Canada has long been haunted by the mysterious murder of Billionaire Barry Sherman.
Some argue the Toronto police were overwhelmed or stretched too thin.
There were dozens of homicides they needed to solve and a serial killer to stop before
he killed again.
It is possible under these circumstances that corners were cut and evidence overlooked or
missing.
This is certainly the opinion of the Sherman family’s private investigation team.
Police error may have cheated the victims of justice and the family from a sense of
closure.
Let’s see who could have murdered Barry Sherman and his wife, and why, in this episode
of The Infographics Show, The Mystery of the Murder of Billionaire Barry Sherman.
50 Old Colony Road in Toronto, Canada is now the scene of a crime.
But once, not so long ago, it was just another home.
Though, to be fair, it was far from your average type of house.
Rather, it was a five-bedroom, nine-bathroom mansion of concrete and steel sprawled out
over more than 12,000 square feet.
It had indoor and outdoor hot tubs and pools, a sauna and tennis court, an outdoor kitchen
area and an underground 6-car parking lot.
The Shermans had spent 20 years as residents of Old Colony Road.
However, by 2017, they had decided to move closer to the city in an elite neighborhood.
They purchased new property in Forest Hill and demolished its original house.
Honey Sherman then began to plan the custom-designed home of her dreams to take its place.
On December 13, 2017 the Shermans met with architects to discuss these plans.
When the meeting ended, Honey left but Barry stayed behind for two more hours.
Estimates are that while Honey made it home by 7, Barry arrived closer to 9.
Whatever time it was that they made it inside, they would never make it out again alive.
Two days later, on December 15th, a real estate agent stopped by.
With him were wealthy clients interested in buying the 6.7 million-dollar Sherman home.
They began a tour of the property, starting on the main floor and then making their way
upstairs.
They then headed back down, but before they left, they stopped briefly at the basement
area pool.
The pool wasn’t really a point of interest, so they didn’t stick around for long.
But everyone was puzzled by what appeared to be bodies sitting by its steps.
The real estate agent later explained that he didn’t understand what he really saw.
He thought it was some kind of strange rich person joke or something left over from Halloween.
He never in a million years thought he had stumbled across real bodies or was one of
the first at a crime scene.
It wasn’t until later, after they left, that someone dialed 911.
Both Barry and Honey were half-seated with belts around their necks.
They were partially suspended as the other end of the belts were attached to three-and-a-half
foot pool railings.
Both were fully clothed with their backs towards the pool.
Their winter coats had been pulled from their shoulders to hold their arms in place behind
them.
Honey, an athletic 70-year-old with a signature blond bob, appeared to have been hit and was
slumped to one side.
Oddly, Barry, who was 75 and heavy-set with graying hair and glasses, was positioned with
his legs stretched out in front and crossed at the ankles.
Word of the couple’s death spread quickly in Canada and beyond.
The Shermans had been married 40 years and had made a large impact not only in Canada
but around the world during this time.
Barry’s fortune amounted to $3.6 billion, but it was not their wealth that set the Sherman’s
apart.
It was their generosity with their money and their support for countless charities and
other well-intentioned organizations.
For these reasons and more, what took place next was an injustice for both the victims
as well as their friends and family.
The police who saw the bodies misread several obvious clues and, without taking into account
either the character of histories of those involved, came to a quick, inaccurate, and
outrageous conclusion.
In a speech to reporters outside the home they said that there were no signs of forced
entry.
They then added that they were not actively looking for any suspects.
To those who know anything about murder investigations this disclosure meant just one thing.
The next day the media, based on the police’s report, began reporting the crime as a murder-suicide.
They alleged that Honey had been killed by her husband Barry before he then killed himself.
The couple’s four children were enraged, and with good reason.
Still mourning their loss, they now found it necessary to release a statement defending
the characters of their parents.
Even those who didn’t particularly like Barry agreed that the thought of him as a
murderer was absurd.
For one, the couple got along well and Barry had never before in his life been violent.
He was also not in the best physical shape and had limited strength.
It was Honey who was athletic and, by comparison, much stronger.
Some friends pointed out with rather dark humor that if it was a murder-suicide, Barry
would not have been the aggressor but more likely the victim.
Having lost faith in the police, the Sherman children took action.
They hired their own set of private investigators and paid another pathologist for a second
autopsy.
All came to the conclusion that the police had failed to notice several things.
This included something as incredible as impressions of ties left on Barry and Honey’s wrists
indicating they both, not just Honey, had been restrained.
In addition to this, experts found other clues to prove Barry’s innocence.
The length of belt Barry was hanging from prevented him from getting the leverage necessary
to have killed himself.
He also had not moved around violently as those trying to hang themselves would do.
Unlike Barry, victims of suicide are not typically found with their glasses still on straight
or their legs folded neatly in front of them.
Eventually the police agreed, but it took them over a month to change their opinion.
Reports at this time reflected this change and began to report the crime as a targeted
double homicide.
As the police investigation went on the Sherman children, for obvious reasons, continued with
their own at the same time.
It was not long before their private investigators found yet further task force shortcomings.
They had not vacuumed around the bodies to collect fibers or hairs that the assailant
may have left behind.
They did not fingerprint anyone present in the house at the time to help identify a possible
culprit.
