Julia Cowley is a retired FBI agent and profiler. She spent 22 years in the FBI investigating violent crime, including serial killings and sex offenses, white-collar crime, public corruption and civil rights. Before joining the FBI, she was a Special Agent/Forensic Scientist with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and a Master’s degree in Forensic Science.
She agreed to speak to me about the Barry and Honey Sherman case, but emphasized throughout our talk that, without seeing the actual evidence, she could only speculate and offer generalized observations.
The conversation that follows has been edited for brevity and concision.
AB: I wanted to start with the crime scene itself, the bodies found by the pool, suspended by belts. It's pretty clear when you read the police affidavits that the investigators favoured murder-suicide at first. A lot of people think that’s just the most ridiculous thing they've ever heard, to come across the scene that the police came across and think it was murder suicide. Do you think it was reasonable to have murder suicide on the list of possible scenarios?
JC: I think it's reasonable. I haven't seen the photographs and everything I say is heavily caveated. Even the drawing that you sent me is a rendering that could be accurate or not, but I can absolutely understand why double suicide or murder-suicide would be a possibility. People can sit and hang themselves. People will do it on doorknobs. Prisoners will do it in, in jail, and they'll hang from bedsheets and they'll hang from their bunks. I can see why you wouldn't necessarily think, Oh, this is a staged scene.
I've been called to crime scenes where first responders don't know if it's a homicide or suicide. And on a few occasions, we've said, Okay, this is likely a suicide, and, we still process the scene the same way, as if it were a homicide. In my role as a crime scene investigator and forensic scientist, every scene we were called to, we treated it as if it were a homicide scene, because typically, we would not be called to a scene, if there wasn't some question.
What stood out to you about this crime scene based on what we know about it?
It's an odd location. Certainly, that would be something that would be of note. I did read somewhere that Mr. Sherman's papers were scattered, which is something that stood out to me. Some of these details that I've read about would make me question, Okay, what happened here?
The theory is that Barry parked his car in the garage, opened the door to the basement hallway and was attacked there. Apparently, Honey entered on the main floor because her cell phone was found on the floor there. So the supposition is that she was actually attacked upstairs. She didn't park in the garage. She had arthritis and stairs were difficult for her. She arrived home first, maybe half an hour to an hour before Barry. One of the things that really puzzles me was why the pool, did it have some kind of symbolic importance? And was Honey brought to the pool before Barry arrived? Or did they bring Honey to the pool because that's near where Barry was attacked and, for some reason, the killer wanted them to be together?
It's possible it's because it’s just easier to move someone downstairs than it is to move a body upstairs. So maybe it's just convenient. Barry's coming in on that floor, he's heavier, he's more difficult to move. And then that happens to be where the railing is to hang them from. Maybe to the murderer or the offender, this just seemed like a good location.
Is it possible that by putting them by the pool the killer wanted to make a statement? Perhaps that your wealth can't protect you, with an indoor swimming pool being the ultimate symbol of wealth? Or, as with honour killings, where people are often hung to show others they got what they deserved, so don't try this yourself. Does any of that have any resonance for you?
Not really, just because that seems less plausible than choosing the location, either out of convenience, or out of protecting those who might find [the bodies]. I don't think there's anything more to that location other than it was convenient. Or it was the least likely place that they would have been found, maybe by family members that they cared about. I don't know that I see too much symbolism, but you can never get into the mind of a killer.
So you do think someone's trying to stage a murder suicide or a double suicide?
Yes, I think it appears that way. I'm always very skeptical unless I've seen things myself and read the reports myself, but if, in fact, there were bindings and markings of bindings around both victims’ wrists and there is an additional ligature mark on their necks that is not of the same pattern as the belts, like a thinner type of cord of some sort, if that's the case, the murderer has gone to great lengths to make this look like potentially a double suicide or murder suicide.
What about the scattered papers then?
It could just be that they messed up and they forgot, or they were trying to get out and they didn't think of everything. They didn't expect to have papers and then just forgot to go back. You never know what could have been going through their minds. No matter what, the murderer would have been under a great deal of stress.
Barry was left in what has been interpreted to be a peaceful position by people who've actually seen the crime scene photos. He appeared calm with his glasses on, not in disarray, and his legs crossed at the ankles. Does that suggest anything to you?
That there likely wasn't a struggle. He could be kicking his legs and that's how they ended up crossed. I do find it interesting that [Honey] maybe had some injuries, suggesting more of a struggle than Barry. But that could be that she saw it coming and he didn't, and he didn't have a chance to fight back.
The Shermans were hung up by two belts Honey had recently purchased on sale for $9.99 each at Canadian Tire. A witness said that Barry wore one that day and the other one of the belts was on a bench in the Shermans’ bedroom suite. So whoever did this, the killer, would have had to go upstairs to retrieve this second belt, which strikes me as a pretty audacious thing to do. Does that stand out to you?
