaped the man and how a close friend was shocked to learn the details of his secret criminal past. This episode comes with a content warning. In it, we discuss violence, sexual assault and murder. We also discuss the physical, mental, sexual and emotional abuse that survivors experienced in residential schools. If you’re a residential school survivor or a family member of one and you’re finding all of this particularly distressing, there’s the National Indian Residential School Crisis Line that provides 24-hour support, 1-866-925-4419. You can also reach out to the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres at casac.ca to help you find a centre close to where you live. Toronto Star subscribers will also get exclusive early access to all episodes on June 17. Non subscribers will get new episodes each Monday. If you are not a Star subscriber, please visit thestar.com/subscribe. Suspicion seasons 1 and 2, ”Death in a Small Town” and “The Billionaire Murders: The hunt for the killers of Honey and Barry Sherman,” were hosted by Kevin Donovan and are available in this feed.  Audio sources: CTV News Northern Ontario, Global News, CTV Your Morning

The Billionaire Murders is brought to you by Havelock Metal, the only roof and siding you'll ever need. This episode comes with a content warning. In it, we discuss violence, sexual assault, and murder. We also discuss the physical, mental, sexual, and emotional abuse that survivors experienced in residential schools. If you're impacted by these themes, we have some resources posted in our show notes. He says, I've done some things I'm not very proud of. I said, okay. He says, well, I've done some break and enters when I was young. I said, oh, okay.

How long ago? He says, like, 40 years ago. So I didn't know if he had come to know Jesus or what in the world had happened to him. So he's confessing his soul to me or something. I didn't know. And I said, oh, okay. We've all done things in our past. I said, just let it go like it's 40 years ago.

And he said, well, Toronto Police came in and took my DNA yesterday. And I looked at him, I said, George, Toronto Police don't come and get your DNA. We're breaking in here 40 years ago. He says, just gets worse. From the Toronto Star, this is 40 Years Cold. Episode 3, The Killer. With no road access from the rest of Ontario,

visitors rely on rail or air to get to Moosonee, to this remote community just south of James Bay and almost 1,000 kilometres straight north of Toronto. After travelling for hours through snow, wind and whiteouts, nine in a car and another five on the Polar Bear Express train, I've just arrived. I'm Betsy Powell, a court reporter with the Toronto Star. We met in episode one, and I'm back now to tell you what I found when I went to Moosonee, where a murderer had been living a quiet life for decades. When Erin Gilmore was killed in 1983, she and I were the same age, both 22.

I remember hearing the news of her and Susan Tice's murder pretty well. At the time, my dad was renting a house on Hazleton Avenue, which is right across the street from where Erin lived and where she was murdered. I was living in an apartment nearby and visited my dad frequently. It was terrifying to know that two women had been murdered in their own homes, one just right across the street. So I came to Moosonee to see where Joseph George Sutherland, the man who brutally raped and killed Susan Tyson Aaron Gilmore, led a seemingly normal life despite the secret hanging over his head. Moosonee is also where his 40 years of freedom came to an end.

Rick Crawford owns Northway Taxi. He's Indigenous, like many who live up here in Moosonee. I asked if he could give me a tour of the town. It took only a few minutes. There are no traffic lights, only stop signs. No fast food outlets, not even a Timmy's. Only a small coffee and hot chocolate bar at the back of the lone gas station. No apartments here, condos? No, no, nothing. That's the Super 8 there that was just built maybe, what, three years ago? So that's our only place for anybody that comes down from the south. And here is a bed and breakfast here. That just opened up recently there as well.

So I asked Rick to drive me past Sutherland's house. I just wanted to see what it looked like. It's painted green. So I asked Rick to drive me past Sutherland's house. I just wanted to see what it looked like. It's painted green. I see a snow-covered pickup truck out front and a boat, trailer and shed to the side. He was living here with his son until his arrest in 2022. Next, Rick took me to where Sutherland worked. We're on the main street, the main drag in Mousignan, and we're going to be heading down

Bay Road, and his place of employment is called Pecatano. That's where he worked. Pecatano James and Hudson Bay Family Services is a massive facility that is one of 47 Children's Aid Societies in Ontario. Here, they help parents and caregivers in First Nations communities who live along the western coast of James Bay. Sutherland worked here for more than a decade and lived close enough to walk home for lunch. He worked in the agency's IT department.