They even failed to examine the home for a point of entry beyond an absence of broken
locks or windows.
There were as many as nine ways to enter as well as a lockbox with a key left outside
for the real estate agent.
Then there were the dozens of apparently unnoticed palm and fingerprints left at the scene.
With so much forensic evidence overlooked or lost, the case dragged on, and eventually
grew cold.
By fall of the year that followed, only one officer was still investigating it full-time.
It didn’t help that though 2017 had been a bit crazy, 2018 was crazier still.
There were a record number of homicides that year and the officers’ attention had by
necessity turned elsewhere.
Many looked to motive in an attempt to make headway with the case.
But just who would want to kill Barry and his wife?
As previously mentioned, both were generous participants in society and gave multiple
millions to various organizations and charities.
However, they were not without their enemies.
In fact, Barry, an aggressive businessman in the pharmaceutical field, had many.
Barry made his fortune in the generic drug business but his career started out small.
He first worked for Empire Laboratories, a company owned by his uncle, as a driver during
his summers.
He was finishing his PhD in engineering when his uncle later died.
He then bought Empire Laboratories and ran it for a few years before he sold it to a
buyer.
The money from the sale was used to create Apotex, a business of his own.
Through hard work and determination Barry turned it into a lucrative multi-billion-dollar
company and, in the process, earned himself a fortune.
He had 10,000 employees who many said he treated more like family than staff.
In fact, he would cut checks out to a total of millions for those who came to him with
their problems.
But that’s pretty much where the good feelings surrounding his company end.
Unfortunately, by nature of his business, providing cheaper alternatives to name brands
had made him several ambitious and well-funded enemies.
The drug companies whose medications Barry copied lost billions as he sold knock-offs
based on theirs.
Needless to say, they did not take this well and occasionally things got ugly.
Bayer AG, for example, at one point believed that Apotex was in violation of its protective
patents.
It is alleged that those working on behalf of the Bayer company tried to get Apotex employees
to reveal inside information.
There were even accusations that Bayer had considered planting some drugs in Barry’s
car.
Unsurprisingly, true or not, the company claimed to have no knowledge of any of this.
Barry had quite a few questionable connections from other business dealings as well.
An example of this was an investment he had made in a con man’s chartering company that,
it turned out, had no yachts.
Another was a nutritional supplement he had backed that was thought up and pitched by
a two-time felon.
Then there was an online trivia game that led to Barry pressing charges when his investments
went missing.
Overall, Barry was quite open-minded and gave support to those who most others wouldn’t.
Whether this was actually a good thing or not is still a source of debate.
His friends believe that by seeing the good in sketchy people he may also have unnecessarily
put himself in danger.
All the same, while he could be trusting and kind, Barry could be shrewd and spiteful as
well.
While he was often in court fighting for the rights to create drugs he also fought for
things that were unnecessary and even unethical.
For example, he battled a hematologist in court who rightly questioned the safety of
an Apotex medication.
In the process Barry involved her school and she lost her position as a clinical program
director at the university.
However, in a rather hollow victory, she won the case.
Aside from tumultuous business relations there was bad-blood in Barry’s family as well.
Specifically, in the case of his uncle’s children.
As he had been known to do, he had been providing checks to help out more than one.
However, they wanted more, possibly because he had at least one nephew and niece addicted
to drugs.
They joined in a suit against him alleging that because he created Apotex with money
from their father’s company that they were owed some of its profits.
Litigation drew out for a decade before they finally lost.
Animosity and resentment only grew once a verdict was reached.
After all, the nephews and nieces had been ordered to pay Barry’s legal expenses.
Very soon after this, the Shermans were strangled in their home.
Was this merely a coincidence, or could his own family have killed him for revenge?
Whether they did or not, they will continue to suffer the consequences of their betrayal.
Barry’s lawyers filed an appeal requesting they pay more money than what they already
owed the same day he was buried.
While there is a lot of speculation about just who killed Barry and his wife, there
is even more about what will happen following their death.
Currently, Barry’s wills are sealed by order of the Ontario Superior Court.
In the interests of protecting their beneficiaries their contents will remain undisclosed for
two years.
No one, including the Sherman estate lawyer, knows the specifics of what either contains.
Shockingly, it is possible that Honey never made a will.
No one was asked to hold one on her behalf and nothing turned up during a property search.
This complicates matters somewhat, as order of death is important.
One possibility is that they were killed together, or in legal terms, that they died simultaneously.
Or, when Honey returned home before her husband, that she was killed first.
Then again, there is no way to prove that Barry was not the first one strangled.
Reports claim that the exact time of death cannot be determined, and therefore it will
remain a mystery if one outlived the other.
If Honey was the first to die, Barry’s will could divide the estate between their kids.
However, on the event that Barry died before his wife, his estate could be left to her.
If she was then killed, without a will of her own, who knows what this would mean.
But whatever does happen, it is bound to get nasty.
Sources allege someone has already stepped forward not long after Honey’s death saying
she promised them money.
Though Barry and Honey were generous with many, Barry, and by extension his wife, also
had many well-known enemies.
Who do you think killed them and why?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video called Why You Should Never Visit The Dark
Web!
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.
See you next time!