Billions of questions
Money woes amid couple ‘slay-suicide’ probe
The Canadian billionaire couple whose brutal deaths are being investigated as a possible murder-suicide were enmeshed in dozens of lawsuits and a government investigation, and seemed to be under financial pressure.
Before their real-estate agent discovered their bodies hanging from their indoor pool’s railings on Dec. 15, Barry and Honey Sherman had just listed their sprawl- ily home for sale in Toronto.
Work was stalled on the construction of another home for which they had just obtained demolition and building permits last month, public records show.
The Shermans were estimated to be worth nearly $4 billion and were well known across Canada for their donations. In some years, they’d given millions to hospitals, old-age homes and schools.
But they had only given $66,000 in 22016, according to filingsings fromfrom CaCanada’s tax authority. The year before,bef their foundation gave out no mmoney.
The ShermSherman Family Foundationtion ended lalast year with just underder $1 milliomillion in its coffers, records show. BarBarry, founder of Canadian pharmaceutical giant Apotex, had retired from the day-to-day running of the company five years ago, according to a company spokesman. His largest donations, inccluding a one-time $39 million gift to United Jewish Appeal in 2009 to begin the construction on a community center known as the Sherman Campus, had been made in the couple’s name through his company’s charity.
Although he had stepped down from Apotex, Barry was still involved in fighting dozens of lawsuits, including one from his cousins who are demanding a slice of the billion-dollar company.
And days before he died, the Shermans’ attorneys filed documents in Canadian federal court in an attempt to quash a government investigation into a possible violation of lobbying rules in connection with a $1,100-a-plate fund-raising dinner the Shermans held at their home for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2015.
Toronto police have said little about what they called the “suspicious deaths” of Barry, 75, and Honey, 70. Autopsies indicated that the couple died from “ligature neck compression.” Police sources had speculated to Canadian media last week that they could be dealing with a murdersuicide and that Honey’s body may have been moved after her death — an assertion the Sherman family vigorously denied.
Family members said the couple had planned to spend the holidays at their oceanfront Miami condo.
Police sources told The Toronto Sun last week that investigators found the couple side by side in their basement pool room. Each of them had a men’s leather belt wrapped around their necks and were attached to the pool railings. The newspaper said that they each had on jackets that were pulled “behind their backs and rolled down over their arms.”
The Shermans’ four children said they would hire their own investigators to determine how their parents died.
“We’ve had to navigate through a terrifying maze of non-information and unfounded speculation all while trying to support each other emotionally,” said Jonathan Sherman, the couple’s 34year-old son, at their funeral in Toronto last Thursday.
The couple’s funeral drew more than 10,000 mourners, including Trudeau, the mayor of Toronto and the city’s philanthropic elite.