Property where Barry and Honey Sherman were murdered has sold for $4.25 million
A Porsche Boxster-driving 28-year-old woman has paid $4.25 million to purchase the Toronto property where Barry and Honey Sherman were murdered three years ago. Fifty Old Colony Rd. was sold as a building lot after the Sherman family tore the home down.
The woman, who appears to live with family nearby, is the new registered owner. Neither the woman or her lawyer could be reached for comment. The Star is not naming her in this story and is continuing to try and reach her.
Documents filed with the provincial land registry show the Sherman home was sold in late August. An agreement was made between the Sherman estate trustees and the woman to suppress" the true sale price, according to land registry documents. A nominal value of $2 was recorded on the transfer document. This can be done, a provincial official told the Star, if both sides agree to it and if the buyer pays the land transfer tax up front before the deal closes.
The land transfer tax has been prepaid as the parties have agreed to suppress the purchase price," reads a statement on the land sale document filed with the province.
However, a provincial finance ministry (which deals with land sale taxes) official told the Star such a suppression" is only for casual enquiry" and the Star was able to obtain the sale price with a quick call to the province's land transfer tax section, which keeps on record all sale prices.
The buyer's lawyer for the transfer, John Poletes, did not return a call from the Star. The Star also reached out to Sherman son Jonathon, who as a trustee of his late parent's estate, was named in the sale documents (along with fellow trustees Band Barry grudgingly agreed to, according to recently released police documents and interviews by the Star. In the documents, an architect who met with Barry and Honey earlier in the day they were murdered noted they were in a good mood, but the ever-fatalistic Barry made comments about how (the new house) was such a large home and why were they making such a large place when he probably only had another 10 or so years left to live."
The Shermans built the Old Colony Rd. home in the early 1980s, and the famously litigious Barry Sherman recouped $2 million - most of the construction price - through successful lawsuits alleging poor workmanship. The home, lots of glass block, high ceilings and two staircases that stretched from the second floor to the basement, was described in Toronto Life as a poured concrete colossus."
The property was only on the market a short time when realtor Elise Stern, touring prospective homebuyers, found the Shermans dead in the basement swimming pool area on Friday, Dec. 15, 2017. Their bodies were in a seated position by the pool, with leather belts around their necks that were tied to the low railing above them, keeping the corpses from slumping backwards into the pool. They were dead for roughly 36 hours, police say. Initially investigating the incident as a murder-suicide, Toronto Police announced it was a targeted" double murder six weeks later.
The Old Colony Rd. home was classified a crime scene, and for six weeks forensic experts from the Toronto Police combed through the two-storey house. Then it was turned over to the Sherman family's private detective team, led by criminal lawyer Brian Greenspan. He held a press conference a year later to announce a $10-million reward on behalf of the Sherman family and to criticize police for, in his words, missing key forensic details (fingerprints and palm prints) during the first investigation of the home.
Since police and private detectives finished their work, the home sat empty.
In early 2019, the Sherman family received permission to level the house, telling city officials the house has been vacant for the past year ... along with bad memories and a stigma attached due to the incident that took place. It is the family's desire to level the house, clean up the site, fill in the pool and put the lot up for sale."
Two days before the wrecking crews tore the home down, an urban explorer secretly toured the Sherman home, noting paperwork and other items that the explorer told the Star seemed like evidence that police should have seized. Photos of the explorer's tour show bottles of Stella Artois beer on the kitchen island, garbage bags and cleaning products.
Sherman family sources have told the Star that the wrecking crew were under instructions to demolish the entire property.
Jonathon Sherman, in an email to the Star on Wednesday, said that prior to the destruction of the family home we spent many days trying to sort through everything and donate as much as we realistically could." Two Sub-Zero fridges that were destroyed as part of the demolition were, he said, from the late '80s or early '90s and not fit for donation."
Who is the new owner of the property? The Star was unable to learn much about her. She is the listed owner of a 2019 Porsche Boxster. The financing agreement for the Boxster is co-signed by a man with the same last name, and they both live on a street to the west of Old Colony Rd. in a house that is now listed for sale at a cost of $7.9 million.
Meanwhile, the Forest Hill property where Honey planned to build her dream home, at an estimated cost of $30 million, was earlier sold by the Sherman estate for $7.4 million.
Toronto police say they are continuing to investigate the Sherman murders. They have identified numerous" persons of interest during the probe but say they lack the evidence to lay criminal charges.
Kevin Donovan can be reached at 416-312-3503 or kdonovan@thestar.ca