When he worked here, I don't know how many years for quite a bit, because I know my wife was working with him for about at least five to six years. I didn't really know the years for quite a bit, because I know my wife was working with him for about at least five to six years. I didn't really know the guy, but you know, like I said, it's a small town. Everybody knows everybody, right? Place, you know, back in the day, there was only, I think maybe one or two people

that ran this whole organization here. Now they have, oh geez, I bet you, over a hundred and something people working. And why is that? It's just, I guess, for the crisis, I guess, more people, you know, the alcohol and the drugs and all that. Do you think that's connected to people, residential schools? Why? I don't know. Guaranteed.

Residential schools were a blight in this country. They were government-sponsored religious schools established in the late 19th century to assimilate Indigenous children into white Christian society. Kill the Indian, save the child was the unofficial motivation for this school system. Many kids were forcibly removed from their homes and separated from their parents. Physical and sexual abuse was common at the schools. In Canada, the last residential school shut its doors in 1996. That's less than 30 years ago. One of the most notorious of these schools was called St. Anne's.

It was in a place called Fort Albany, about 155 kilometres north of Moosonee. Sutherland and his brothers were born in Fort Albany, and when they were around six, seven, and eight years old, they were forced to attend that school. Fort Albany First Nation is embarking on the difficult journey of uncovering the truth behind St. Anne's Indian Residential School. It operated for 70 years, and officials say students from six communities attended the Catholic-run institution. Now, as CTV's Lydia Chuback reports, families are looking for answers. Indigenous leaders say the Indian residential school system

continues to inflict deep harm on survivors and their families. So why does any of this matter? What does a residential school on the shores of James Bay have to do with the brutal murders of two women in Toronto. What happened to residential school survivors is horrific, but no level of trauma excuses rape and murder. Though to understand Sutherland, you need to understand St. Anne's. We'll be right back. This is Kevin Donovan.

I've been around building and renovation projects my entire life. So I can tell you it's important to make your next roof the last one your house, cottage, or building will ever need. Do it once. Do it right. Do it now. Havelock Metal requests your quote today. Joseph George Sutherland was born in Fort Albany on December 17, 1961, the youngest of Jean and James Sutherland's five sons. Joseph George is registered as a status Indian under the Indian Act to Fort Albany First Nation, one of four Cree First Nations on the west side of the James Bay coast. Located in the Treaty 9 area, Fort Albany is only accessible by air during the warm weather months, except for a few months in the winter when an ice road links it to Moosonee and other First Nations communities.

This place is about as remote as you can get. In 1967, Sutherland was only six or seven and was playing indoors when his father dropped dead from a heart attack at age 42. Not long after that, representatives of the church who ran St. Anne's came and assured Jean Sutherland that they could do a better job of raising her youngest son. She knew all about their convictions, as her other sons were already at the school. When she was a child, she had attended, too. These facts were revealed in March 2024 in what's called a Gladue Report, named for the Supreme Court case of Jamie Tannis Gladue. They're prepared whenever a judge is asked to decide if an Indigenous person should go to prison, and for how long.

This is because Indigenous people are overrepresented in Canada's prison system. The Supreme Court believes judges must consider each Indigenous person's background and the impact of discrimination before determining their sentence. One thing that Canadians might not be aware of is the ways our laws and courts have tried to provide context for the historic traumas inflicted on Indigenous people, leading them into conflict with the law. One tool to do that is Gladue Reports. St. Anne's Residential School looms large in Joseph George Sutherland's Gladue Report. It was run by Roman Catholic nuns with money and admin support from the federal government.

