Questions about the Barry and Honey Sherman murder case: Part 4
How long has the Walking Man been a suspect?
Even though investigators in the Sherman murder case were pursuing the mysterious Walking Man in early 2018, the police didn’t tell the public about this suspect until a full four years after the murder. (Affidavit 7, p. 149)
Many observers think waiting so long to release the Walking Man videotape was yet another police mistake, but a reader wrote to say that there’s another way to look at things: “Whatever level of [police] incompetence exists or existed, they had that video of the night walker in 2017/2018 and absolutely no one knew. Not [Kevin] Donovan or [Joe] Warmington, etc. Not a peep. So I think they’ve totally locked things down and I think what’s behind those redactions will be fairly shocking.”
Whatever your views, one thing can’t be disputed. There is indeed a lot of material that’s been redacted. In the seventh police affidavit, dated September 2018, more than 60% of the document is blacked out. Likewise, huge chunks of the eighth affidavit, which is a mammoth 349 pages, have been redacted.
Sometimes, entire sections and their titles are redacted making it impossible to know what they’re even about. At other times — the Forensic Science Results section is a good example — you can see clearly what’s been blacked out. The affidavit reveals that Melanie Richard, a forensic scientist with DNA expertise (Affidavit 7, page 88), completed four reports early in the investigation — on December 22 and 27, 2017 as well as January 10 and March 19, 2018 — but everything else in the five-and-a-half page summary of those reports has been blacked out. It’s impossible to know if there’s relevant DNA evidence or not.
Was the death scene designed to stage a murder-suicide or send a message?
I’ve long been puzzled by why the Shermans were left the way they were. Was their killer trying to fake a murder-suicide or suggesting the victims got what they deserved? A recent insight gleaned from a reader has pretty much convinced me that it was the latter — that the killer was, maybe even subconsciously, trying to send a message. (Note: I’ve gone with “killer” singular here as opposed to “killers” plural, but I have no idea if it was one killer or more)
The reader made the point that if the killer wanted to fake a murder-suicide, there was no need for Barry and Honey to be found together. Getting Honey to the basement swimming pool, whether she was dead or alive, would have taken work. According to her personal assistant Sheila (Affidavit 7, p. 34) and her friend Judi (Affidavit 7, p. 61), Honey avoided the basement because her arthritis and mobility issues made it difficult for her to climb stairs. If her hands were tied together, as the affidavits say they were at one point, going down the stairs without being able to hold the bannister would likely have been terrifying for her. And if she was dead, moving the body to a lower floor would have been a major undertaking for a solo killer.
I think it’s also fair to say that had staging a murder-suicide been a priority for the killer, they probably wouldn’t have left Barry’s gloves and papers scattered in the hallway outside the pool. Nor did the killer appear to be pressed for time given they roamed the house to find the belt used to hang Honey.
What seems to have been most important to the killer was that Honey and Barry be together in death and that their bodies be displayed, possibly as a warning to others or, perhaps, to show — by literally stringing them up — that they were deserving of their fate.
The ninth affidavit, which is an attempt to get the judge to sign off on warrants for more phone information, brings together information scattered throughout the previous affidavits (Affidavit 9, p. 10).
This is an ongoing series. Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. Sign up for a free subscription to ensure you receive Part 5, which will explore how Barry Sherman appeared to be settling affairs with people who he had financially assisted and done business with over the years
Leave a comment or email me at ann.brocklehurst@gmail.com.
This case reads like a murder/mystery novel.
I'm convinced the perpetrator's staging of the crime scene was to make it look like a murder-suicide and nothing more. I'm thinking even latent trace evidence was planted to confuse investigators and everyone following this story.
Since the toxicology reports are blacked out in the warrant applications, I wouldn't be surprised if a novel 'designer' poison was used in this crime to quickly subdue the victims, which explains the lack of defensive injuries. I say this because the perpetrator might have wanted to outsmart Barry Sherman and give him a taste of his own medicine as a form of sweet revenge.