Barry and Honey Sherman may have been under ‘surveillance’ a month before their murders, homicide detectives believe
One year into the Barry and Honey Sherman murder investigation, a bombshell: Toronto Police believed it was possible the murderer or murderers were stalking the billionaire couple a month or more before they were killed, search warrant documents reveal.
But police were struggling. A Toronto judge was repeatedly denying their request to track by cellular telephone transmission the whereabouts, at the time of the murders, of 35 individuals who were persons of interest."
This information comes from documents released in court following a four-year challenge by the Star as part of its ongoing investigation into the Sherman murders. In one document, there is also police confirmation that Barry Sherman was restrained at the wrist" before he died, which the Star first reported six weeks after their bodies were discovered.
These newly released documents also provide insight into the 36-hour time period after the Shermans were killed but before they were found - and the attempts during this period by Apotex colleagues and the four Sherman children to reach Barry and Honey.
More than 1,000 pages - a collection of police interviews and theories - have been released to the Star in the last week, in five batches. Each is an information to obtain (ITO), a lengthy affidavit prepared by Toronto homicide detective Const. Dennis Yim in an attempt to get a court to grant access to cellular telephone transmission and tracking data (including who the person was calling or texting) that would normally be private.
These documents are part of nine requests made by police from shortly after the murders until Dec. 20, 2018, a full year into the investigation. The Star has not yet seen documents from after that date.
Yim, seconded to the homicide unit the week after the bodies were discovered, has for the last four years been tasked with making these requests, and trying to obtain production orders" (similar to search warrants) for cellular telephone tracking and transmission data from Rogers, Bell, Telus and Freedom Mobile. To obtain this information, Yim and his fellow detectives required approval of a judge because the data at issue - where an individual is at a given time and who the person is communicating with - is private under Canadian law.
Justice Leslie Pringle of the Ontario Court of Justice has been the sole judge on this case, both reviewing the police requests and the Star's applications to have documents unsealed.
Barry and Honey Sherman were found dead in their Old Colony Road home on Friday, Dec. 13, 2017. They were in a seated position in their basement swimming pool room, facing a wall. Each had a man's leather belt looped around their neck and tied to a railing three feet (just under a metre) above the pool deck, the documents reveal.
One document provides for the first time confirmation that Barry's wrists had been tied. Pathologists examining his body (both in the official autopsy and one performed by a pathologist hired by the Sherman family) determined that Bernard was restrained at the wrist."
The documents also reveal that police searched the sewer system around Old Colony Road, an apparent attempt to find out if whatever was used to tie the wrists was flushed down a toilet or dumped in the drains in the garage (no ties were found at the scene).
Pathologists made the determination that Barry was restrained by both looking at red marks circling Barry's wrists, and by autopsy, locating the pooling of blood beneath the skin, a sign that he was likely bound tightly.
That revelation by Dr. David Chiasson, a top pathologist hired by the Sherman family, tipped the scales from the early theory that Barry killed Honey, then took his own life, to the realization by detectives that they were both murdered. Honey had a small red mark on her right eye, as the Star has previously reported.
What is clear from these new documents is that while police interviewed friends, family, work colleagues and staff at the Sherman home in the first few months of the probe - 250 people in total - by the end of the first year the interviews were all but over and the case had become a data" investigation. Police, led by Yim, were busy gathering telephone numbers and applying to Pringle for permission to gather more information.
While this was going on, one person police had previously interviewed came forward with new information. This is described starkly in one ITO as new information," but the pages the Star has obtained from court are completely redacted because police say to reveal that information will harm their case.
This new information" appears to have led police to pursue the theory that someone - or some people - were watching Honey and Barry before the murders.
By mid-2018, detectives already had the tracking data emitted by Barry's BlackBerry and Honey's iPhone. Now, by December 2018, they were still seeking permission to obtain the tracking data from as many as 35 other cellphones. Due, it appears, to the new information, police wanted to parallel the tracking data from Bernard's or Honey's cellular phone records," police state. If they do parallel this could indicate that Bernard and/or Honey were followed or were under surveillance," police wrote in their application to the court.
That proved difficult to do.
Justice Pringle heard three different applications from Yim between June and December 2018. He provided the numbers and the cellphone providers. There was some concern with losing data if the requests were not approved. While Bell and Rogers keep all data for at least a year, Telus deletes texting data after 150 days (but keeps other data for longer). Rogers, the documents show, keeps its data for 13 months and in Yim's December application, 12 months after the murders, Yim said he feared the data could be lost forever." Bell keeps all of its data for three years.
Three times from June to November, Pringle was asked to approve applications for phone tracking data for these phones (cellphones ping" off a tower and give highly accurate latitude and longitude co-ordinates of where they are located) going back in most cases one month before the murders, but in some cases several months. Each time she allowed a few, but denied most.
In June, Pringle ruled, At this point in time I am not satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the phone records of (all names redacted) will afford evidence in respect of the murders of Bernard and Honey Sherman." Pringle told Yim in her denial that some of the information in interview statements provided in support of the request were too dated."
These interview statements - there are dozens in each of the ITOs - consist of people telling police their theories of who might have a grudge against the Shermans, peppered with recollections of who the Shermans were and their daily habits. How Barry was brilliant, but invested millions of dollars with people and was sometimes taken advantage of; how he worked late and liked to park in the basement garage (where he did the night he died). How Honey was a good friend to many, but did not always get along with her children, and always parked in the driveway on the right side of the house (which she did the night she died). And how, as Barry's nephew Ted Florence told police, Barry and Honey had some frustrations with their children because of their lack of work ethic because the children were raised in and exposed to a lot of money."