In 1992, a gathering was held where survivors shared accounts of abuse by the staff and how it left them struggling with addictions, attempted suicides, and broken lives. Sutherland recounts a particularly dark memory from St. Anne's. In his Gladue report, he remembers a gym teacher who would line up the kids and call them over one by one. Then, the teacher would hold his hand over each of their mouths and noses until they blacked out. This happened, he said, at least once a week. In the horrors of what's been revealed about residential schools across the country, pictures have been painted by survivors to describe something like a torturous prison

for these children. In a survivor's account as part of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Report, one of the Sutherland brothers, Bernard, recalled students being forced to eat food they had puked up. Another Sutherland brother, Michael, gave an account of his horrendous experience

while at St. Anne's in a Toronto Star article published in 1994. He described being molested by two different men at the school, one of them a clergy member, the other a civilian hired to help supervise the children. Since his arrest, Sutherland has for the first time acknowledged he was sexually abused by an older relative multiple times when he was not yet 10. When he was 12 abused by an older relative multiple times when he was not yet 10.

When he was 12 or 13, a different relative attempted to do the same, but Sutherland was able to walk away. Despite being at St. Anne's together, Sutherland and his brothers rarely spoke and he said they became like strangers to him. Later this morning, survivors of St. Anne's Residential School

will be back in court. They're asking to have important documents released to the public. These documents are believed to have been withheld by the government during the independent assessment process. Survivors say these documents could show strong evidence of widespread sexual abuse or student-on-student abuse at the school. By the time he was 14 or 15, drinking was becoming a part of Sutherland's life in the North, although that didn't make him much different than many other teenagers coming of age in 1970s Ontario. Even so, scholars have studied how unhealthy alcohol consumption is often used as a way to cope and numb feelings of pain and despair in Indigenous

populations. Jackie Hukama remembers the teen Sutherland. She's a member of Attawapiskat First Nation, a community about 90 kilometers from where Sutherland grew up in Fort Albany. She met him sometime in the 1970s. One summer, my friends and I, like in Narowapiskat, there was only one recreation facility that was open year-round. And so one day, we noticed this young guy. He was quiet, and he had a cap, sort of short curly hair. He always just had a smile on his face. But he was very quiet and devoted, you could say.

So after a while, my friend Sanal, we started talking to him. I didn't know that George used to drink or party. On a few occasions, I would run into him with other friends. And they were drinking and they seemed intoxicated. And then another time I was surprised to see him with older women drinking there. And he was going out with one of my friends and we were working at the band office. He would come there to visit during the day. And when he was sober, it just seemed he was was different like he was friendly and smiley

but it seemed when he was drinking he was in a dark dark place i started to like one song that i never heard before and it was uh betty davis eyes because george used to play that song all the time so when i hear that song i'm brought back to that time of my childhood. And then once I was phoning my friend and I said, I was just playing the song. And I remember when George was there, he just disappeared all of a sudden one summer and then he just vanished. I wonder whatever happened to him. We'll be right back. This is Kevin Donovan.

I've been around building and renovation projects my entire life. So I can tell you it's important to make your next roof the last one your house, cottage, or building will ever need. Do it once. Do it right. Do it now. Havelock Metal. Request your quote today. So tracking down and interviewing victims of traumatic events is part of a journalist's job, particularly on the criminal justice beat.

It often includes relatives of someone who's committed a violent act. These people can experience emotional trauma, social stigma, or even physical harm as a result of the actions of their violent relatives. When I came to Moosonee, I wanted to speak to some of Sutherland's family members to try and get a sense of who he is and what might have led him to that very dark place. Being forced to attend a residential school can clearly damage the very core of you, but it doesn't automatically turn you into a rapist and murderer, of course. So what happened to drive him to such depraved acts? How did Sutherland live with this monstrous secret? And did those close to him know? Did they even suspect? I tried to contact Sutherland's relatives on the phone and through social media,

but I didn't get anywhere. I hoped perhaps by coming to Moosonee, I could try to open doors by explaining I wasn't there to sensationalize. I wanted to understand and contextualize his crimes. In Moosonee, on a cold January afternoon, it didn't take long for my perhaps naive, maybe ignorant optimism to fade. I approached Sutherland's ex-spouse, Leona Jeffries,

after Rick, the taxi driver, drove me across the river to knock on her door in Moose Factory, a reserve community located on an island across from Moose and Yee. She has never spoken publicly about her ex-husband. However, toward the end of 2023, she said that Sutherland was, quote, never, ever, ever violent. He didn't swear at me, not at all when we argued. We didn't even have physical fights whatsoever. When I approached her for an interview, she declined. Sutherland's brother Michael, who gave that soul-bearing interview to the star decades ago, also turned down my interview request, feeling he didn't have much to offer.

