Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Barry and Honey Sherman

Episode Date: March 30, 2020

In December 2017, a realtor touring the mansion of billionaires Barry and Honey Sherman made a gruesome discovery: the bodies of 75-year-old Barry and 70-year-old Honey semi-seated and hanging from the railing around their pool deck. Police believe the deaths were targeted, and many feel the motive was money. Who killed Barry and Honey Sherman? And why? For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit  https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-barry-honey-sherman/ 

Hi crime junkies, and happy Monday. I'm your host Ashley flowers, and I'm Brit I'm here to tell you a pretty recent story one out of Toronto, Canada, which by the way Brit We're like making our Canada debut this summer. We're actually doing a live show in Toronto for anyone who hasn't paid attention You can see everything on our events page if you're not listening to this two years from now but the story that I have has a little bit of everything from mystery and intrigue to murder and money a lot of money This is the story of Barry and honey Sherman It's 10 o'clock in the morning on a snowy December day and Elise Stern is just pulling up in front of 50 old

Colony Road in North York, Ontario She's working with another realtor to sell the six-bedroom nine bathroom mansion belonging to pharmaceutical industry Billionaire Barry Sherman and his wife of 47 years, honey Now they'd been showing the house, but so far no real like solid bites Elise had tried to reach the Shermans this morning because she had a potential buyer that she wanted to bring by But they weren't answering their phones now She knows Barry and honey are down to sell so she just kind of goes ahead with the showing anyways and hopes for the best Now when Elise arrives

There are two people already in the house a housekeeper who comes weekly on a set schedule and a woman who comes like a couple of Times a week to take care of their plants the homeowners cars are outside But it turns out that they aren't home and it's a little strange But actually kind of works out perfectly since she's showing the home So the prospective buyers and their agent arrive and Elise begins the tour They start upstairs with the spacious master the spiral staircase the jacuzzi tubs then they head to the main level She shows them the large kitchen the dining room more bathrooms And then they head to the lower level which is much bigger than even the upper levels

And Elise leads them down a hallway pointing out the garage in the sauna This house is bananas by the way like I remember touring my like 1600 foot home and thinking it was massive and this feels like crazy Yeah, this seems like excessive. Yeah So they get to the end of the hall where the Shermans had an indoor lap pool that she knows these potential buyers are eager to see It's one of the biggest selling features of this house, but when she opens the door to the pool room She sees something she could never have prepared herself for two people fully dressed Backs to the pool Held up in a seated position by something tied around their necks

Now she's got the other realtor and these clients right behind her So even though she doesn't know exactly what it is that she's looking at she knows it isn't right So she quickly reverses out of the pool room telling the buyers that this area is kind of off limits at the moment And they'll have a chance to take a closer look another time if they're serious about purchasing the property So she walks the other realtor and his client up the stairs and ushers them out of the door as quickly as she can while still trying to be Professional all the while Elise's mind is racing She only caught a glance in that pool room and it's like her brain is turning in circles trying to figure out what it was that she saw So she sends the cleaning lady downstairs to the pool room for a second look

When the housekeeper returns a minute later She is white as a ghost and tells Elise to call the police But Elise doesn't call the police what I know So instead Elise's first call is to honey's sister Mary the sister who helped the shermons with their real estate transactions So someone Elise would know pretty well Mary isn't even nearby. She's actually in florida So it's not like she's gonna pop in and help with anything

I'm not totally sure why she called her other than maybe just not knowing what to do But either way, it's another hour and a half before Elise finally calls 911 Why did she wait so long? It's hard to know for sure in the book the billionaire murders by kevin donovan He says that after mary gets that phone call from Elise she meaning mary Calls berry and honey's four children which are lauren jonathan alex and kailyn So it's possible that Elise was waiting for them to be notified before she did anything else Like given berry and honey's position in the community as literally billionaire business owners and philanthropists

