Challenges to secrecy of Sherman case delayed
Information related to investigation sealed by two types of court orders
What instructions did the late Barry Sherman leave regarding his multi-billion-dollar fortune and was his wife Honey updating her own will before the couple was killed?
Are the Toronto Police any closer to solving the high-profile Sherman murder case?
Why do police say there is a connection between the Sherman estates and their homicide investigation?
Legal challenges to try to get answers to those and other questions are delayed until at least July, in one case, and the fall in another, due to postponements of most court hearings because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Toronto Star is challenging sealing orders on court files related to the Shermans and cases that would have been heard in March and May will now be heard in July and October. Barry and Honey Sherman were found dead in their Toronto home on Friday, Dec. 15, 2017. Police have said they were “targeted” and killed two days earlier, on Wednesday, Dec. 13, in what appears to be a threehour window between when the couple arrived home separately from a meeting and midnight. How police were able to pinpoint the time of death, given that the Sherman bodies sat undiscovered for almost 36 hours, is just one of the many questions police will not answer.
Toronto Police said this week the Sherman case is “active and ongoing” and workplace restrictions for detectives (who in some cases are working from home) have had no impact on the progress of the investigation. The Star has previously reported that Toronto homicide detectives are in an analysis phase, with most interviews completed well over a year ago.
It has been almost two-and-ahalf years since a real estate agent touring clients and another agent through the Sherman home on Old Colony Road discovered a macabre scene in the basement swimming pool room: Barry and Honey in a seated position, belts around their necks holding them upright. They were clothed, and jackets they were wearing were pulled down off their shoulders. The Shermans died of “ligature strangulation,” police have said. Honey had some damage to her face. Barry’s face was untouched and his glasses were perched neatly on his nose. In a nearby room were two lifesized art figures the Shermans had owned for decades, which family members found creepy. The Shermans were in a similar seated position and like the male art figure, Barry had one leg crossed over another. Police have not answered questions from the Star regarding the art figures, which the Star has been told ( by a Sherman family member) were buried when the house was torn down.
The deaths of Barry, founder of the generic drug giant Apotex, and his wife Honey — both prominent philanthropists — were originally probed as a murder suicide. Six weeks into the investigation, police announced it was a double murder. Private autopsies organized by the Sherman family had earlier determined it was a double murder, with the pathologist noting that it appeared the wrists of both of the Shermans had been bound prior to their deaths. No ties were found at the scene.
During the investigation by police, more than 250 witnesses have been identified and while most have been interviewed, police have told the Star some would not speak to officers and some could not be located. Several witnesses were re-interviewed in 2019 after the individuals discovered additional information and provided it to police.
While many details regarding the Sherman case have been made public in a series of Star stories, a vast amount of information related to the lengthy police investigation and the Sherman estate are sealed by two separate types of court orders.
The first relates to the estates of Barry and Honey Sherman. Six months after their deaths, Sherman family lawyers filed the necessary documents related to the Sherman estate in probate court. A Star reporter went to court to obtain the Sherman estate file (these files are normally public documents) and was told by a clerk that the files were sealed. Justice Sean Dunphy of the Superior Court of Justice had made the sealing order following a request from the Sherman lawyers and without notifying the media.
The Star argued in front of Justice Dunphy that the files should be public. Dunphy ruled against the Star, maintaining his own sealing order. An affidavit from an unnamed person, and provided under seal to the court, said there was a risk of “kidnapping and violence” if the identities of the Sherman beneficiaries and trustees were made public.
The Star appealed to the Ontario Court of Appeal and a three-justice panel ruled the entire file should be public, but gave the Sherman family time to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Canada’s highest court agreed to hear it and the case was scheduled for March 26 in Ottawa. The pandemic has postponed all in-person hearings at the court and the case will now be heard in the fall, sometime after Oct. 5, the Supreme Court said this week.
The sealed estate files are believed to contain Barry’s will, information on how some of his assets were to be distributed, and possibly information relating to Honey’s wishes. The Star has previously reported that according to three people who have seen Barry’s will, the estate is divided between Sherman children Lauren, Jonathon, Alexandra and Kaelen, but that there is a provision for Honey to be financially looked after and a provision for money to be provided to some other family members at the discretion of the estate trustees. As to whether Honey had a will, none was apparently found but a confidant of Honey’s told the Star that three weeks before the murders Honey stated that she was “updating” her will.
The other type of court file the Star is seeking to have unsealed relates to the police investigation. In support of search warrants and production orders in the Sherman case, homicide detectives have filed more than 600 pages of documents in court. This is known as an ITO — or “information to obtain” — a judicial order to search a premises or obtain banking or other data. The documents in these ITOs include synopses of police interviews and typically provide a detailed account of what police have learned each step of the way, including whether they have a suspect or suspects. The point of the ITO is to convince a judge that the police have enough information to violate a person’s privacy and access their records or to search a property.
The Star has gone to Ontario Court of Justice roughly every six months, asking Justice Leslie Pringle (who has sealed all of the search warrant documents) to either release the full file or selected portions of the file. While Pringle (the last time the Star was in court on this matter was October 2019) has maintained her sealing orders, saying that to release the records would harm the ongoing investigation, she has allowed a Star reporter to cross-examine one of the lead homicide officers, Det.-Const. Dennis Yim.
Through that process, information has been made public. The Star was next scheduled in court on this matter on Monday. That date was recently postponed to July 13, when a new date for the next hearing will be scheduled.
In previous hearings, Yim has provided some information, including: That the Toronto Police intelligence squad conducted a major review of “electronic” data seized by police and their detailed report was a major step forward in the case last year; that more than 2,000 hours of surveillance camera footage has been seized and reviewed; that he is “cautiously optimistic” the case is moving toward a resolution; and that all companies (cellphone, internet providers, etc.) asked to produce records for the Sherman case have been ordered by the court not to reveal to anyone that they provided information.
Yim, who said he was speaking “in general terms,” explained during cross examination that if there is “only one perpetrator and that perpetrator knows that he is the only one ... if I answer that we have a person of interest or a suspect then that may alert the perpetrator that the police are onto him.”
Yim also revealed last October that there is a connection between the Sherman estate files and the homicide investigation.
“The information from the (Sherman) estate files is embedded … it is embedded within the ITO,” Yim told the Ontario Court of Justice hearing.
What that connection is Yim would not say.
The Star has over the past few weeks asked Toronto Police to provide updates on the Sherman investigation. Speaking for Homicide Insp. Hank Idzinga, spokesperson Meaghan Gray said police would not be providing an update, even to answer questions from the Star as to whether any more warrants or production orders had been granted by Justice Pringle, or whether police were closing in on a suspect.
“Thank you for the opportunity to respond. Unfortunately, we will not provide an update on the numbers you have requested. I can say the investigation continues to be active and ongoing,” Gray said.
Legal challenges are delayed until at least July, in one case, and the fall in another, due to court hearing postponements because of COVID-19