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WHEN an estate agent showing prospective buyers around a billionaire couple’s mansion spotted ‘two mannequins’ beside a swimming pool, she thought it was a “very crude prank”.
It would soon transpire the figures, left in what she thought were “strange yoga poses”, were in fact Barry and Honey Sherman, owners of the $6.9million home.
Barry and Honey Sherman, pictured in the Seventies, were worth $4.7bn
Zuma Press / eyevine
Zuma Press / eyevineThey were found in December 2017 seated together with belts around their necks, attached to the pool’s railings, having been strangled.
Bizarrely, Toronto Police initially ruled the deaths as a murder-suicide despite the ligature being less than a metre above the ground, before conceding the couple were the victims of a “targeted double murder”.
That conclusion followed the Shermans’ family hiring top lawyer Brian Greenspan, who assembled a crack team of ex-cops to launch their own investigation.
They would discover bruises on Barry and Honey’s wrists and that a thinner ligature caused their strangulation, not the belts around their necks, along with other suspicious findings.
Nothing about the Sherman case has been simple and, even seven years on, no one has been caught for the couple’s murder.
Now in new UKTV docuseries Billionaire Murders, journalist Kevin Donovan, who has pressured the police since 2017, takes viewers behind his investigation and speaks to some of the 200 friends, investigators and officials he interviewed about the unsolved case.
Collectively the couple were worth over $4.7billion – making them the 15th richest people in Canada.
The fortune of Barry, 75, and Honey, 70, came from Apotex, one of the biggest pharmaceutical manufacturers in the country.
But amassing that fortune had led Barry to make enemies along the way, and he had been widely criticised for using the courts to win lucrative contracts at all costs.
The billionaire hadn’t gone to law school but he was very litigious and a strategist – he could always figure out a loophole.
He was taking sales from brand-name drugs worth $1.6 billion in revenue, selling generic products that big pharma companies spent years developing.
By Barry’s own admission in a 2000 interview, he said: “They hate us. They have private investigators on us all the time, trying to investigate.
“The thought once came to mind, why didn’t they just hire someone to knock me off. For a thousand bucks paid to the right person, you can probably get someone killed. Perhaps I’m surprised that hasn’t happened.”
Also upset with building issues at his mansion, he had sued tradespeople for millions – forming yet another grudge.
Getty
AlamyAnd when Barry and Honey died, he had just won a long-running legal battle with four cousins who wanted 20 per cent of his fortune and had been ordered to pay $300,000 in legal fees.
Kerry Winters and the other three believed they were owed shares in his highly profitable business Apotex, because it had been founded in 1974 after Barry sold their father’s firm Empire Laboratories.
Barry had supported them financially throughout their lives, but the cousins believed this was a tactic to make them “dependent on him and to keep them from learning about their rights to the business”.
The couple’s children were also in the firing line, with it argued that they may have bumped off their parents to inherit their vast fortune.
It was claimed Honey and the kids didn’t get on, with sources telling the documentary that she was “nice and timid” to strangers but “rude” to her brood.
During police interviews, each of the children identified a person of interest. “Everyone was pointing fingers,” a police source claimed.
I think the killer or killers look at this investigation and think, ‘Boy did we get lucky?
Kevin Donovan, journalistAnd following their parents’ deaths, the kids all went their separate ways amid suspicions their brother Jonathan may have been behind the killing – a claim he has adamantly and consistently denied.
Theories emerged including Jonathan being jealous of Barry acting as the “fatherly role” he always longed for to one of his business associates Frank D’Angelo.
Shortly before the murder, Barry had also demanded his son pay back millions loaned to him to start a business because he was “in a lot of financial trouble”.
One email revealed Barry bluntly wrote: “I need you to pay me 50-60m dollars back as soon as possible.” Later after Jonathan stated it would take time, he added: “What will you do and when?”
Honey had also allegedly fallen out with her son because he was gay.
Jonathan, who vehemently denies any wrongdoing, was named as a suspect by his own sister Alexandra and allegedly had “gone to the police about it”.
Toronto Police
CBC News
AlamyPolice pinned their hopes on discovering the identity of a mystery figure – who was seen on CCTV footage on the street near the couple’s home around the time they were murdered.
The video showed a man with a rather distinctive walk travel past the camera and then disappear for a suspicious amount of time before reappearing on that same camera retracing his steps.
Despite obtaining the footage in the first six weeks of the investigation, cops didn’t release it until 2021, believing they could identify the suspect by linking their phone to a nearby cell tower.
