NEXT STEPS
APPRAISERS, MOVERS ARRIVE AT SHERMAN MANSION AS PART OF ‘ TRANSITION’
FLURRY OF ACTIVITY AT SHERMAN ESTATE SIGNALS START OF NEW PHASE IN CASE OF SLAIN BILLIONAIRE COUPLE.
Awhite transport truck backed into the vacant estate of Barry and Honey Sherman on Monday morning, scraping across the branches hanging over the driveway, to drop off an easy chair, a cabinet, a table. Nearly three months after the billionaire and his philanthropist wife were found dead, it appeared Apotex, the generic pharmaceutical empire he founded, had begun clearing out his office.
Appraisers were at the house in north Toronto too, examining the couple’s possessions before professional cleaners started on the house this week.
It is the monotonous work that follows a killing; the necessaries that fill the void of receding headlines, police and gawkers.
The matter is nowhere near resolved, though. Two investigations — one by the Toronto Police homicide squad, another by private investigators hired by the Sherman family — have yet to announce any developments in more than a month.
Just as the bouquets of flowers left at the property’s edge have died, the original sting of the news, the ad- renalin and the public glare is replaced by probating wills, assessing assets, liquidating estates and cleaning a family home that became a crime scene.
It all must be done under the shadow of one of the city’s most sensational unsolved crimes.
Around 10 a. m., a van arrived with four people from Waddington’s, an auction house that specializes in fine arts, wine and spirits, unique collections and confidential sales involving “timing and privacy,” according to its website. The group was presumably at the house to assess the Shermans’ art and other valuables, though none of them would answer questions as they stood outside the caution tape surrounding the estate.
One of the group politely introduced herself to a reporter before her colleagues called her away. A security guard, one of two assigned to watch the house, came to lead them inside.
Toronto police spent six weeks examining the Shermans’ 12,440- square- foot mansion after Barry Sherman, 75, and Honey Sherman, 70, were found with belts around their necks suspended from a railing by their indoor pool on Dec. 15. In late January, Det.-Sgt. Susan Gomes announced the case was being treated as a double homicide but there were no suspects.
On M o n d a y, Const. Caroline de Kloet, a police spokeswoman, said there were no updates on the case.
The i nvestigation l eft much to be cleaned, including the fingerprint dust used by investigators in a search for clues to who was inside the house along with the Shermans.
Brian Greenspan, a Toronto lawyer who has been speaking on behalf of the Sherman family, said Monday’s activities signify “transition” after the Shermans’ deaths.
“The police engaged the house for the completion of their investigation, then we completed our analysis and our investigation of the scene and have done a number of things. That’s now over and the transition continues towards putting the house back in order and making a determination — that has not yet been made — of what to do with the house,” Greenspan said.
“The executors of the estate are now going through the normal course of what needs to be done.”
He declined to comment on the status of the parallel probe the family has undertaken through private investigators retained through Greenspan to assist police in the high-profile and perplexing double murder probe.