Toronto police solve 1982 murder of ‘fun-loving’ antique dealer using latest DNA tech

McBride was not associated with criminality and investigators suspected then — and now — that the killer entered his apartment to steal valuables. His car and credit cards were used after he died.

The case remained unsolved until the Toronto police homicide cold case unit revisited it in 2016, sending seized items from McBride’s apartment for testing to see if advancements in forensic testing could determine further leads.

A DNA sample from an unidentified male was obtained and, in 2022, police turned to genetic genealogy, identifying a suspect, William Taylor. He was 34 in 1982 and was living in Alberta when he died of cancer last year at 75. Otherwise, he would have been arrested and charged with first-degree murder, Det-Sgt. Steve Smith, the lead investigator, said Monday.

Genetic genealogy is the process of taking DNA from a crime scene, using DNA sequencing to build a genetic profile of a family, then submitting it to a consumer DNA testing service to find close but not exact, matches. Investigators can compare the sample to scores of other genetic profiles submitted by people researching their backgrounds and family trees.

The process can produce multiple potential familial connections, requiring further research by a genealogist who may scour public records such as death notices. Police also conducted interviews and, in one high-profile Toronto case, collected DNA samples from living people.

In the unsolved McBride case, police preserved swabs of blood from the crime scene. Testing done in 2016 found the victim’s blood mixed with the blood of an unknown person, which suggested a violent struggle had taken place. Other items that had DNA samples were analyzed and also led to the same profile, Smith explained.

The unknown man’s profile was uploaded to the national convicted offender DNA database, “but there were no hits,” Smith said.

Another dead end was Taylor’s suspected accomplice. Police identified him as a serial fraudster who sold McBride’s stolen property and ran up his credit cards. Yet he was “a bit of a ghost” who used multiple names and disappeared, said Smith. There was also no evidence he was in the apartment when McBride was killed.

Investigators, in the meantime, continued to conduct interviews and track down leads. The big breakthrough came in 2022 when Toronto police sent the DNA evidence to Othram, a private DNA laboratory in Texas that TPS has used in previous cold cases. The company's forensic scientists built out a comprehensive DNA profile.

That profile was then uploaded to GEDMatch and FamilyTree DNA, two U.S.-based consumer websites that allow police involvement. (Both ask that users consent to their information being shared with law enforcement investigating homicides and sexual assaults.) Genealogists narrowed the suspect down to a family and two brothers, including Taylor who died last year in Alberta. Police obtained a search warrant to obtain a portion of his DNA from the autopsy to compare it with their sample. It was a match, Smith said.

Taylor’s brother was notified, and “he was pretty shocked,” Smith added.

Taylor was separated from his wife years ago and had no children. Little is known about him other than he was an American with connections to New York and Michigan. At the time of the slaying in 1982, Taylor was living close to the victim but there was no known connection between the men. He had been living in western Canada for a number of years.

There is no evidence, so far, that Taylor was involved in any other violent crimes but “we have 40 years now to do a deep dive to see if there’s anything else we can find,” Smith said.

The victim, who would have been close to 90, doesn’t appear to have any close surviving relatives, although Smith spoke to his niece in Australia. “She was very happy that we were able to find out exactly who it was, so she was going to tell the rest of her family,” Smith said.

Taylor’s identification as a murder suspect is the latest Ontario case using genetic genealogy. In October 2020, police announced they identified Calvin Hoover as the killer of nine-year-old Christine Jessop 36 years after she was sexually assaulted and murdered. Hoover died in 2015.

Last year, after genetic genealogy identified him as a suspect, Joseph George Sutherland, 62, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting and fatally stabbing Susan Tice and Erin Gilmour in their Toronto homes in 1983. He is awaiting sentencing.

The technique has also been used in scores of unidentified human remains cases, as well as helping adoptees to identify birth parents and exonerate people wrongly convicted of crimes.

While traditional DNA testing is excellent at confirming an exact match to a known person, it is not great at “determining identity,” Othram CEO David Mittelman wrote in an email to the Star.

“We have helped generate leads for thousands of identifications,” Mittelman wrote.