From today's Toronto Star (
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/688609)
Two women linked by serial killer
Aug 31, 2009 04:30 AM
Robyn Doolittle
Staff Reporter
Erin Gilmour's mind was likely elsewhere as she hurried to close up that night. Her boyfriend would be by soon to take her out for dinner. Maybe Chinese food – her favourite.
Through the Yorkville boutique's front window, her killer would have been able to watch virtually unnoticed as the beautiful, young blond woman turned off the lights and locked up around 8:45 p.m.
He was waiting for her outside. Gilmour, just 22, lived in the apartment upstairs. It was scarcely 15 metres from the store's entrance to her front door.
Did he follow her upstairs? Did he trick her? Did she invite him up? Did she know her killer? This was Dec. 20, 1983. To this day her death is still a mystery.
The only thing investigators know for sure is that her killer had struck before. Susan Tice, 45, had been murdered in much the same way – sexually assaulted and stabbed – four months earlier.
"Back then, homicide investigators were obviously aware of the similarities between the two murders. Single women living alone. Late in the evening. Attractive women for that matter. That kind of thing. But they didn't know for sure because they didn't have the magic of DNA, that it was the same killer," said Det. Sgt. Reg Pitts, who heads Toronto's cold case squad.
Pitts was a young officer working in 52 Division the night investigators received a 911 call that a young woman had been killed in her Yorkville apartment.
Gilmour's boyfriend had arrived, right on schedule around 9:20 p.m., to find the street-level door ajar.
He went inside, calling her name as he walked upstairs. No answer. He looked around her apartment, but she wasn't there. Yet the lights were on. He went back outside and over to the store. Dark and locked.
Now he was getting nervous. He went back inside to look again and this time noticed the bed duvet was drawn up over the pillows. He pulled it aside and found her.
Gilmour had been tied up, sexually assaulted and stabbed repeatedly. The fatal blow went through her heart, an autopsy later revealed.
"It was a brutal crime. A brutal crime scene," said Pitts. "I was just a young police officer at the time. I remember coming here that night. The place was swarming with homicide detectives. We searched this area far and wide trying to find the knife – unsuccessfully.
"Little did I know, 25 years later, I'd be taking up the cause again."
Just four months before Gilmour's slaying, on Aug. 17, Tice was found dead in her bedroom on the second floor of her Grace St. home in Toronto. There was no sign of forced entry. Like Gilmour, she had been sexually assaulted and stabbed repeatedly in the chest. The crime scenes were only a few kilometres apart.
The murders were officially linked through DNA in 2000, but investigators always suspected they were dealing with a serial predator.
The problem was the two women had nothing in common. Tice was a mother of four who had recently moved back to Toronto from Calgary after separating from her husband. She worked with disadvantaged children and had a nursing degree from McMaster University and a master's degree in social work from the University of Toronto. She had spent much of her marriage following her husband from job to job as he climbed the corporate ladder.
On Aug. 17, Tice's brother-in-law became worried after she didn't show up at a family gathering. He went to the home and noticed mail had piled up. Police believe she had been there a few days.
Gilmour, meanwhile, was a rising Toronto socialite. Her father, David, is the long-time partner of business tycoon Peter Munk.
She had dabbled in modelling but dreamed of a career in fashion design. While taking classes at a fashion school, Gilmour got her foot in the door by working at a posh Yorkville boutique, Robin's Knits.
"She created her own clothes from second-hand sources, so was very creative. Clever. I saw her as a fashion editor at some point. She oozed style," said Judith Tatar, one of Gilmour's best friends. "She was intensely funny. Very private. And she adored her brothers."
The day before her murder, Gilmour invited her two younger brothers – Sean, 13, and Kaelin, 11 – over for a sleepover. They spent the night just hanging out.
"It was something we did every two or three months," said Sean McCowan, now 39. "That was Erin. She was a lovely young woman, and a great big sister."
Investigators combed through the two women's social circles, hoping for the common thread. Nothing turned up. Detectives believe their suspect may have lived near Tice's home at the time of the slaying.
"Yorkville has more a set clientele or crowd. This is more of a family neighbourhood. Whoever killed Susan Tice would be able to walk around, unnoticed," said Pitts.
"They didn't know each other in life, but they were killed by the same man. You have to ask yourself: Are these the only two crimes this man committed? Likely not."