I'm sure Elise and mary had the sense that once police arrived the media probably wouldn't be too far behind Okay, I guess I can see that like they're pillars of the community It's not really news you don't want to hear about your parents like on twitter or something Right. I mean you'd want to hear that from a loved one. So just before noon on december 13th 2017 Elise finally makes that call to police who immediately respond with officers along with firefighters and paramedics What they find in the sherman home is unlike anything they've seen before First of all, both berry and honey sherman are deceased and likely had been for some time based on the condition of the bodies The heat and the humidity in that pool room made it difficult to figure out exactly when the two might have died based on

Just like a first look, but investigators knew that it wasn't that morning But it's how their bodies were found. That's the part that shocked even the most seasoned first responders berry sherman was seated legs stretched out in front of him his right leg crossed neatly over his left and His jacket was pulled down a bit from his shoulders kind of like you Would like shrug it off and shimmied it down and this basically helped hold his arms at his side And his glasses were still perched neatly on his nose the way that they always were there wasn't a hair out of place Now honey was next to him in a similar position seated upright

Legs stretched out in front of her and her coat was also pulled down around her shoulders Now that's creepy enough But the even creepier part was that the setup of these bodies bore a striking resemblance to a sculpture That the sherman's had in the tv room right across from the pool So bret you heard the description of what the bodies were positioned like i'm going to send you this picture Oh my gosh, these statues are like exactly how you described berry and honey's bodies It's weird and they're not even like full mannequins. They're like made of different colors They almost look like a muscular statue. You know what I mean? Like all the skin were off

Like it's some sort of like anatomical figure is what it looks like So both berry and honey were seated with their backs to the pool but upright Now you might be wondering how they were sitting upright and not slumped over or laying down Well, berry and honey each had a leather belt looped around their necks Tied above them to this like low railing that went around the outside of the pool And it was the belts that held their bodies in place Now the only sign of any kind of struggle are injuries to honey's face What exactly those injuries are and what caused them are still a little bit of a mystery because police have never released

Details about her injuries It's obvious to everyone on the scene that something suspicious has gone on here and police waste no time calling in the medical Examiner and the forensic crime scene team to begin an investigation It's just before 4 p.m. At this point just a few hours from the police call when the first media story goes public Saying that two bodies had been found in the Sherman home Within a few minutes a friend and colleague of the Sherman's who was an elected official in fact Tweeted that berry and honey had been found dead and just like that everything changed Reporters descended on the Sherman home cameras roll as the medical examiner takes the bodies away from the scene for autopsy

One of the detectives comes out to say that they're treating the deaths as suspicious And so there's this buzz around that they're dealing with a double murder a homicide Now remember at this point the media have no idea how berry and honey died or how their bodies were found I mean they could have very well been accidental deaths for all they know But finally one of the detectives on the case comes out to speak to the media now there isn't much he can say He tells them the circumstances of the Sherman's deaths seems suspicious and that they're treating the investigation As though they are suspicious He tells reporters that the forensic team is going through the scene now and asked anyone with information to call Toronto police

And he says listen, we'll have more for you later Now true to their word not long after a second detective comes out of the Sherman home and stands in front of the growing number of reporters gathered waiting for news and he again tells them that the deaths are suspicious And that the investigation is ongoing But he also says that so far They found no sign of forced entry and that they aren't looking for any suspects Okay, what does that mean? So that's pretty much what the reporters are thinking too. They're like What do you mean? You aren't looking for any suspects, but the detectives won't say any more than that

No forced entry no suspects now obviously reporters start peppering this guy with questions When did they die? When were they last seen alive? The house is listed for sale Are you looking at people who maybe went through the house for reviewing the detective answered? None of these questions except to repeat what he already told them There were no signs of forced entry and they are not seeking any suspects And that's all he would say And it's not until the next morning's headline news that the public finally hear something That puts everything into context and finally makes the detective's comments make sense

The morning after Barry and honey Sherman were found dead the media reported based on inside information from police sources That police suspected a murder suicide So now the investigators comments about no forced entry and not seeking any suspects start to make sense But it didn't make sense to the Sherman family Not to their closest friends not to the people they worked with and it didn't make sense to anyone who knew the Sherman's even in passing Sure, there was no forced entry But everyone knew that honey always left the side door unlocked and besides that the shermans were warm and welcoming people They would have opened the door for anyone who knocked the Sherman family considered the no forced entry to be a red herring

