Cold Case cracked 42 years after a Great Bend woman was found shot to death her suspected
killer is behind bars since Alexis Padilla spoke with the victim's daughter today she
has her reaction it's our top story tonight Alexis Emily Jeff Mary Robin Walter's daughter
Pamela says although there is finally in a rush she says she doesn't feel any different today
she already forgave the suspect Stephen Hanks years ago I already knew who did it I knew that
he wasn't convicted of it but we knew who did it we knew it was Stephen Hanks The Neighbor [Music]
thank you [Music]
hello everyone and welcome back to another True Crime Mysteries video
thank you all for being here today we're discussing four more recently
solved cold cases thanks to new DNA evidence let's get into it
number one Susan Tice and Aaron Gilmore
Susan Tice had just moved to downtown Toronto Canada the 45 year old recently divorced social
worker had been alone in the morning of August 17 1983. her four children were in a family gathering
one that Susan intended to go to as well but when she didn't show up her family grew concerned
her brother-in-law was the one to drive down and check up on Susan he first knocked on the front
door but no one answered he went around to the back of the home and his concern grew immediately
when he discovered the back door had been left ajar the home had been ransacked he discovered
Susan's lifeless body in her bedroom she'd been stabbed multiple times and sexually assaulted
the Toronto police department investigated the murder however there was little evidence
to go on a neighbor claimed to have heard screaming around 1 30 am the previous night
but didn't investigate the same neighbor also claimed to have heard someone walking around
in the alleyway behind their stretch of houses indicating there may have been a Prowler looking
for unlocked homes to break into when asked for an update on the investigation Toronto
PD was quoted as saying we have no suspect at all a crushing blow in a violent murder
four months later on December 20th 1983 22 year old Aaron Gilmore was discovered by her boyfriend
in her apartment and stabbed to death Aaron lived in an upstairs apartment above her job working for
a clothing store she locked the door to the store at 9pm and was supposed to quickly change and head
out for a holiday party when her boyfriend showed up he noticed her apartment door was a jar which
initially he thought Aaron was going to pop out at any moment he waited for a second but she
never came to the door so he decided to go up the apartment was dark he called out to her but she
didn't answer in her bedroom he noticed something under the duvet in her bed he pulled it back and
found Aaron's body a horrific discovery that he would never forget Aaron was also assaulted
and the window of the crime had been narrow Aaron had closed the store gone up to her apartment and
her boyfriend came over 20 minutes after the store closed investigators hypothesized that Aaron might
have been stalked and the killer may have already been in her apartment when she finished her shift
Aaron's father was a prominent businessman in the Toronto area and the investigation was put under a
considerable scrutiny for an arrest but despite an exhaustive search no suspect was found eventually
both cases would go cold but law enforcement had one thing DNA evidence left behind by the Killer
the cases were Linked In 2000 when Cold Case detectives were cataloging old crimes and
uploading DNA samples to provincial database despite the crimes being in relatively close
proximity both in location and time and similar circumstances the cases had never been connected
while this brought renewed hopes of solving the case the new DNA lead didn't lead to any
arrest for another 15 years when the Golden State killer was arrested in 2018 thanks to
genetic genealogy Aaron's younger brother Sean reached out to the Toronto Cold Case unit to
ask if the same technology could be used to find Aaron's killer they reached out to authorum labs
in Texas and they started working on the DNA profile left at Susan and Aaron's crime scenes
initially there wasn't a lot of hope they were using Jed match which relies on
people volunteering their DNA from services like ancestry.com and 23andMe to build family trees and
the pool the suspect's DNA was from was incredibly vast indicating that not a lot of people from his
family had done any genetic testing they had more than three thousand names to go through
as they got closer to narrowing down the pool they would eventually serve 61 year old Joseph George
Sutherland with a warrant requesting his DNA his DNA was a match after 39 years Toronto police
were able to make an official arrest in the Cold Case murders of both Susan Tice and Aaron Gilmore
in 1983 Sutherland was 22 years old and had moved to Toronto from mussini Ontario he lived there
for only a few months before the first murder he moved back to mussini in the early 2000s where
he lived since he had married divorced and had children for the last decade he worked for child
welfare services in the area he had no criminal history at the time of his arrest he has been
charged with two counts of first-degree murder he was arrested without incident the arresting
detective claimed that Sutherland knew the arrest was coming and had seemed to expect their arrival
