Questions about the Barry and Honey Sherman murder case: Part 3
What's taking so long?
When I ran into Detective Price in court (see Part 1), I asked him why it was taking so long to get the information from the five countries the Toronto police have asked for assistance in the Sherman case. Price said it takes as long as it takes, and there’s nothing the police nor the Canadian government can do to speed things up.
To be frank, I’m baffled by the type of information that the cops expect to receive. Is it let’s-go-arrest-someone-now type evidence or hey-maybe-we-should-look-at-this-other-guy type evidence? If it’s the latter, that’s pretty disheartening but if it’s the former, I’ve got questions. Aren’t the police worried that their suspect(s) might flee or destroy any evidence they haven’t managed to do away with already? And if not, why not?
In her December 2020 judgement on the unsealing of the first four affidavits in the case, Justice Leslie Pringle covers the potential problems with releasing information that identifies persons of interest (POIs). “This information could compromise the investigation,” she writes. “If the perpetrator(s) of the crime knew who was or was not seen as a POI, it could precipitate flight, destruction of evidence or other actions to frustrate the investigation.”
Maybe it’s just me, but if whoever killed the Shermans has a murder-related connection to five countries, I would assume they’ve figured out by now that they’re Suspect Number One. Are they just sitting pretty at home waiting for the inevitable knock on the door? Or are they cackling diabolically over how the police have been led on a wild goose chase?
I’m not a believer in the “police know who did it, but don’t have enough evidence to make an arrest” trope, because unless you have enough evidence, you don’t actually know who did it, no matter how much you think you do. There’s an excellent podcast called DNA: ID, which is all about cold case murders solved through genetic genealogy. Almost every week, DNA testing rules out suspects, who the cops were convinced did it and sounded pretty damned guilty to me. The true killer often turns out to be someone the police didn’t know existed or a name buried in their case files that either wasn’t checked out properly or at all.
If the requests to these five countries don’t result in an arrest, I think it’s safe to say that the police don’t know who did it and the Honey and Barry Sherman case is officially cold.
In the meantime, here are some more of the police affidavits and some thoughts on the contents:
This fifth affidavit was sworn by Detective Yim three months after police switched from investigating the Shermans’ death as a murder-suicide to double murder. It’s a whopping 200-plus pages and includes new witness statements as well as medical information and certain comments from earlier interviews that were previously redacted.
There are no longer black bars covering up the fact that Lauren Sherman says she speaks with her father every day (p. 56) or that Honey had a shoulder replacement and that Barry was borderline diabetic. (p. 39)
A second interview with Honey’s sister Mary is included, in which she told the police that “the way the Shermans were found, it appears that someone was making a statement and … there may be a religious motive.” (p. 60)
There is also a new interview with Jeremy Desai, who had by then resigned as CEO of Apotex, a position taken over by Jack Kay. Desai and Kay have contradictory accounts of the events of December 13, the day of the murders. Kay said he left the office at noon to pick up his wife and head to New York (p. 59), but, according to Desai, “Jeremy, Barry and Jack had a meeting in Jack’s office at 2:33 PM.” (p. 76)
Jeremy’s rival for the CEO job was Craig Baxter, who had worked for Apotex for 30 years and was an executor of Barry’s estate. In 2015, Barry offered Baxter the position of head of Sherfam, but he decided to quit in March of 2015. “Jeremy states that it was tough for Craig because before Jeremy’s arrival it was Craig’s dream to become the CEO,” writes Yim. (p. 76)
In a new interview, Sean McDonald, the head of Apotex security, says Barry’s routine was like clockwork. Every day he would arrive at work between 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM and leave around 8:00 PM. (p. 77) McDonald’s account contradicts those of others, who said, respectively, that Barry regularly left the office at 9:30, 10:00 and 11:00 PM.
The new affidavit does not provide any evidence of Honey having a bank card (Part 2), but does note she had a joint BMO personal account with Barry (p. 132). It does not, however, include withdrawals in the list of transactions made from that account.
For anyone who thinks men don’t gossip, the sixth police affidavit from June 2018 provides solid proof to the contrary as officers try to get to the bottom of hot tub conversations and rumours about Honey Sherman being electronically tracked. (p.121)
Follow-up from Part 2
I heard from a few people who were astounded that I still consider murder-suicide a possibility in this case. To be clear, I lean 95% double murder, 5% murder-suicide. Here's why I haven’t ruled out murder suicide:
Many people tend to dismiss intimate partner violence too quickly and are often in denial about its prevalence.
I believe the first pathologist was conscientious. For example, he removed the skin from the Shermans' wrists because he thought the marks were important. He also went to the second autopsy, when many in his position would have blown it off. Given the gray areas in forensic pathology, it's not clear to me that his original interpretations should be dismissed out of hand while those of the second pathologist, hired by the Sherman family, are accepted without question.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the position of the bodies does not rule out murder-suicide as googling the term “partial hanging” will show. (Warning: not for the faint of heart)
No one has claimed a $10 million (now $35 million) reward.
Please don’t take this as a police apologia. I believe it was way too early for the police to have ruled out double murder and that they should have done an immediate neighbourhood canvas, collected video, etc. I’ve also never understood why cops put so much emphasis on the fact there were no signs of forced entry. Maybe the killer knocked on the door and was invited in or pushed their way in or jumped their victim on the way in.
This is an ongoing series. Read Part 1 and Part 2. Sign up for a free subscription to ensure you receive Part 4. Leave a comment or email me at ann.brocklehurst@gmail.com
always believed it was murder suicide. Still do.