It proved nothing except that Barry and honey were friendly and trusting people And the Sherman family was more adamant than ever. This was not a murder suicide So they did what anyone with billions of dollars or a mildly popular podcast would do in the wake of what they saw as an incompetent police Work they started their own Investigation and not just like armchair detective stuff No, they hired their own team of investigators led by prominent Canadian defense attorney Brian Greenspan and they started to fight back That buried day one day after the discovery of Barry and honey's bodies

The sherman family issued a statement to media saying the murder suicide rumors were Irresponsible and urging Toronto police to quote Conduct a thorough intensive and objective criminal investigation and quote So basically just do your jobs pretty much Then they made an important phone call They called the Ontario coroner's office and asked that they hold the bodies of Barry and honey sherman so that they can do their own Autopsies can they even do that apparently because the private investigation team was given access to the bodies to perform a second set of Autopsies but not before the forensic pathologist did the first one the official one

Those postmortems happened on the day after the bodies were discovered An autopsy can be an important source of information early on in a case It can uncover evidence or information that can help investigators as they work a case things like DNA under someone's fingernails or drugs in their system or whatever injury happened before or after death these details are important But the forensic pathologist work is ultimately focused on answering two key questions Who is this person and how did they die? The second question How did they die is broken into two components really we have cause of death and manner of death

And if you're wondering what the heck the difference between them is i was too so Don't worry because i asked brit to kind of like give us the lowdown Okay, so cause of death refers to like the disease or injury that like led to the person's death so Like complications from a chronic illness or a gunshot wound or a drug overdose stuff like that But the manner of death refers to like how someone died So it kind of falls into four main categories. So there's natural death accidental death Homicide or suicide and there is a fifth option, which i'm sure most crime junkies know about because it's super frustrating It's undetermined that's used when there's really not enough information to define the manner of death into the four main categories

I can't believe we've made it like 200 episodes and i'm just now getting this explained to everyone So please don't fire me but all in all manner of death is what the sherman family is most interested in at this point They were sure that this was not a murder suicide and they wanted to prove it But in those early days of the investigation police were still considering two other possibilities in the deaths It could have been a double homicide or it could have been a double suicide They hoped the autopsies would help them narrow this down to one working theory And here's what the autopsies on berry and honey Sherman told police First berry's hyoid bone was intact. And again, this is that little bone in your neck that we've talked about on the show before

The hyoid bone can break when someone is violently strangled But tends to remain intact for those who die by suicide But the hyoid doesn't always break when someone is strangled So while berry Sherman's intact hyoid bone doesn't disprove the police's theory of death by suicide It isn't a slam dunk by any means So that's the first thing the second thing that is obvious to everyone in the room for the autopsy is that berry Well, so he wasn't in great shape even by 75 year old standards According to the account of the autopsy in kevindonovan's book the forensic pathologist found very little muscle tone and low bone density

Assure sign of a sedentary life So this kind of detail might not always be important But it's interesting here because the police's murder suicide theory relied on berry knocking honey out in another part of the house And then dragging her body to the pool room to pose it in that really specific way that we talked about And based on what they saw on the autopsy table. They wondered Was this even possible? Now the third finding from the autopsy that I want to tell you about is the most interesting of all to me There were abrasions on berry sherman's wrists. They had been tied together likely with something like zip ties

So you have to wonder does a suicidal man zip tie his own wrists before he kills himself? and if so Where were the ties or the ropes or whatever he used like there was nothing else around him and nothing else like that at the scene Honey's autopsy was done right after and had a lot of the same findings the intact hyoid marks on her wrists Honey was much more active than her husband She worked out with a trainer every week and golfed as much as she could and unlike her husband her body showed significant muscle tone and they were roughly the same weight making it even less likely that berry could have Overpowered her now. I mentioned before that honey had an injury to her face