But after four years working through thousands of data lines, they had nothing.
This guy takes great delight in setting a scene and he succeeded didn’t he
Dr Jim Cairns, deputy chief coronerAt a press conference, police said the hoped someone would “recognise this individual’s walk. The way in which they kick up their right foot with every step”.
Toronto Star columnist Joe Warmington said: “This gait, this walk is very, very unusual and it fits into this whole business of this Agatha Christie-style murder case, a real whodunnit.”
Journalist Kevin fumed that police were “sitting on that for four years” and branded it “ridiculous”, insisting they should have released it straight away.
“I think the killer or killers look at this investigation and think, ‘Boy did we get lucky?’” Kevin told the doc.
Lockbox riddle
Police believe Barry and Honey were under surveillance for up to three months before they were murdered and it’s believed the attacker(s) managed to get inside their home using a recently installed lockbox.
Detective Constable Dennis Yim shared his belief that it is an “international case” and that the information they need “lies in one of five countries around the world”.
Despite this, Kevin says the police did not look into obtaining airport security footage from the night of the murders. He argues it could have led them to find the man with the mystery gait. When asked why, police told him they “didn’t think of it”.
Arranged like statues
One particularly prominent belief is that the killing was “personal” because of the way the bodies were left and the fact that they were strangled and not killed in an easier way, like with a gun.
Barry was laid down in an unusual pose, sat down with his legs crossed – an unlikely final resting position – and with his glasses on, which would have had to have been placed back onto his head after the strangulation.
UKTV
Polaris / eyevineDr Jim Cairns, deputy chief coroner, said: “There was some significance to his legs being crossed, these were things that were done deliberately. This guy takes great delight in setting a scene and he succeeded didn’t he.”
The belts looped around the necks could hold significance too as they were not used to kill the couple – a thinner ligature did that.
The belts in question were Barry’s favourites – both purchased by Honey for $9.99 from a discount rail, which he was said to have been particularly proud of despite his wealth.
On the day of the murder, he had been wearing one of them and the other had been set down on the couple’s bed.
Brad Garrett, from the FBI, added: “The belts were strictly to keep them upright as a shock factor when someone walks into find them.”
It’s also claimed the way the couple were arranged – beside each other and with Barry with his legs crossed – resembled an artistic statue purchased by the couple, which their kids despised.
Who was Barry Sherman?
WITH an estimated net worth of $4.7 billion at the time of his death, Benard ‘Barry’ Sherman was the 14th richest person in Canada.
He made his millions after founding Apotex in 1974, which was one of Canada’s largest drug manufacturers and employed 11,000 staff worldwide.
Mr Sherman was believed to be the youngest person ever to enter the University of Toronto’s engineering science programme at the age of 16. He went on to receive a PhD in astrophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He entered the pharmaceutical trade through his uncle’s Empire Laboratories, working for him while still at university before buying the company when his uncle died.
He later sold Empire, and in 1974 founded Apotex, the company that made him a billionaire.
But he became embroiled in a family dispute, with his uncle’s children seeking a stake in Apotex, arguing they had been cheated. A judge threw out their claim in 2017.
Mrs Sherman – also a University of Toronto graduate – was a board member for several hospitals, charities and Jewish organisations.
Together they donated $50m to the United Jewish Appeal and sent over $50 million worth of medicine to disaster zones in 2017 alone.
At the time of his death, Mr Sherman was facing an investigation as to whether he had improperly held a fundraiser for Justin Trudeau before he became prime minister.
The Canadian Prime Minister has paid tribute to the couple, tweeting “condolences to their family & friends, and to everyone touched by their vision & spirit”.
A family source told Kevin: “The children hated those sculptures. They thought they were weird and didn’t know why Barry and Honey kept them in the house. Why would you copy a sculpture in the house nobody liked?”
Kevin believes Barry and Honey were “posed… to echo the statues in their home”, which could be a message aimed at the couple’s children.
The documentarian refuses to identify the suspect(s) he believes carried out the murders but appears to distance blame from the Sherman kids.
He notes that they initially offered a $10million reward for information that would lead to the guilty party being jailed and in 2022, Jonathan added a further $25million to that sum.
While not revealing his suspicions, Kevin states he will continue to push for answers “like a dog with a bone” and will not give in until the mystery is solved.
He said: “I have a theory, I know who did it. I think police share that belief. They know I’m not going away any time soon.
“One day the murderers of Honey and Barry will be found out. Someone knows a piece of information that will help and until then my hunt continues.”
Billionaire Murders is available to stream now on U.
English (US)