I got the impression he wasn't close to his baby brother. I wrote a letter to Sutherland when I'd returned from Mussini, requesting an interview, but I didn't hear back. If I'm perfectly honest, I'm not shocked they wanted nothing to do with me, a white crime reporter from Toronto.

Would I if I was in their shoes? They never did come around to speaking with me. But I did sit down with the mayor of Moosonee, Wayne Teipel. Because this is a small town, he knew the Sutherlands fairly well, including Joseph George. I asked him how Jean, the mother, now in her 90s and living in a senior's home, took the news of not only her son's arrest, but his confession. She took it very hard. But again, people don't talk about it as maybe you're finding out. Okay. The mayor knew one of the older brothers, Francois Sutherland. Teipel remembers Joseph George as the 12 or 13-year-old. What I remember of George when he was here in Moosonee was by himself.

He was a very quiet young lad, like on his own. Any group of friends? No, I'd never seen him with that. So do you think he was kind of a loner? Yes, he was a loner, I would say. Ed Sackany is a First Nations elder and a survivor of St. Anne's. He's a little bit older than Sutherland, but remembers going to school with some of his brothers. I was about maybe seven, six years old when I was forced to go there.

The police and the Children's aid took us all without notifying my late mom. They just came into the house and took all of us. And before that, I never knew what hunger was. Once there, Sakani learned pretty early that it was okay and even encouraged to hurt and abuse girls. We were taught that women were to be dominated and they were the weaker gender and they had to be conformed to the male authority. I can recall some of the girls being badly beaten, you know, and even sexually abused. Because we had this priest, and he was openly molesting little girls in front of us. And, like, he had his hands on their dresses and fondling them. And I had to question, like, why is he doing that?

I said, that's not right. I was physically punished. Like I remember that strap was like one of those conveyor belt straps. And then I had thumbtacks on them. And when they hit you, it hurt. And that's for me never to ask such questions again. The violence against our women was taught to us because they were the tools of negativity, the devil,

and they needed to be conformed to our way of thinking. We don't know anything about Sutherland's attitudes towards women, but I can't help but wonder if he was indoctrinated with those same harmful beliefs while he was there. I don't know how he could have escaped it. After Sakene left St. Anne's, he felt consumed by anger and directed some of that rage towards his wife.

You come up with rage. I had no form of positive communication. I was physically violent. I was into addictions big time. And my poor wife took a few beatings from me. And I look at her today and I'm thinking, how could I have done that? And then when my oldest boy was nine months old, I started to realize I can't leave this kind of legacy with him. It was a struggle because I had to deal with a lot of things because it was just not the evictions, but I had to deal with the anger, the rage of being sexually abused.

Suicide came into my view several times, and I'm glad I did not do that. So I decided, okay, I'm not going to do this anymore. For me, I had to really look at myself as a male and develop the man that I deserve to be. It took a lot of work, but knowing that my boys needed to grow up properly, I had to look after myself. I had to really look after and take care of issues that were eating at me. A few years ago, Sakine's younger brother called him with shocking news. The OPP had contacted him about submitting a sample of his DNA in connection with unsolved murders. Sakine told his brother to provide the sample and not to worry because he'd done nothing wrong.

It was, in fact, for the Tice Gilmore case. Sakonay later learned Sutherland had been arrested for those murders. It was filled with sadness, but the fact is that I didn't have his attitude while he was led in that direction. I was just thinking, and to be thrown out in the world with all that negativity, that darkness, and that rage is like a time bomb, you know? Because when you're treated like that as a small kid until you're out of there, that's all you know. And if people try to correct you, you won't listen. You're just raging. I think that's a lot of what Mr. Sutherland's brutal, real hateful, negative actions towards these women

stemmed from the school and the upbringing. He had her own communities. Because every one of us had a choice. I had a choice. I could either go the negative way or strive for being a good person. Elder Ed Sackney helped many residential school survivors and is continuing his own healing journey. As he said, it takes a lot of work.