The pathologist looked at this closely too. He couldn't tell exactly what caused it Like she may have been hit with something or the injury might have just happened through the course of moving and staging her body But he did confirm that it happened either immediately before Or sometime after her death and they would be able to determine that by like maybe lack of blood flow if it happened After she died, right? That's what I'm thinking if they're saying immediately before or sometime after it had to have meant that whatever Happened her blood stopped pumping right around that time Probably just because of the way the bruising looked they could determine that At the end of both autopsies the forensic pathologist was able to determine that the cause of death for both berry and honey

Was ligature neck compression or strangulation? Further investigation would be needed to figure out like what exactly the ligature was But the thought was probably the belts found at the scene What the forensic pathologist wasn't able to determine at least not yet was manner of death Again, we're talking murder suicide Double suicide or double homicide Okay, but to me it seems like the evidence is pointing to a double homicide, right? Like all of this the strangulation death the staging of the bodies

It seems really elaborate for a murder suicide like I don't know a ton about them But from what I've read like They're usually not this staged and performative so even if the autopsy can't determine the manner of death Like to a point there's got to be something in those reports that's pointing the police away from murder suicide So surprisingly They don't get pointed away from that and mostly I think that's because the manner of death is still undetermined But four days after the official autopsies the Sherman's own privately hired pathologist performs that second set of autopsies Now when the Ontario pathologist did the first ones he was joined by the investigators working on the case

This is a pretty common practice. So when the privately hired pathologist begins his work There's really no difference according to the Toronto Star There were three private investigators in the room all former Toronto homicide detectives all hired by Brian Greenspan on behalf Of the Sherman children also in the room for the second set of autopsies was the forensic pathologist who did the first ones He was there to basically answer any questions and also brought with him like the photos from that first one And also brought with him photos of the crime scene and of the bodies taken before and during autopsy Just like in the original autopsy the private pathologist also noted the marks on Barry and honey's wrist He also examined the ligature marks on their necks and agreed with the original cause of death ligature neck compression

But he went a step further because based on what he saw he didn't think Barry and honey Were strangled with the belts that had been holding them upright all that day He wasn't able to say exactly what had been used but just that it wasn't the belts And when the guy talked people Listened he's not just some rando that they pulled off the street This pathologist was a former ontario chief forensic pathologist and during the time of the autopsies Was a senior forensic pathologist at Toronto's children hospital. Oh, so not his first rodeo at all No, I mean this guy knows what he is doing

I read an article in the globe and mail from 2007 10 years before this guy was called to work on the Sherman case And at the time he had done 3000 Autopsies so yeah, not his first rodeo for sure And after looking at the bodies and at the crime scene photos and talking to the doctor who did the first autopsy He had no trouble ruling on manner of death His autopsy was conclusive This was a double homicide

The private pathologist finding that barry and honey Sherman had been victims of a double homicide Was no surprise at all to their family and friends Now, of course the findings of a private autopsy were not released to the public So when barry and honey were finally laid to rest at a funeral service attended by more than 6000 people The prevailing notion in the community was that barry had killed his wife and then hung himself So you said the official government forensic pathologist was there for the second autopsy Do you know if he or like anyone shared the findings with the police like especially with the conclusion Of double homicide not murder suicide

So I couldn't get a crystal clear answer on that What I did find out was that the sherman's private investigation team offered to meet with police detectives to go over the findings from the Autopsies and talk about potential leads and theories But as far as I can tell police didn't take them up on their offer And in fact police kept pursuing the murder suicide theory Seeking no suspects for another month until January 26th 2018

That's when toronto police finally call a press conference and tell an eagerly awaiting public That based on their investigation so far, which included the work of ontario forensic pathologists They now consider barry and honey's deaths a double homicide Not only had police let the first 48 go by without chasing any leads. This is now 42 days since the discovery of the sherman's bodies police Are facing an uphill battle at this point and they again appeal to the public for any clues This isn't the first time and it definitely wasn't going to be the last After this announcement the sherman family along with their many friends and supporters feel