The documents also include statements from business colleagues, including Alex Glasenberg, who runs Barry's holding company and who told police that he had been advising Barry to sell Apotex - but Barry said he would hold on for five more years.
Yim went back to court in December with a different tactic, still seeking permission for the tracking data for about two dozen phones. Pringle had been holding him to a high standard, insisting that police provide reasonable grounds" to believe that the tracking data would provide evidence" of murder. Now Yim argued that all he needed to provide was reasonable grounds to suspect data will assist in the investigation."
Looking at all of these applications it is clear that the police were looking for the following: proof that one or more of those 35 people were following the Shermans around for a month or more; were near Old Colony Road the night of the murders; or were communicating with the unknown suspect with the odd walk that police long believed was either the killer or a lookout for the killer.
With a few of the numbers, police also wanted access to tracking and transmission data" six to eight weeks after the murder, just before and just after police announced the Shermans were targeted" in a double murder. And while there is no indication in these documents that there were any wire taps of phones, one heavily redacted section is headed, events that may stimulate conversation between involved parties." Some Star articles relating to the Shermans case are also included in these applications.
The Star does not yet know if that December 2018 application by police was successful.
The documents do shed light on another difficulty in the probe - obtaining information from Barry's BlackBerry and desk computer, or Honey's iPhone.
Due to a deal worked out between Apotex lawyers and Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney General, while police were allowed to review 1,387 electronic files, they never saw 586 electronic files (such as an email or a document involving Barry) because Goodmans, the Apotex law firm, determined it was sensitive, privileged" information.
Some of those were legal communication Honey had with lawyers at two Toronto law firms, Blaney McMurtry LLP or Torkin Manes law firm. Due to redactions, the Star does not know what those communications dealt with but they were not long before Honey died.
In these applications, police tell Justice Pringle that they are not only looking for evidence of guilt, they are also looking to clear people. Det.-Const. Yim states that some of the phone records they have obtained with Pringle's permission have assisted in dispelling investigative theories involving the following people."
Yim writes: If (redacted names) are charged with the murders of Bernard Sherman and/or Honey Sherman, tracking data showing that they were not around 50 Old Colony Road, 150 Signet Drive (Apotex headquarters) or any location where Bernard Sherman and/or Honey Sherman had attended on December 13th, 2017 could be used for their legal defence."
These new documents also reveal the attempted communications directed at Sherman friends and family at a time when the Shermans were already dead. The documents do not explain why they are included.
Police have said Barry and Honey were dead by midnight, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. Their phone and email records (those that are not redacted) reveal:
On that Wednesday night, Barry sent his last known email at 8:23 p.m. to his second in command at Apotex and one of his best friends, Jack Kay. Kay, who was in New York with his wife seeing a concert, responded back at 9:48 p.m. Kay told police it was such a routine email he sent that he was not surprised Barry did not respond.
Thursday, at 5:34 p.m., Barry and Honey's son Jonathon, who had returned Monday from a trip to Japan with his husband Fred Mercure, emailed Barry to invite him to a holiday dinner the next week, on Dec. 18. The dinner was billed as the Green Storage Christmas Party Dinner." Green Storage is a company owned by Jonathon and his business partner Adam Paulin, funded by Barry.
Sherman daughter Alexandra Krawczyk emailed Honey and Barry on Friday, Dec. 15 at 10:06 a.m., reminding them of a planned dinner that evening. We are looking forward to celebrating Channukah with Gramma and Grandpa tonight!! Please come early as usual to spend more time with the kiddos. I will be home with Derek by around 5 pm ????"
Shortly after, a series of calls to Barry's BlackBerry. Kaelen, the youngest Sherman daughter, calls twice, at 10:16 a.m. and 10:18 a.m.
Lauren, the eldest Sherman child, who was in Mexico on vacation, also calls Barry at 10:18 p.m. Both Kaelen and Lauren's calls are recorded as missed calls" on Barry's phone.
Then, at 11 a.m., Jeremy Desai, the then president and CEO of Apotex (he was let go after Barry died, telling police he had lost Barry's protection") emails Barry to tell him that the British health authorities had suspended" the Apotex health certificate for one of their drug plants in India. Desai told police he would have expected a response" from Barry to this news.
The Shermans' bodies were discovered by a realtor less than an hour later, and news hit Apotex and social media by early to mid-afternoon.
There are two more text communications police list, but given how wide the news of the Sherman death spread and how quickly, it is possible that the time codes in the police documents are incorrect, or that the text messages came in long after they were sent.
At 4:34 p.m. on the Friday (several hours after Sherman children Jonathon and Alexandra have told the Star they notified their sister Lauren in Mexico," Barry's phone records a text message from Lauren. Hi dad, My car was broken into and I'm not sure how to deal with it from here. Can you help me wrap my mind around what to do?" While not outlined in the unredacted part of the document, Lauren was in Mexico and may have had an issue with her car in Whistler, B.C. where she lives.
The final communication police note on the phone comes at 8:27 p.m. on the Friday (long after the bodies were discovered) from Mark Winter, a distant relative of Barry's on his mother Sarah's side. Barry it's Mark Winter. Are you and your family okay, I just saw on the news something scary." Mark is also related to Kerry Winter, Barry's cousin, who had unsuccessfully sued Barry for part ownership of Apotex.
Kevin Donovan can be reached at 416-312-3503 or kdonovan@thestar.ca