Questions about the Barry and Honey Sherman case: Part 7
Have the police re-started their investigation?
It’s hard to know whether to be depressed or excited about the latest developments in the Barry and Honey Sherman murder case. On the one hand, a newly released search warrant application basically confirms that, as of December 2022, the police had no suspects aside from the mysterious, unidentified Walking Man, which is not good news. On the other hand, it seems that after almost five years of fruitless investigation, something has finally prompted the police to shift direction, which could eventually lead to good news.
Once again, news about the murders came to light thanks to the Toronto Star’s reporting on the case and the release of the search warrant application. Although the warrant document is a whopping 620 pages, about half of those pages are blacked out and most of the information on the unredacted pages has been released before so there’s not that much new.
While there are a lot of people who have convinced themselves that the police know who murdered the Shermans and are just waiting for that one final damning piece of evidence to make an arrest, it’s a tough position to maintain given the double whammy of this warrant document and recent comments made by Toronto police’s outgoing head of homicide, Hank Idsinga. As part of his farewell interview tour, Idsinga admitted that the evidence “points sometimes in the same direction, sometimes in different directions,” which are hardly the words of a guy who is confident he knows who the killer is.
What’s more, the newly revealed warrant document states in black and white that police have not elevated any known person to the level of suspect and are still looking for “documents and data that would further implicate or exonerate current persons of interest in this investigation.” [page 6] Detectives are, it seems, still open to finding a brand new suspect with a brand new motive. According to the warrant document, the information the police seek to find “may also reveal other motives and identify other persons of interest or suspects previously unknown to police.” [page 21]
Both the timing and the content of the warrant document suggest to me that it might be the result of an independent review process that evaluated the work of the Toronto police on this case. I suspect the process might have been initiated after police appealed unsuccessfully to the public for help in identifying the mysterious walking man almost two years ago. Such a review, if it actually happened, might have led police to pursue new avenues of investigation, which then resulted in this late 2022 warrant, the first to be issued in more than two years.
Until now, much of the talk about the Sherman murders has focused on international hitmen hired with crypto, pharmaceutical industry malfeasance, and requests for assistance from police in other countries. But the new warrant document suggests the answers may lie much closer to home.
According to the Toronto Star, the warrant allowed police to search the offices of Sherfam Inc, the holding company for the Shermans’ non-Apotex businesses and investments.* This is a topic that has been covered here on Courthouse Stories, where it has been previously noted that Sherfam had been pulling the plug on various investments for several years before the Shermans’ murders:
In 2014, for example, Barry Sherman’s Sherfam Inc company stopped lending to the Martin Ross Group [page 37], a jewellery business run by his and Honey’s brother-in-law Allen Shechtman, which had been bankrolled by the Sherman family holding company, Sherfam, since its inception in 1993. A business and personal associate of Barry and Honey explained that the cutting off of Martin Ross Group at that time was part of a bigger decision reached by the president of Sherfam, “to exit non-core businesses.”
Nor was it just money-sucking businesses getting booted off the Sherman welfare rolls. Barry Sherman was, as previously reported, calling in long-term personal debts to former friends and business partners like Stanley Lubinsky and, as the warrant document reveals, he was also taking steps to avoid double dipping by other old friends like Bernie Federman.
Now, while Bernie and Stanley seem to have taken Barry’s adjustments to their financial arrangements in stride, other longtime beneficiaries of Sherman largesse might not have adapted as well. Imagine a Martin Ross Group employee, who no longer had a job after decades with the company. Or another Stanley, who might have been too ashamed to admit to his wife that a third party was paying their mortgage. Or what about a family friend approaching Sherman with a new business venture, which got turned down? Then, picture any of these hypothetical people learning about the Shermans’ new mega-mansion and Honey’s plans to gift a few hundred million to her unpopular sister. Could a grievance like this lead to murder?
Experts, including former FBI profiler Julia Cowley, have consistently maintained that the Shermans were almost certainly murdered by someone who knew them and not an international hitman of mystery. “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,” Cowley said in a recent interview with Courthouse Stories. “And there was probably some benefit to [the killer]. It could be financial, it could be revenge, it could be covering up something else.”
By my reckoning, the pool of suspects in this case should not be that large. It’s someone who knew the Shermans personally and was likely also familiar with their home and neighbourhood. The killer was aggrieved and, according to Cowley, controlling but not necessarily someone with a violent past. The killer may well have been experiencing financial problems and held the Shermans responsible for their difficulties or for not helping them.
Photogammetry puts the Walking Man with the unusual gait in the height range of 5’7” to 5’9.5” inches. And he was in good enough shape that he was confident he could walk several kilometres in winter weather, control and kill two people, and get away on foot.
If his name is in the Sherfam files, I suspect the police may solve this case pretty soon. If it’s not, there’s always the possibility of DNA and genetic genealogy.
* CORRECTION: I made a wrong inference above. The Star did not report that Sherfam offices were searched.
Hoping to circle this back to the content of your substack post, Ann.
I’m not sure about what it takes for the police to obtain a warrant, but wouldn’t it have to name the person or persons involved, what information the police are looking for and the basis for the warrant? They couldn’t just go on an information fishing expedition at Sherfam, they’d need to name people? Or can they if the police just want to cover all of what Barry was involved with and Sherfam is an obvious choice?
Jonathon told Kevin Donovan that he had a theory and possible evidence and named three people he thought are involved. If one of them worked at Sherfam, maybe that has something to do with the warrant?
I was investigating the death of Raheem White. I found out through his mother that the Toronto Police found a belt hanging from a tree where they found his body. Police told Rose that there was a homeless encampment and that Raheem was some loser who was contemplating suicide. But none of his friends or family thought that. I went back and saw the belt hanging from that tree. But I also met a homeless guy named Dave. He said he'd been camping there for the last 4 years and that the tent and encampment belonged to him. Since the belt was left hanging there, I started thinking they never excluded murder as a cause of death. Made me think that Toronto Police could cover for some police officer that killed them by strangulation. That's exactly what made me think of Barry and Honey Sherman and police's lame theory of murder suicide.