Vindicated for a minute at least because now that everyone knew it was a double murder the question on their minds shifted If it wasn't barry who killed the sherman's and why It might have taken six weeks, but police finally started looking for suspects So far they've done extensive searches at the sherman's house including on the roof and in the toronto sewer system around their home They did countless witness interviews reviewed hours and hours of security footage including from neighbors who live near the shermans But they were no closer to a suspect All they could say for certain was that barry and honey had been targeted Targeted like this was a professional hit. I mean that's where my mind goes immediately like to a professional hit

But I don't think that's what they meant in this case. They just meant that It wasn't a random act like this wasn't a robbery gone wrong Right, and I guess anybody hired to murder someone wouldn't necessarily pose the bodies like that Yeah, I agree like the staged death scene definitely feels like this was personal Yeah, but not only that I mean the cause of death you're talking strangulation or ligature net compression as a pathologist is calling it Like that's really personal too death by strangulation isn't quick. It can take up to eight Minutes, I mean you compare that to to a shooting death, which is over in a matter of seconds. This was definitely personal

But there was no evidence at the scene to help guide them to the killer Everyone they spoke to said that barry was a kind man with a heart of gold That honey was a friend of everyone believed strongly in giving back to the community In all the interviews police did they heard nothing but positive things from everyone well Almost everyone so I mentioned the shermons were billionaires barry invested Millions in the business ventures of friends and family. He bought houses properties cars for his children and their families Together barry and honey had donated millions to charity and urged their peers

Which were like the wealthiest people in canada to do the same thing Barry had made his fortune in the competitive and often cutthroat pharmaceutical industry And he kept his fortune by being really good at navigating the court system This is where he made A few or maybe more than a few enemies over the few years like let me give you an example So the house barry sherman and honey sherman lived in where their bodies were found was Design and built for them in the 1980s at the time the cost to build the house was about 2.3 million But barry ended up recouping almost all of that

He almost got like 2 million of it back in court by suing the contractor for poor building practices Oh my god. Well, and that's just one example. There are so many like that over barry's lifetime He was not afraid of a courtroom and in fact it seemed like he kind of enjoyed the whole process In the years just before he died He was involved in one of the biggest legal actions of his lifetime According to an article by christine dobby in the financial post barry got his start in the pharmaceutical industry When his uncle lou winter died and barry then studying for a phd and astrophysics from MIT Made an offer to buy his company empire labs from the estate

So lou and his wife beaverly and actually beaverly tragically died just a few weeks after her husband Left behind four young boys It was those boys who decades later sued their cousin barry for a billion Dollars or a stake in his company, which was called apotex. They argued that without empire labs. There would be no apotex According to an article in mclean's magazine, the trustees wanted protections built into the sale for the four winters brothers So this gets a little like legally complicated But barry ended up allowing for those protections Sort of the agreement was that the winters boys could work for empire when they turned 21

And that at 23 they could buy up to five percent of the company as long as barry still owned the business Now the whole agreement is void if barry were to sell the business which of course he did So carrey winter and his brothers argued that they had a right to at least a portion of the proceeds of their late father's company And that five percent of empire was basically five percent of apotex Three months before barry and honey were found dead a judge sided with barry and tossed the case out of court And on december 6th, just a week before the shermans were last seen alive Another judge ordered the winter brothers to repay Three hundred thousand dollars in legal fees to their billionaire cousin ouch

Oh, yeah, and barry had even planned to appeal that ruling He wanted to recover closer to a million dollars in court costs from his cousin So, I mean it doesn't take an investigative genius to think Maybe that left the winter brothers with like a score to settle And maybe that's why carrey winter the brother at the helm of this legal action against barry told the daily mail That regardless of what police said he knew that barry killed his wife and then took his own life Because he said that barry had talked about killing honey before

Carrey says that barry had actually asked him not once but twice in the 1990s to help him kill His wife wait, what yeah, that's what everyone following the news said too, especially the sherman family But carrey insisted barry had hired him to organize honey's death which He says he did by the way, but barry ended up getting cold feet at the last minute And they called off the whole thing like I don't know why he's telling anyone this out loud It seems absurd to me But he said like he was willing to go through with it and barry's the one that ended up just like pulling the plug Now there's this episode of cbc's the fifth estate called the mystery of the sherman murders

