A grainy security video seized by police in the early days of the Barry and Honey Sherman investigation shows “suspicious activity” in the driveway beside the Sherman home just before the billionaire couple was murdered.
Two SUVs pull into the driveway, four individuals get out, they move around the neighbour’s property for at least an hour. At one point, one of the mysterious figures can be seen running from one part of the property to another. At times, due to the coverage area of the video cameras, they move out of the frame, then reappear.
Toronto police have refused to comment on the significance of the video, portions of which the Star recently viewed. The Star asked if they had identified the occupants of the vehicle; if they are suspects or persons of interest in the investigation, or if the SUV occupants had been interviewed to see if they had any information that would help with the murder investigation. Spokesperson Stephanie Sayer did not respond to any of the Star’s specific questions.
“This is an active and ongoing investigation,” Stephanie Sayer said in an emailed statement. “While we can’t share specific details at this time, TPS remains fully committed to resolving this case.”
Barry was the founder of Apotex, a generic pharmaceutical company. His wife, Honey, was like Barry, a philanthropist. Together, they gave away hundreds of millions of dollars to charity over their lifetime. The couple was murdered on the evening of Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. Their bodies — posed in a seated position on the deck of their basement swimming pool — were not discovered until Friday morning, two days after they died. Toronto Police have said both Honey and Barry were victims of a “targeted” homicide.
The case has stymied the Toronto Police for more than seven years. Toronto police say they have multiple “persons of interest” and appear no closer to laying charges as each year passes.
This story details what is on the security video, which an investigative source familiar with the video described to the Star as “suspicious activity.”
The Star does not have a copy of the video, but a reporter has taken detailed notes of what’s seen in the footage. This story is based on those notes.
First, here’s an explainer to understand the street geography referenced in this story:
The Shermans lived on the north side of Old Colony Road, in the Bayview Ave and Highway 401 area of Toronto. Old Colony Road runs east off Bayview. Few homeowners on this section of the street had security cameras in 2017. The Shermans had no cameras. Barry was dead set against them or any type of security. Just the week before the murders, at dinner before attending a Toronto Maple Leaf hockey game, a friend suggested Barry get a security system and a bodyguard/driver. Barry replied it was a waste of time, and told the friend: “If they are going to get you they are going to get you.”
But a house on the south side of Old Colony did have two video cameras. That house is across from and slightly west of the Sherman home. Those cameras were pointed at the homeowner’s own driveway and lawn, but they also picked up a sliver of the west side of the Sherman property, 50 Old Colony Rd. The cameras also pick up a full view of the next-door neighbours’ house to the west.
The timeline of the billionaire murders
On the Wednesday they were murdered, Honey rendezvoused with Barry for a 5 p.m. meeting at Apotex after an afternoon of shopping. It was the second day of Hanukkah and Honey was purchasing gifts for grandchildren. Barry had been at his office all day. The late afternoon meeting in a small Apotex boardroom was to discuss building plans for a $30 million mansion in Forest Hill, the Toronto neighbourhood where Barry grew up and where their daughter Alexandra, her husband and two grandchildren lived. Barry never wanted to move but Honey had her heart set on the plan. The Shermans had listed the Old Colony Rd. home at $6.9 million two weeks earlier; they had an offer for $1 million below asking, which Barry thought was “ridiculous.”
Barry was a workaholic, normally staying at his office until 10 or 11 p.m. The Shermans’ home life wasn’t great, and they’d recently had an argument by email. But at the Wednesday meeting at Apotex, Barry mentioned that he had to go home early that night. (The builder told police this but said he could not recall Barry’s reason.)
At 6:15 p.m., the meeting with the builders ended. Honey walked out of Apotex, got into her Lexus SUV, and drove off. The builders left at the same time. Barry stayed at work for a bit. He was a well-known micromanager and though his role was now chairman, he was still the owner and kept a close watch on his multibillion-dollar company. His emails that evening reveal he was dealing with issues in England with a pharmaceutical regulator, and problems with one of Apotex’s plants in India.
After leaving Apotex, Honey drove to Bayview Village mall, did some shopping and arrived home at approximately 8 p.m. (police will not say exactly when she arrived home).
The portion of the video seem by the Star shows activity on Old Colony Road and at the neighbour’s house beginning almost exactly the time Honey left Apotex — 6:15 p.m. It’s dark out and Old Colony is not well-lit, so the video is grainy. It’s nevertheless chilling, given what is about to happen.