He wonders how Sutherland lived with what he did for so long. Then when they picked him up, he just went along. Like a sigh of relief, you know. So those are signs of a person that's just somehow grateful he was caught, because how do you sleep at night? Randy Cota and Joseph George Sutherland, people around Moosonee just called him George, became friends when George returned to Moosonee from a stint in Sault Ste. Marie. Randy was a long-time Ontario provincial police officer

who worked in various detachments around the province, including the one in Moosonee before he retired from policing. Randy is also Indigenous, but grew up off-reserve in an area close to Kingston, Ontario. Randy liked George. They were hunting buddies. He trusted him. Randy was a lifelong cop, but even still, his spidey senses never went off. Just a likable guy, always smiling. We always shot the breeze and very shy, unless he knew you. He minded his own business. He was to himself and helpful, always helpful.

Fished a lot, took people out. You'd see him taking people out all the time. And very professional, very kind, gentle heart. You know, he never indicated anything to be a violent person, never even crossed our minds. And that was not in his making. You know, I don't know anybody that disliked him. I knew him, like he never even had as much as a parking ticket

or a speeding ticket or a liquor ticket or nothing. He never got in trouble, never. Nope, not a blip on the radar. Did he drink? You said you don't think he did? Or if he did? No, he didn't drink, I know, for a long time. I haven't seen, I never saw him drink at all. Randy was impressed with how accomplished a Bushman George was. Grew up around that too. Like, he knew what berries you could eat and what you can't eat.

He knew, you know, how to catch fish, he knew how to clean the fish, he knew how to cook the fish, he knows how to shoot a moose, he knows how to gut the moose, he knows how to quarter fish, knew how to clean the fish, knew how to cook the fish, knows how to shoot a moose, knows how to gut the moose, knows how to quarter the moose. He knows how to trap. He's a trapper. He knows how to do that stuff. He's just... I think we find our solace in the bush. The bush is where it's at, yeah.

And that's where George had excelled. He was really good at that. The two men spent a lot of time outdoors together, but the friendship only went so far. Randy had never even been inside George's house. And so one day, when Randy got a text from George to come over and that it was urgent, he thought it was strange. Well, I was here at the house and it was about shortly after four. And I got a message on my phone from George. He says, hey, can you come over and see me?

And I said, yeah, I'm okay. I'll give you a call and message you as soon as I can get available. And about 20 after, 15 after, he messaged me again. He said, I really need to see you. Can you please come over right now? And I okay it must be pretty serious so meaning that he must have had to put something on a trailer right then and I had to do something hold something so he could weld it or put something together we were putting the grandkids on the train at five o'clock said to my wife Betty I said I'm gonna run over to, and then I'll be right back.

And she said, well, hurry and make sure you're back in time to get the kids on the train. So I go over, and I've never been inside his house, never. And he met me at the door and beckoned me to come in. So I came in on a little landing and up some steps, and he says, have a seat. So I sat down, and he pulled his chair three feet, four feet from me and had his head down. And he says, I got to tell you something. I said, oh, okay, what's up?

He says, I've done some things I'm not very proud of. I said, okay. And I'm looking at my watch, more or less wanting to get out of there because Betty's going to be one of the grandkids at the train. And he says, well, I'd done some break and enters when I was young. I said, oh, okay. I said, how long ago? He says, like, 40 years ago.

So I didn't know if he had come to know Jesus or what in the world had happened to him. So he's confessing his soul to me or something. I didn't know. And he says, yeah, I did some break and enters down in Toronto. And I said, oh, okay. I said, we've all done things in our past. I said, just let it go. Like it's 40 years ago, you know.

And he said, well, Toronto police came in and took my DNA yesterday. And I said, oh. And I looked at him, I said, George, Toronto Police don't come and get your DNA before breaking in there 40 years ago. And he dropped his head. He says, yeah. He said, when I was doing a B&E, I broke into this lady's house. I was in the kitchen, and this woman came out of a bedroom, and I know I startled her. And so I grabbed a knife, and I took her to the bedroom, and I raped her, and then I stabbed her to death. And I said, what did you just say? And he told me again, and I'm still in disbelief.