And in it the host actually interviews carrey winter about his relationship with barry and about those murder for higher allegations Said to have taken place in the 90s Now he tells the fifth estate the same story He told the daily mail that barry had asked him not once but twice to help him kill honey Except the fifth estate brought in a polygraph expert and carrey wintered agreed to answer the polygraphers questions And do you want to know what the outcome was? He had to have failed bingo Anytime carrey was asked questions related to the murder for higher story He'd been telling the polygraph expert saw huge spikes which told them that he was probably lying

When they confronted him with the results He said maybe he was Misremembering some of the facts and he was pretty upfront about the fact that he has a long history of drug use and addiction And he said that this might have been why he was getting the details wrong But just because this looks like it might be one dead end It doesn't mean that the case is dead because carrey winter is just one of the people police think may have had motive enough to kill barry and honey They were reasonably certain that whoever killed them had reasons that were both personal

And financial and the other person that they were interested in was much closer to home Besides carrey winter, there is one other person with whom barry had sometimes tense relationship with and this was his son jonathan Barry had always been generous with his children jonathan along with his business partner had started several businesses over the years I mean, they had like the green storage company a real estate development Operation that bought built and sold vacation homes around the lakes in ontario and even an investment company There's no way to know for sure how much his father had provided to jonathan in capital But it wouldn't be outlandish to consider that it was in the hundreds of millions of dollars

But jonathan was very much aware that his parents were aging That his father at 75 years old should be thinking about his retirement rather than working long hours and making big plans Which is what he was doing and what he'd always done It was known among the family and close friends that barry's will said this basically when he died His fortune went to honey when honey died. It would be shared evenly between their four kids I couldn't get a good sense of how involved honey was with the investments and gifts barry made to their children Like the loans and capital that he was giving to jonathan to get his companies off the ground But she knew enough to tell barry that she didn't agree with how much he was shelling out

And how often and I don't get the sense from my research that it was a source of major tension between them Just that honey felt they were educated kids who should be able to make their own way in the world And she wanted them to have that independence in his book the billionaire murders kevin donovan shares text of emails back and forth Between barry and jonathan from 2015 two years before barry and honey's deaths Now in these emails jonathan was frustrated in particular about investments His father was making to his friend frank de angelo who had multiple business ventures over the years and again We're talking not like a couple thousand dollars talking hundreds of millions of dollars of investments And frank and barry were great friends, but it seemed like frank's business sense was

Pretty questionable like nothing was really panning out barry lost a lot of money to frank's investments And it started to frustrate jonathan And more than this jonathan wanted his father to start really thinking about a succession plan Who would take over apotex once barry retired? According to his close friends and business associates barry had no plans to step down anytime soon In fact kind of the opposite He had aggressive plans to grow the company even further before he finally settled into his easy chair So anytime jonathan brought it up barry was just kind of dismissive of the whole idea and at one point in the years before barry

And honey's deaths jonathan's frustration led him to reach out to his three sisters To tell them that he worried their father was jeopardizing their inheritance by pouring investments into frank's ventures his other friend Now he even went so far as to say they should consider removing their father It's founder from his position as chairman of the company and of course it didn't take long for that email to get back to barry Who basically just like rolled his eyes laughed it off saying? Oh like there goes jonathan again trying to stage a coup and so although jonathan was super frustrated I mean this was Kind of the norm a fight like this between jonathan and barry would lead to a period of not speaking

but then it would eventually blow over but Now and you know looking at this in hindsight We have to wonder was this frustration and worry about his future inheritance enough to make jonathan kill his parents I mean We do this every week. We know that anything's possible But I don't know what I think about either of these theories like if we go back to the carry winter theory if motive Was revenge I don't know that honey would have been a target

