The Toronto police homicide squad has a working theory in the Barry and Honey Sherman murder case and detectives have “an idea of what happened,” one of the lead investigators told a court Wednesday.

It’s the first public indication in the 16 months since the billionaire Apotex founder and his wife were strangled that the police are getting somewhere. The detective also told an Ontario Court of Justice hearing that within a week, police are expecting a “high volume” of electronic records they have been trying to obtain since January, and that at least one person they want to interview has refused to speak to police. Others they want to speak to may have left the country or simply cannot be located, the investigator told court.

But detective Const. Dennis Yim, one of five detectives currently working on the case, refused to answer questions in court from a Star reporter on what the theory of the case is and whether police have identified a named suspect or suspects.

“I think everything needs to be sealed because if the information were to be revealed, potential suspects would take steps to … get rid of other evidence,” Yim said during his cross-examination by the Star.

This new information has emerged as part of a Toronto Star application in provincial court to have more than 1,000 pages of search-warrant material unsealed. Judge Leslie Pringle, who has authorized and sealed all of the warrants and production orders since the outset of the case, reserved her ruling after hearing arguments from the Star and Crown attorney Peter Scrutton.

The bodies of the Sherman couple were discovered in the swimming-pool room in the basement of their home at 50 Old Colony Rd., near Bayview Ave. and Hwy. 401, on Dec. 15, 2017. After initially considering it a murder-suicide, Toronto police ruled it a targeted double homicide six weeks later.

Sherman, a well-known philanthropist, founded the Apotex generic drug firm in the early 1970s and nurtured it into a multibillion-dollar enterprise. His wife, Honey, was a tireless fundraiser and member of numerous charitable boards and organizations. The couple were found seated by their pool, with leather belts wrapped around their necks and looped around a low railing, holding them upright.

It is believed they were murdered two days before, on the evening of Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. The cause of death was described by police as “ligature neck compression.”

While the majority of the case information remains sealed from the public eye pending Pringle’s ruling, the Star has been able to learn some new details of the extent of the probe through its application to unseal the material. The material at issue is what amounts to an extensive chronology of the investigation to date, all contained in what are called ITOs — “information to obtain” search warrants and production orders. Think of it as a road map through the police investigation. ITOs contain abbreviated statements from people the police interview, names of suspects (sometimes also called “persons of interest”), crime scene photos and results of previous police requests for information.

Det. Yim’s responsibility on the Sherman case is to receive, analyze and process all of this. He told court his day begins at 7 a.m. and since the Sherman murders he has worked solely on this investigation.

In court Wednesday, 10 large packets in manila envelopes, sealed with tape, sat on a table to Yim’s right. If one were allowed to look inside at the reams of paper, they would answer a lot of questions in what is arguably the highest-profile unsolved case in Toronto’s history.

These materials — the most recent ITO is 599 typed pages — were filed in support of requests by the police for judicial authorizations which can be either search warrants to search a place, or “production orders” to obtain such things as records from banks, companies and cellphone providers, which maintain both call and texting records. In a modern police investigation, production orders are often used to obtain GPS tracking information from cellphone companies and automotive companies. The Star revealed last year that police investigated this case obtained production orders to obtain airline flight information from two providers of airline loyalty points plans. The identity of the owners of the cards remains sealed.

The Crown is opposing release of all of this information on the grounds that, as Scrutton described it, the case is an active, ongoing investigation and any material made public could harm the progress of the case.

In response, the Star raised case law to the contrary, including a series of cases related to the high-profile murder of Saint John, N.B., business tycoon Richard Oland. Within a year of Oland’s July 2011 murder, media lawyer David Coles was successful in having redacted portions of various search warrants released publicly, and before a charge was laid. (Oland’s son Dennis was eventually charged with the murder. His first trial ended in a guilty verdict by a jury but that was overturned on appeal. Evidence has recently been completed in his retrial, by judge alone, with a decision not expected for two months or more.)

