Warrant executed as part of Sherman probe

New search focused on investments by holding company

Toronto police homicide detectives probing the Barry and Honey Sherman murders have executed a new search warrant in the case.

The warrant, served at undisclosed premises on Dec. 21, 2022, unearthed 14,801 electronic files police had not seen. Information detailing the contents of those files remains sealed in a Toronto courthouse.

The significance of this search warrant — the first in several years — is unclear. In the warrant papers, police say they are seeking “documents and data that would further implicate or exonerate current persons of interest in this investigation and determine if any persons had, or did not have, a motive to kill Bernard and Honey Sherman.”

Police have also recently obtained information — they won’t say what it is — from outside the country via three requests under a treaty that allows countries to legally share information in a criminal investigation.

The Star recently learned about the warrant and the international information as part of its ongoing attempts to unseal police documents related to the almost sixyear-old murder investigation.

Police say that if more of the warrant information was unsealed, it would hurt their investigation. As a result, a heavily redacted copy of the warrant documents has been filed in a public court file, along with a completely unredacted — but sealed — copy of the full 620 pages. The Toronto Star’s application is seeking access to the documents as a means of scrutinizing how police have carried out this probe.

Barry Sherman, the founder of generic drug giant Apotex, and his wife Honey were murdered almost six years ago. Their strangled bodies were discovered on Friday, Dec. 15, 2017 in their basement swimming pool room, posed in a macabre tableau, seated, with belts around their necks keeping them from falling backward into the pool. They were murdered between 8 and 10 p.m. on Dec. 13.

Sources close to the investigation have told the Star that it is believed the Shermans were each killed with a thin ligature similar to a nylon cable tie, also known as a “zip tie,” a product commonly found at building supply stores or on construction sites. No ties were found at the Sherman crime scene. The couple’s wrists were bound while they were alive, but no cable ties or anything that could have caused the markings found on their wrists or necks were found at the scene.

Initially, police sources told the media that the Shermans were victims of a murder suicide. That changed five weeks into the investigation when the Star published the results of a second set of autopsies, carried out by a forensic pathologist working for the Sherman family.

In response to the Star’s request to unseal more of the search warrant documents (some have already been unsealed in previous applications), Det.- Const. Dennis Yim, the lone full-time homicide officer on the case, said the sealing order was made “to prevent the perpetrators of the murders from knowing how far the police investigation has advanced.”

Toronto police say the file is not considered a “cold case,” although cases that pass the five-year mark are often classified “cold” and sent to a special squad that reviews old cases.

Retiring homicide unit Insp. Hank Idsinga recently told the Star’s Rosie DiManno that there “is a lot of circumstantial evidence that points sometimes in the same direction, sometimes in different directions.”

The December 2022 search warrant is the first police have sought in two years.

Prior to that, police had spent a tremendous amount of time sifting through hundreds of thousands of cellular telephone communications. Their goal was to see if the mysterious “walking man” caught on video near the Sherman home the night of the murders had made a call to one of 300 people — friends, family, business associates — known to the Shermans. Police announced in 2021 that they had come up empty-handed. They have no idea who the “walking man” is, although they believe he was one of the killers or a lookout that night.

With attempts to identify the man having failed, the investigation then turned international, with police seeking information — they have not said what — in five countries. Police appear to have abandoned the search in two countries, but have retrieved information from three countries, according to the Sherman case documents filed in court.

So, what were police looking for with their latest search warrant?

The backup documents for the warrant provide some clues. To search a building (which is what police appear to have done in this case) they need to provide legal grounds, and those grounds (drawn from witness statements and other details) are typically detailed in the affidavit that accompanies a warrant.

From the unredacted portions of the court papers, it is clear that police are drilling down on Barry Sherman’s non-Apotex businesses, making inquiries about his investments through personal holding company Sherfam. The interviews and information included in these warrant pages deal with side deals and investments Sherman made over the past several decades, some of them quite minor.

In one of the recently unsealed witness statements in the new warrant, detectives reveal for the first time notes taken in a statement from Toronto lawyer Douglas Hendler in the early days of the probe. Hendler did legal work for Sherman for many years, and he and his wife were friends with Barry and Honey (they were planning a trip to Japan at the time of the murders).

According to his interview statement, Hendler told police that on the day Sherman died, he had asked Hendler to discharge a small private mortgage he held on a property owned by an old business colleague, Stanley Lubinsky. According to a police interview with Lubinsky in 2018, Sherman had graciously offered to structure the payback of the mortgage so that Lubinsky maintained some equity in the home. (Sherman reduced the amount to which he normally would have been entitled.)

Hendler said he knew nothing about the mortgage, but reached out to Sherman the night of the murders to seek details. A telephone log included in the police documents reveals Hendler’s call was made to Sherman’s BlackBerry at 9:01 p.m., but Sherman was likely dead or restrained by that time.

Asked for more details about his legal work for Sherman, Hendler told police he could not discuss any of it without permission from the executors of the Sherman estate. The documents do not say if that was given, and Hendler said he could not provide an interview to the Star due to solicitor-client privilege.

As to an overall comment about Barry Sherman’s business, Hendler told police “nothing of his business with Bernard was suspicious, secretive or raised any red flags.”

Lubinsky, the subject of the mortgage discussions on the day of the murders, told police that Sherman was a “Godsend” and a wonderful man. Lubinsky also told police that he “believes the killer was someone close to Bernard.”

The unsealed portion of the recent search warrant documents also includes information related to other Barry Sherman investments, and to people who worked directly on Sherman’s investments at his holding company, Sherfam.

Among those mentioned in the unsealed portion are the man who ran (and still does) Sherfam, Alex Glasenberg. More than half of Glasenberg’s statement to police is sealed. In one section, Glasenberg tells police that Sherfam was invested in up to 30 companies. In another section, Glasenberg tells police that “to the best of his knowledge, Barry does not owe anyone any money.”

Of the 14,801 electronic files obtained in the search warrant almost a year ago, police have conducted a “cursory review” of all files, but have only done a detailed review of 313 files.

The Star continues to challenge the sealing orders in court. Three years ago, in November 2020, the first substantive release of police documents was made.