Like many of the houses in the area, including the Shermans’, the next-door neighbours to the west had a crescent-shaped driveway with two entrances, one on each side of the property.
The approximate viewing angle of the security footage, which captured the crescent-shaped driveway of neighbours’ home, centre, and the edge of the Sherman property at 50 Old Colony Rd., right.
Google Street View
In the video, the lights inside the neighbours’ home are off; a single bulb over the garage on the east side of the home is on.
At 6:17 p.m., a white SUV comes into view, approaching from the east. The SUV — let’s call it “Vehicle A” — passes the Sherman home, then slows and turns into the neighbours’ driveway. Vehicle A drives around the crescent and passes the front door of the house before it comes to a stop on the west side of the property, facing west. Vehicle A’s lights then go off.
Thirty seconds later, a second SUV — “Vehicle B” — pulls into the same driveway entrance as the first. This SUV appears to be light-coloured, but not white. It parks on the east part of the house, facing north, just in front of the home’s garage, which is adjacent to the Sherman property.
Soon, four people get out of the parked vehicles. First, Person 1 gets out of Vehicle A and walks towards the neighbours’ front door. At the same time, Person 2 exits Vehicle B and also walks towards the entrance, appearing to meet Person 1 returning from the door.
Twenty-five seconds later, Person 3 gets out of Vehicle B and again moves toward the front door; a few seconds later, Person 4 also gets out of Vehicle B and runs across the driveway towards the entrance.
New photos reveal that Honey Sherman had time to enter her home and put down gift bags before
Due to trees and bushes that obscure the security camera’s view of the property, it’s impossible to tell if anyone enters the front door. No lights go on inside the house.
The activity — people going back and forth between cars and the door — continues for two minutes, followed by no movement for about 30 minutes.
At 6:58 p.m., a person walks from the front door to Vehicle A, then back to the front entrance, back to Vehicle A, back to the house, and finally back to Vehicle A.
At 7:05 p.m., a person walks from the front of the house to Vehicle B. The lights go on in Vehicle B and the car pulls out of the driveway. It heads west onto Old Colony Road at 7:09 p.m.
The video seen by the Star viewed ends there and the Star has been unable to obtain a video record of what comes next. The video viewed by the Star does not show the departure of Vehicle A, nor does it show Honey or Barry’s arrival home. As the Star has reported, Honey was at Bayview Village Mall after leaving Apotex, and to get home she most likely drove south on Bayview before turning onto Old Colony Road — which means she would approach her home from the west, passing in front of her neighbours’ home. It’s likely that the next section of the security video shows Honey coming home and records her exact time of arrival.
Police documents that remain under court seal show that they have a comprehensive understanding of when both Barry and Honey arrived home that night. According to the Star’s research, Honey arrives home around 8 p.m., and Barry at 9 p.m.
New questions raised by the video
Like many developments in the Sherman case, the video provides additional understanding of what happened in the timeline of the Dec. 13, 2017, murder — but it also raises many questions.
As far as the Star has been able to determine, the then-owners of the house next door — a retired health care professional and his wife who long ago moved — were not home. They typically went to Florida at that time of year. The Star has called and emailed the couple hoping to find out if there was any explanation for the activity at their house, but they have not responded.
The Star’s ongoing investigation, which includes interviewing people who live in the area and people involved in the investigation, has raised the following explanations for the mysterious activity.
First, the area around Old Colony was on high alert due to recent break-ins. Were the people in the SUVs burglars?
Second, a mundane explanation — the couple had something scheduled at their house for that evening such as a visit from a tradesman or family members.
Third, the visitors were there in some connection to the planned murder of the Shermans, which took place soon after the SUVs were in the driveway.
The partial video viewed by the Star almost didn’t make it into the hands of Toronto police investigators. Soon after police crime scene tape went up around the Sherman home on Friday, Dec. 15, 2017 (the Shermans were murdered on Dec. 13, but their bodies were not discovered for two days), the owners of the home with the cameras approached police on the street and told them they had footage. Police said they were too busy to get the video, but the homeowners persisted and finally, on the following Sunday, an officer walked across the street and obtained a copy.
Investigators eventually discovered the time code on the home security system was off by 24 hours and six minutes. The times in this story have been adjusted to account for this discrepancy.