that same detective also stated that they would be going through old cold cases to
see if there were more victims connected to Sutherland he's being held in custody while
he awaits further Court proceedings I'm Sean McCowan and I'm here with my brother Kalin
and Aaron was our sister on behalf of Aaron's family and many many friends we are all very
very happy that an arrest has obviously been made in the vicious murders of Aaron and Susan Tice
the last few days I bought brought around a full spectrum of emotions as you can
imagine and this is a day that I and we have been waiting almost an entire lifetime for
in a sense there's a real relief that someone's been arrested yet it also brings back so many
memories of Aaron and her brutal senseless murder Aaron was our sister she was a daughter
and she was an amazing friend everyone around her she had a Magnetic Personality was a natural
beauty and was always full of life and looking for her next adventure and bringing people together at
the age of 22 she had her whole life ahead of her before she was killed five days before Christmas
she never had a chance to be an aunt to her four nieces and three nephews she never had a chance to
live her life never get married never be a mother and never had a chance to see what could have been
it was an incredible life to be lived that was taken away from her and the rest of us
we will always wonder what could have been and miss her presence and Miss growing old with her
this arrest finally brings an answer for all of us to almost 39 years of asking who our mom Anna
passed away two years ago and she would have been so relieved that there had been an arrest
and so happy that someone will finally face Justice after being anonymous for 39 years Aaron's
murder stayed with her and was very difficult very very difficult for her to talk about it
she lost only her only daughter and she missed Aaron every day it finally puts a name and a face
to someone who for all of us has been a ghost it's truly incredible we are here today I don't
want to say that any of us ever gave up hope for almost over almost over four decades we began to
wonder if we would ever get to this resolution we're so thankful that technology finally caught
up and provided the incredible detectives at TPS a new set of Clues and ultimately an answer
we cannot thank the detectives at Cold Case enough we are many thanks to so many over the
years and I'm sure I'm missing some but Rocky Cleveland Von o'tool Ray zarb Greg Groves reg
pits David Gracie Bob Wilkinson Steve Ryan and of course Stacy Gallant Andrew Groves Steve Smith
who I owe special thanks to for taking my calls and answering my questions and every time saying
we just need more time until just a few days ago when I received the best call I've ever received
you all never gave up on trying to solve this case and we are grateful beyond anything we
can ever express I'd also like to thank all the people in techs at parabon labs and othram for
their dedication allowing the science to help resolve these painful chapters in our lives
as well many thanks to all the journalists we've spoken to over the years who who
helped keep Aaron's case present and relevant Aaron and Susan are finally getting their day
number two Mary Robin Walter foreign 1980 when 23 year old Mary who went by her middle name Robin
Walter was found fatally shot in her home Robin was married a new mother as well as a nursing
student in Barton County Kansas law enforcement went to the home when neighbors reported hearing
several gunshots nearby and it was then discovered that Robin's body was inside detectives canvassed
the area and quickly learned of a neighbor Stephen Hanks who soon became a lead suspect in the murder
case however there hadn't been enough evidence to arrest him and he was eventually released
Hanks was arrested and charged with another crime in 1981 when he broke into a co-worker's home he
was charged with sexual assault battery robbery and burglary he had stalked this victim for months
and attacked her in her home on two separate occasions he served a decade behind bars for this
and was released in 1993. Robin's case eventually went cold and became Kansas's oldest Cold Case
murder it had been reopened and reinvestigated over the decades but nothing notable came up
in April 2022 the case was reassigned to detective Sergeant Adam Hales who had restarted
the investigation from the very beginning around the same time he was assigned the case he also
contracted covid-19 and was isolated at home with the case giving him ample time to go over
everything with a fine-tooth comb in the case files he noticed there were some irregularities
with some of the witness statements and he hasn't revealed exactly what he found in the evidence box
but he found something that led him to believe that there was more evidence connecting Hanks
to the murder than was originally thought the New Evidence was enough to request a DNA sample and
from there they were able to positively connect Stephen Hanks to the 1980 murder of Robin Walter
after reviewing the case with Sergeant Hales I directed that two other detectives detective
Alex Lomas detective Brian vocal as well as Patrol Sergeant Travis does be assigned
to the case as time allowed Lieutenant David Payton supervised the operation