Kerry actually said in his interview for the fifth estate that he fantasized about killing barry again He was way more open than he probably should have been but he said he fantasized about slicing his throat In the apotex parking lot and honey was never a part of this at all for him And he said he didn't like her much, but that she wasn't the target of his frustration and his anger It was all barry right, but I mean on the other hand if we're talking about jonathan in order for jonathan and his sisters to claim their share of the sherman fortune Both of their parents had to be gone Otherwise barry's money went to honey and honey as we know was not so free flowing with the cash

But there is another theory in the case one that has nothing to do with family or friends Barry and honey's neighborhood in north york had been the target of a bunch of break-ins in the year leading up to their deaths And by bunch. I mean more than a hundred and fifty During that time perpetrators would break into the home and then leave with millions of dollars worth of jewelry and other valuables In fact, according to joe warmington writer for the toronto son Barry and honey had in fact been victims themselves of these robberies or burglaries depending on whether or not someone was home Someone had broken in through their skylight on the roof of their home and lowered themselves in an attempt to steal honey's jewelry Now I wasn't able to find any information

About this specific thing like whether the perpetrators were caught or if they made away with anything But that prior break-in was likely why police were poking around on the roof of their house right after the murders Now none of the robberies in the neighborhood had ever ended in violence But it doesn't mean that they never could right like crimes escalate. So the question is Were barry and honey killed in a robbery gone sideways? It's interesting to me that you said the crime scene itself had almost no physical evidence Because to me like that seems like it was done by someone who is good or maybe Practiced at being a criminal rather than someone who killed them in like a moment of rage

Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting point the police have never entirely spelled out what they mean when they say that they believe the Shermans were targeted I mean, I took that to mean that the murders were personal But maybe their definition of targeted is broader than that. Maybe they consider a well known home in a high-end neighborhood A place that has been robbed before maybe like that's targeted too and almost just on purpose Yeah, and I also want to mention one other thing Apparently the neighbor's security system caught some weird activity at the Sherman house on the day Before their bodies were discovered

According to the Toronto star a man parked a four-door sedan in front of the Sherman's house And walked in and then walked out three different times between nine and 10 15 a.m He leaves his car walks in stays a bit and then gets back into his car for a while Then back into the house and so on three different times Now police believe that Barry and honey were probably murdered on Wednesday night And if that's true then their bodies were in that house in their pool room the whole time Now also remember the Sherman house was for sale and there was a lockbox on the door So maybe this guy was a realtor and had a legit reason for being there

Like police won't say much and all they'll say is that they're reviewing the footage So the truth is we still don't know what happened to Barry and honey Sherman At one point the private investigation team offered a 10 million dollar reward for information leading to an arrest 10 million Dollars but even with that up for grabs. There's been nothing And speaking of the private investigation team, they announced late last year. This is December of 2019 That they were wrapping up their work They handed all of their files and leads and hundreds and theories over to the Toronto police And the lead investigator on the case has said that the Sherman case is still very much an active one

Now other investigators on the case have said that they have a working theory of what happened But it's been well over two years and there have been no arrests No suspects not even an official person of interest And now you might be thinking the best way to solve a case like this would be to follow the money But even that's impossible to do at least for those of us outside the Toronto police homicide team because the Sherman's estate files are sealed The Toronto stars Kevin Donovan who actually is the one that wrote the same book that I mentioned earlier on this case Continues to follow this story closely and report on it for the star And he wrote that Barry's will was last updated in 2013 and it left everything to his four children

But he also says that Barry was having conversations in recent years about transferring large chunks of cash to others Hundreds of millions to honey to have in her own name Hundreds of millions maybe even the majority of his fortune was going to go to charity What if anything Barry Sherman's will would tell us about his murder? We don't know but police continue to work the case and ask for the public's support That unprecedented 10 million dollar reward for information is still available And tips can be made anonymously through crime stoppers at 416 222 tips

If you want to see any pictures from this case, especially the one of the creepy statues that they were facing You can find that and all of our source material on our website crimejunkiepodcast.com And be sure to follow us on instagram at crimejunkiepodcast and we'll be back next week with a brand new episode Crimejunkie is an audio chuck production. So what do you think chuck do you approve?