Welcome to Bw Daily, the Bloomberg Businessweek newsletter, where we'll bring you interesting voices, great reporting and the magazine's usual charm every weekday. Let us know what you think by emailing our editor here! If this has been forwarded to you, click here to sign up. The call came in to the Toronto police homicide squad on a chilly December afternoon. A man and woman had been found dead at a home in an upmarket suburban neighborhood, posed in a horrifying tableau. They were side by side at the edge of an indoor pool, held up by leather belts looped around their necks and tied to a metal railing. By the time the first officers arrived, in response to a 911 call from a real estate agent who was showing the house, rigor mortis had set in, indicating they'd been dead for hours. Brandon Price, a young homicide detective with sharp features and close-cropped brown hair, drove to the scene. The house was thick with people: uniformed constables to establish a perimeter, forensic specialists to comb for evidence, a coroner to prepare the remains for transport to an autopsy. An officer took photos, documenting the location and condition of the bodies as well as the state of the many other rooms. The Shermans' house at 50 Old Colony Rd. in Toronto. Photographer: Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail Outside was a growing number of journalists, dispatched as word filtered out about the identities of the deceased. They were Barry and Honey Sherman, one of Canada's wealthiest and best-known couples and the residents of the house. Barry, 75, was the founder and chairman of Apotex Inc., a large generic pharmaceutical producer. His net worth was estimated at $3.6 billion at the time of his death in 2017. He and Honey, 70, used that money to become major philanthropists, donating generously to charities, cultural institutions and Jewish causes. They weren't the richest people in Canada, but they were as prominent as anyone, appearing at seemingly every charity gala in Toronto and known to have strong connections to the Liberal Party of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Autopsies would determine that both of the Shermans had died from "ligature neck compression"—strangulation. They were among the wealthiest murder victims in history. Price and his colleagues have been investigating the Shermans' deaths for more than five years, alongside private detectives hired by the couple's adult children: Lauren, who's now 47; Jonathon, 40; Alexandra, 37; and Kaelen, 32. In that time no one has been arrested, let alone charged. A representative for the Toronto Police Service declined to comment on the specifics of the investigation but said that it remains active and that it would be inaccurate to describe the murders as a cold case. They're nonetheless an enduring mystery. Who had a motive to kill both Sherman and his wife? Why would that person choose such a gruesome method? And how did they cover their tracks so effectively? Photo Illustration: Mike McQuade; photos: George Pimentel (Shermans); YouTube (surveillance) Even though the police and the private team haven't identified suspects, they have turned up a great deal about the Shermans and their world. Most of their findings were unknown when Bloomberg Businessweek last covered the case, in 2018. They've been revealed for this story through legal filings, private documents, interviews with people familiar with the relevant events—who declined to speak on the record about private matters—and a cache of police materials released following petitions from the Toronto Star. As investigators dug into the Shermans' past, they uncovered a family drama rife with vendettas and grudges, accusations and rumors, centered on a dominant patriarch and a next generation vying for his favor. With Barry Sherman gone, that drama entered a new, bare-knuckle phase. Suddenly inheriting his empire, his children made it clear that their priorities differed from their father's. They broke with his and Honey's closest confidants and began making plans to sell off Apotex, the company Sherman had devoted his life to building. Then, some of them turned on each other. For the full, fascinating story from Matthew Campbell and Ari Altstedter, go here. And to read Businessweek's first cover story on this mysterious case, go here. |
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