the Sheriff's Office Tracked Down numerous individuals that had been involved in the
case in the 1980s and many interviews were conducted as far away as the Pacific Northwest
several meetings were held with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation who insist who assisted us with
this investigation in October of this year new evidence was attained that allowed the Sheriff's
Office to submit the case to the Martin County attorney Mr Levi Morris for review
after approximately four weeks of review Mr Morris obtained an arrest warrant for murder in the
second degree and the arrest of Stephen l Hanks age 68 of Burden Kansas Stephen Hanks was arrested
in early December 2022 and was charged with second-degree murder Hanks is now 68 years old
Robin Walter's parents husband and sister weren't able to see the arrest as they are now deceased
Robin's daughter has said that she forgave her mother's killer years ago I was about 18 um
I uh had a rough time at that time at 18. [Music] and I got to a point where I had to let go of a
lot of stuff and so when I let go of that I gave it to God and I felt peace peace that
led her to forgiving her mother's killer I wish I could talk to him and tell him I forgave him
number three Michael Sharp
in the summer of 1984 Four Women lived their worst nightmare starting June 3rd 1984 a 25
year old woman identified as Jane Doe number one in bloomsfield Connecticut woke up to a man
standing over her bed he had entered through a screen door to her apartment he put a gun
to her head and told her he would shoot her and her roommate who was sleeping in the other room
it was dark and he blindfolded her then he sexually assaulted her before looking
for valuables and getting a beer from the fridge she reported this to the authorities and a sexual
assault kit and other evidence were collected Jane Doe number two a thirty-year-old woman
living in Middletown Connecticut was attacked on June 26 1984. the man came in through a sliding
door into the apartment held a gun to the woman's head blindfolded her sexually assaulted her he
then robbed her and spent a while in the home before leaving she also reported this to the
police getting evidence collected and a sexual assault kit taken on July 24 1984 in Windsor
Connecticut 26 year old woman woke up to a man in her apartment and again he did the exact same
thing he did to the other two victims this was again reported and all the evidence was collected
on July 24th 1984 a 24 year old mother was asleep in her bed with her two-year-old daughter when
she woke up to a man holding a gun to her head he began to touch her she then asked if she could put
her daughter in another room he blindfolded her and guided the mother holding her child to another
room she put her daughter to bed he then took her back to her bedroom and sexually assaulted her
he stayed around the home to look for valuables and something to eat before leaving the daughter
was never harmed all of these women have had their names kept secret they all have similar stories
and they didn't see much it was dark and they were blindfolded very quickly authorities in these four
places were able to notice a pattern in all these women's stories and in 1990 they would connect all
four cases to a single DNA Source the same man had attacked these women unfortunately there was no
match in federal or state databases and through the years they were never able to find a match
the Connecticut Cold Case unit used genetic geology to try and find a match for these
women's attacker using publicly available genealogy information that had been uploaded
to public databases investigators were able to narrow down a suspect
the suspect's name was Michael Sharp and he was a former CEO of a charter school organization
on November 9th 2020 investigators were able to obtain a DNA sample from garbage that had
been left on the curb of Sharp's home the DNA matched the four sexual assault kits from 1984.
they were able to get a search warrant and obtain a DNA sample directly from sharp which also was
an exact match on November 17 2020 sharp was arrested for kidnapping in the first degree
with a firearm he was arrested for kidnapping because in 1984 the statute of limitations
for sexual assault was only five years but that was not the case for kidnapping charges
the Connecticut Cold Case unit got a call from all four of these women to tell them that they had
not been forgotten and their attacker had been arrested sharp was finally charged with eight
counts of first degree kidnapping with a firearm two counts for each woman in 2021 he pleaded
not guilty and he turned out a plea bargain for 25 years in jail going forward to trial
on November 2nd 2022 a jury returned with a guilty verdict on all counts after less than an hour of
deliberations Michael Sharp now faces 25 to 100 years in prison when he sentenced in January 2023
I don't know I don't know but I'm so sorry I'm so so so sorry the four women after the
conviction revealed their names to the public no more Jane Doe Linda Shelley
Kathy and Roseanne finally had justice for the horrific attacks they survived in 1984.
well that's gonna be it for this video thank you so much for sticking around to the end as always
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it is very appreciated that's it for me I will see you on the next one bye for now foreign [Music]