Maybe they thought, because I'm a planner and I'm planning ahead and I want to make it look like [the Shermans] did this, I'm going to use something from within the home. And that would tell me that they were aware of these particular belts. I mean, if you're going to go up to the bedroom and get one belt, why not just go into the closet and get another belt? You don't know what he's wearing? It seems kind of strange to take a belt off the victim and hang him with it. It seems like the belts are known to the person who did this.
It does appear that the suspect walked to the Shermans’ home to avoid having a vehicle that could be traced. What does that indicate to you?
That would indicate to me that it was pre-planned and that the intention wasn't to try to talk to them, or reason with them. Because why wouldn't you drive if you thought I'm going to just go talk to them? It tells me that there was ill intent for sure. There would be no other reason to walk there and not just drive over there.
For someone to do this, would they have to have a history of violence in your opinion?
No, not necessarily. There would certainly be issues of control. There could be abuse and it doesn't have to be physical abuse, but it can be controlling a lot. I don't necessarily see any gratuitous violence that would lead me to believe the person was violent in their past. But it's hard to say without knowing for sure if there was a strangulation first.
Is it possible to say how long it would take to plan something like this?
I don't know for sure but certainly somebody thought it through. There's definitely pre-planning.
The staging aspect of the crime scene suggests to me that if this killer went and just murdered them outright and the scene was left for what it was – two people who were strangled in their home – that the offender felt like they would be a number one suspect. There was a lot of time spent on the staging aspect … That's somebody familiar with the home. That's somebody comfortable in the home. I see this as somebody extremely close to them one way or another.
A lot of people can't let go of the idea that it was a hitman.
There are indications that this is probably somebody close to them that knew their patterns, that knew the best time to approach the house, how to approach the house, where to go in the house, knowing that there wasn't going to be anybody else there, spending the additional time in the house that it took to move their bodies and stage them.
You cannot rule out their very close family members until you can completely rule them out. However, it sounds to me, in terms of what I've read, that it's been the children that have pushed the narrative that this is not a double, or murder suicide or double suicide. And, so, why would they do that?
Playing five dimensional chess?
Yeah, I don't want to I don't want to give the offender that much credit.
I'm with you on that. However there is this issue of the $35 million dollar reward, which no one has collected and doesn't seem to have led to any significant tips. A lot of people say, Oh, well, you see, it has to be the people offering the reward since they know it will never be collected.
Rewards typically don't work. That's what we’ve found. They help keep the case alive in the news. But it's usually people that perhaps just see the coverage and know something and they would have come forward, had they seen the coverage of it, with or without the reward.
Another theory that's been bandied about is that this has to be a two-person crime. But there's only one suspect on videotape so do you have any strong feelings about whether this is a two-person or one-person job?
I would say it's most likely just a one person job. Whenever you have a double homicide or multiple victims, there's a lot of speculation that it has to be more than one offender. And statistically that is not true. When you have more than one victim, typically, it is only one offender. And unless there is something very striking or compelling about a scene where it actually had to be two offenders, we always kind of default back to it's most likely one offender.
In this case, I think it's completely possible to be one offender. I don't see anything, from what I know, that would have required it to be two people. It seems like one one person was overpowered first, and then the other person was overpowered next. I think it happened one at a time, so I would say likely one offender plus you have the physical evidence with the cameras that show likely one person. In the crime itself, I don't see anything that makes me think it has to be two offenders.
Is there anything else you want to add?
I guess I just would add, again, without actually being part of the investigation and seeing all the evidence, everything is just speculation. There is enough information to make some general observations.
I think it really does come down to [the Shermans’] victimology. There is somebody that benefited greatly from their deaths. It doesn't necessarily have to be financial … This is a personal cause homicide, which means there's somebody, with a personal issue with them, that caused them to want to kill both of them. And there was probably some benefit to [the killer]. It could be financial, it could be revenge, it could be covering up something else. So, there's a lot of things, and I think you need to do a deep dive into the victimology, which I'm sure that the investigators have done.
The RCMP has a behavioral science unit. They could certainly do a much better job than somebody like me who hasn't actually seen any of the evidence and maybe help shed some light on the crime itself. I'm not sure if [Toronto police] ever brought them in to take a look at the case.
So my final question for you, do you think this case is going to be solved?
I don't know. [This case] is not an easy one. Maybe not in my lifetime. Since I started out in law enforcement, the advances in technology have been incredible. And so I always believe in the science and that all cases are solvable at some point, not only because of the changes in technology and science, but also, because time passes and relationships change. You never know who might come forward with some information.
I first heard Julia Cowley when she was interviewed on the Prosecutors Podcast, which is my favourite legal/crime podcast. If you don’t listen to it, you should absolutely start. Julia also has her own podcast, The Consult, where she and other ex-profilers discuss cases of interest. It’s been on hiatus for a while, but will be coming back soon with new episodes. The Consult is unique and insightful. I learned a lot, liked the profilers and their rapport, and was fascinated by their perspectives.