Police in Sherman case obtain nine new warrants
New leads suggest investigators may be ramping up probe into slayings of billionaire couple
Toronto police detectives probing the murders of billionaires Barry and Honey Sherman have obtained nine more search warrants in the last month.
The warrants — police will not reveal what they were seeking or where the warrants were served — were authorized in the four weeks prior to a Sherman family news conference last week that criticized Toronto police for a shod- dy investigation and announced a $10 million reward.
The new warrants suggest police may be ramping up their investigation into the pair’s killing.
According to court records obtained by the Star and statements made by Toronto police, detectives have obtained a total of 37 warrants and production orders since the probe began.
Warrants allow police to search locations such as a house or business.
Production orders are for records maintained by banks and cellphone companies.
At least one warrant was served outside of Canada, but police and courts will not release details of where.
The Shermans owned property in Florida. Barry Sherman was the founder of Apotex, Canada’s largest generic drug firm. He and his wife Honey were major donors to Jewish and other charities in Canada.
The couple was last seen alive on the evening of Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. Their bodies were discovered the following Friday morning by Sherman family real estate agent Elise Stern, who was showing prospective buyers and their agent the home on Old Colony Rd. The Shermans were found near their indoor pool. They had been strangled and pulled into a seated position, each with a man’s leather belt looped around their neck and fastened to the metre-high railing that surrounds the rarely used lap pool.
Police pursued a theory of murder-suicide for six weeks, before ruling it a “targeted” double homicide on Jan. 26. That came after police reviewed the results of a second autopsy conducted by David Chiasson, Ontario’s former chief forensic pathologist, who had been hired as part of a private investigation launched by the Shermans’ four children.
That investigation was meant to provide a second “lens” to look at the case, said family law- yer Brian Greenspan, who is leading a team of private detectives and forensic experts.
Toronto police were invited to attend that autopsy, but declined and only interviewed Chiasson after a Star story revealed his findings.
Last Friday, Greenspan and his private team, most of them former homicide cops, slammed Toronto police for what they say were failures in the investigation — locks at the home not checked for tampering, fingerprints and palmprint evidence not taken from the scene, and carpets not vacuumed to obtain minute evidentiary traces.
The team also announced a $10-million reward and a tip line directing callers not to police but to the family’s experts. Greenspan has told Toronto media that calls have been coming in, though he would not say how many.
While the police will not speak about what they have done on the case, the Star has learned some information about a series of search warrants and production orders authorized by Justice Leslie Pringle, the judge who has reviewed more than 220 pages police have submit- ted for warrant approval.
At the beginning of the investigation, police filed warrants for such things as the Sherman couple’s health records. Sources close to the investigation have told the Star police were seeking information that one or the other was depressed. Friends interviewed by the Star say the Shermans were both in good spirits the day they died and both were making plans for family events and winter trips together.
Police also sought information on two airline loyalty programs, cellphone records and details of bank accounts at three financial institutions, although Pringle has sealed the identities of the account holders in each of these warrants.
Apotex was also served with a warrant, and in the early days of the investigation police complained they were having difficulty getting information out of the often secretive company.
Pringle has sealed much of the information in the more recent warrants and production orders, saying she is concerned that revealing these details would jeopardize the investigation.
One law enforcement official connected to the case said these most recent warrants are “too specific” to be made public — an indication that detectives may be pursuing a theory on the identity of the killer or killers.
The Star is arguing in court to unseal this information.
Immediately following the Greenspan press conference, Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders said he has had to be careful with what he said about the case because he knows “for a fact” that the Shermans’ killers are watching his televised remarks, adding he was perturbed that Greenspan released some information related to the case.
Saunders said he was particularly bothered with some of the specific comments Greenspan made at the press conference about the crime scene. At the press conference, Greenspan described to reporters how Barry Sherman was found seated with one leg crossed over the other “in a passive manner,” with his eyeglasses “undisturbed” and his jacket pulled slightly back — a position the lawyer said refuted the theory of a murder-suicide. These details have already been published in accounts by the Star and other media, say people close to Greenspan’s team. Chaisson’s post-mortem made it clear the Shermans were “were both murdered and that the Toronto Police Service should not have drawn any conclusion which suggested selfinflicted injuries,” Greenspan said at the news conference.
In his response, Saunders said Greenspan was incorrect. “Toronto police service never reached a premature conclusion. This investigation has been done to a very high level of professionalism and high level of expertise,” he said, adding that he believes the case will be solved.
“It’s not over yet.”