And he says, but it gets worse. You know, he was sobbing, crying. I said, George, can it get any worse? And he says, well, about four months after that, I was in another woman's house, and she come out of a room, and I met her, and I held her at night point, and then I raped her and stabbed her

until she saw my face. I knew she could identify me. So I killed her too, stabbed her. And it was just like, this is not a reality. This is like a bad dream. Like this is not really happening. Like he's just going to tell me, just kidding, you know? And I went, are you telling me the truth?

He says, yeah. And my phone's ringing now, because now it's 4.30. And I knew Betty wanted to get the kids to the train. And so I said to him, I said, George, listen, I don't want you to do anything. I want you to stay here, stay inside, and I'll be right back. And we'll figure this out. Just lock the doors.

And he said, okay. So I came home and I told Betty. And we were both standing there looking at each other like deer in the headlight looked like stupid because we didn't know what the heck to think if it was real or it was... But I knew it was real. I could tell the way he said it. He had his head down and he was really distraught. Well, a buddy looked up and says, you got to do something. I said, yeah, I know. I'm just trying to comprehend what happened here.

And I said, you know what, I've got to call a friend of mine in the OPP and said, Mike, this is what's going on. I said, this guy just confessed to a double rape and homicide. And I'll never forget, Mike said to me, he's full of crap. He says, he's just pulling your leg. You're not real, is he? You don't think it's real, do you? And I said, I don't know.

I said, you're the chief superintendent. You phone Toronto Police and find out. I don't know I said you're the chief super and then you phone Toronto police and find out I don't know man find I'm retired I'm not even a cop no more man I'm done with that he says I'll call you right back so he called me back about about five minutes he says holy jumblings he's one of several people they're looking at that are suspect I said well he's not a suspect because he just confessed to me. And a few minutes later, I got a call from a detective inspector from Orillia, from Criminal Investigations Branch, and asked me how they should handle it.

He just said, you tell me how, you know this guy better than us. And I said, there's no need to bring helicopters and tactical teams or anything like that. I said, I'll just get him to give himself up so that's what I did I went into his house and I just said George we got to talk I said and you've you got to do the right thing here George and he says okay he says well do you think that they can convict me I said can they convict you on DNA and I said yeah they will and he

says what do you think I should do I said I know what you got to do you gotta turn yourself in he says I said you've lived the last best 40 years of your life you owe that to the family. You owe it to the victims of this. And you owe it to yourself to come clean and get right with God. And he'll do his time. And he'll, if he gets to ever see, you know, the outside again, he has that chance. But these folks don't have a chance.

And he says, okay, how do I do it? I said, come on right now. He said, we'll deal with it outside with the police. He says, can I say goodbye to my son? So we walked down the end of the hallway and to the left, opened the door, and son was on a computer game, and he said, I'm going away son for a long time and I'm not coming back. Will you get up and give me a hug? And kid stood up and gave his dad

a hug and he said goodbye and he walked out and he said, should I take my hat with me? And I remember I forget that and I said, no, you won't need your hat so we walked outside and there were cruisers parked down far enough but close enough that I could see them well and I just put my hand up and they just drove up two guys got out and I told him I said guys there's no reason to handcuff him behind his back or be rough with him or he's going to cooperate and the one copper there he says hey George he says uh we got to do what we got to do now. And he says, yeah. And he says, just put your hands in front here. And we've got to search you.

And he searched him. And I said, you'll be OK, George. And he says, thanks, Randy. And that was it. I haven't talked to him since. This episode of 40 Years Cold was written by me, your host, Betsy Powell, and Julia De Laurentiis Johnston.

Julia produced this series along with Sean Pattenden. Sean also wrote our theme music and mixed the show. Our executive producer is J.P. Fozo. Special thanks to my co-hosts, Wendy Gillis, as well as editors Ed Tubb, Doug Cudmore, and Grant Ellis, and to the star librarians, Astrid Lang and Rick Schneider.