‘They were taken from us’
I n front of two dark wood coffins in a huge convention centre near the Toronto Airport filled with thousands of people, Jonathon Sherman said he and the rest of his family have struggled mightily to cope with the "incredibly painful and bizarrely surreal” deaths of their wealthy parents.
Less than a week ago, his parents, the billionaire philanthropists Barry and Honey Sherman, were found dead in the indoor pool room at their handsome North York home by a real estate agent. In the days following, news outlets, including the National Post, reported an early police theory that, according to police sources, the deaths may have been a murder-suicide. Family and friends have since vigorously disputed that notion.
“Our parents never left anyone behind. They were taken from us,” Jonathon, one of the Shermans’ four children, said. “Before we could begin to grieve as a family and recover in a proper
FAMILY, FRIENDS MOURN BILLIONAIRE COUPLE FOUND DEAD LAST WEEK
Jewish manner, we’ve had to navigate through a terrifying maze of non-information and unfounded speculation, all while trying to support each other emotionally.
“As my sisters and I congregated for two days, waiting to hear any facts other than through Twitter and the unreliable news media, I kept expecting my parents to walk through the front door and say ‘Everything will be fine. We’ve taken control of the situation.’ ”
He was startlingly abrupt in opening his eulogy, saying: “These last few days have been really f--ked up for my family.”
Toronto Police have been guarded in their statements on the case, saying only that homicide detectives have now taken the lead in investigating the “suspicious deaths.” A source has told the National Post the Shermans were found hanging from a railing over their lap pool.
Organizers estimated 6,000 people attended the elegant service at the International Centre, many of them employees of Barry Sherman’s generic drug empire Apotex. At the behest of the family, the employees wore blue — the Apotex corporate colour — and so the hall was speckled with azure scarves, navy sweaters and royal blue shawls.
Despite the turnout, which included Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Toronto Mayor John Tory, the nearly three-hour service somehow felt intimate.
The speakers — Tory and Wynne among them — veered away from the circumstances of their deaths and instead gave portraits of Barry and Honey Sherman as regular people, far more complex then their respective public images as a cantankerous business tycoon and a gregarious benefactor of Toronto charities.
Halifax-area RCMP say the death of a 77-year-old woman in February was the result of a shooting incident she survived 41 years ago. Police are now ruling her death — and the wider case — as a homicide-suicide based on an investigation and the completion of an autopsy report. The Mounties say the woman, who has not been identified, had been the victim of a shooting in Upper Lawrencetown. A 34-year-old man suspected of the shooting was found dead in the area around the same time in 1976.