In the Sherman case, as of this week, the police have identified 243 people they classify as “witnesses” — a wide classification of people ranging from friends and family of the Shermans to business acquaintances to individuals who discovered the bodies and others. In his answer to questions from the Star, Det. Yim said “almost all” of them have been interviewed by the police but one or more people (he would not say how many) have refused. He said he did not know the reason.

“They don’t have to give a reason. They are not obliged to give a statement to police,” Yim said. Asked if these people were what is often called “persons of interest” (one step below suspects in police vernacular), Yim said he could not answer.

Police have also had difficulty with other “witnesses” they have identified. Some, he said, “we can’t find.” Some “may have left the country.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

At one time, in the first few months of the Sherman probe, police said 50 officers were working on the case. Yim said he is now the only full-time officer. Other detectives assigned, who are also working on other cases, include the officer in charge, Det. Sgt. Brandon Price; the former officer in charge, Insp. Susan Gomes (she now runs the police force’s operations centre but is still involved in the Sherman probe), Det. Const. Kristy Devine, and an officer Yim did not identify in the “intelligence” unit of the force. The intelligence unit does analysis and also is often involved in “covert” operations, court heard.

Court heard Wednesday that only a handful of interviews have been done since last September. The focus has shifted to analyzing DNA collected at the scene, security-camera footage and the massive amount of records obtained from production orders.

Yim revealed to court that “within a week” he and his fellow officers will receive a “high volume” of electronic records from “an entity.” He said it is in response to a production order served on the entity in January. Asked if this was a significant break in the case, Yim said he could not respond without breaching the sealing orders. Asked if it is unusual for there to be such a delay in responding to a court order, Yim said he has dealt with this “entity” before and it is not unusual.

The police investigation has also recently received “279 tips” from lawyer Brian Greenspan and the team of private investigators who are employed by the four Sherman children in what was referred to in court as a “parallel investigation.” These are tips, court heard, that came to the Greenspan team following the posting by the Sherman family of a $10-million reward. The Star asked if Detective Yim was aware that some of these tips came from psychics who had called into the private investigators’ tip line. Yim said he could not reveal any information about the contents of the tips, including whether they were of value, though court was told they came to the police in weekly batches beginning on January 4 of this year.

Yim said one of his primary concerns is that if the ITO information was made public, revealing the identities of the people police have interviewed, there would be safety and other concerns.

“Witnesses who have given us statements, if their information was to be revealed prior to any arrest they wouldn’t be comfortable giving us a statement again,” he said. “If the perpetrators were to find out that these people had given a statement these witnesses would have concern for their safety because now the perpetrators know they have given a statement to police.”

The Star, in its argument, pointed to Supreme Court of Canada cases that require police to be specific, not speculative, in suggesting there was a danger in revealing information from ITOs. Yim was asked by the Star if he, in his experience, had any specific knowledge of an investigation being harmed in this manner and he said he did not. Asked if he knew of any of the 243 witnesses who had told the police they have a concern for their safety, Yim replied: “I am not aware.”

Pringle told court she will review the material and release her judgment in the near future. She said she acknowledged the frustration of people who wanted to know what has been happening in the investigation, and those frustrated by the time it has taken to probe the murders.

“I think everyone wishes there had been an arrest in this case,” Pringle said.

Previous stories in the Star, reporting on earlier court challenges in this matter, stated that as of last Oct. 31 there had been 37 search warrants and production orders. Yim told court that previous information reflected a different way of counting the various orders. He said Wednesday that to date there have actually been 35 judicial authorizations — eight for warrants and the remainder being production orders. Some of those orders gave police the authority to obtain more than one series of records (for example, cellular records from several telephone numbers). He said that in total they have received 78 batches of records or physical items.

The most recent ITO was authorized by Justice Pringle on Jan. 29, 2019. More are being prepared this week, Yim said.

Read more about: