The multibillion-dollar estate of murdered philanthropists Barry and Honey Sherman is part of the police investigation into their deaths, a homicide detective has told a Toronto court.

“The information from the (Sherman) estate files is embedded … it is embedded within the ITO,” Det. Const. Dennis Yim told the Ontario court of justice during an application from the Toronto Star to unseal hundreds of pages of search warrant documents called an “ITO,” or “information to obtain.”

Yim told court that as a result of the sealing order by Judge Leslie Pringle, he was not allowed to explain why the financial estate information —which details Barry Sherman’s plan for his fortune — is included at various points in the police investigation documents.

Barry Sherman, 75, the founder of generic drug giant Apotex, and his wife, Honey, 70, were found dead in their Toronto home almost two years ago, on Dec. 15, 2017. They were strangled, held in a seated position by men’s leather belts looped around their necks and tied to a metre-high railing near their basement swimming pool. After both police and a private detective team searched the house, the family had the home on Old Colony Road torn down.

The Star has previously reported that Honey Sherman died without a will, and Barry Sherman’s own will left his entire holdings to the couple’s four children — Lauren, Jonathon, Alexandra and Kaelen — along with instructions that the trustees of his estate could, if they wish, give financial payouts to the couple’s nieces and nephews. At one point in recent years, Barry Sherman had signalled to friends his intention to give much of his wealth to charity. Sources have told the Star that this plan is not reflected in his will, written in 2013.

In a separate case, now before the Supreme Court of Canada, the Star is seeking the Sherman estate files. The Ontario Court of Appeal earlier ruled there was no harm in making the Sherman estate documents public, but the Sherman family wants the country’s highest court to over turn that ruling. A decision is expected later this year.

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Twenty-two months in, the Sherman murder probe by Toronto police has interviewed 250 individuals and obtained, using judicial search warrants and production orders, a vast amount of information. Yim said the investigation is progressing and it has received a major boost from a recent report carried out by civilian analysts from the Toronto police intelligence unit.

As part of its attempt to have at least some portions of the police documents unsealed, a Star reporter questioned Yim for more than two hours. Yim cautiously answered some questions, shedding light on a case that has captured both local and international attention.

Is the investigation getting closer to a resolution? Yim was asked.

“I am optimistic. Cautiously optimistic,” said Yim, the only full-time officer assigned to the case, along with two other detectives who work on the Sherman case and others.

The Sherman investigation previously had its troubles. The Star has reported that detectives initially pursued a murder-suicide theory. Also, detectives were slow to collect some video surveillance information from both Apotex and a house across the street; and did not begin collecting DNA and fingerprints to rule out people as suspects (such as a trainer who was with the Shermans the day they died) until eight months into the case.

On the topic of the Sherman family’s private investigation, led by Toronto criminal defence lawyer Brian Greenspan and retired Toronto homicide detective Tom Klatt, Yim said that police received regular handovers of “tips” until early in July. Among the 343 tips the private team has sent to date (the family put up a $10-million reward for information) was at least one from a psychic. The tips, in the form of emails or synopses of voice mails left at the tip line, were sent to the Toronto homicide unit on a USB key.

Asked if he had ever seen a situation in which a criminal defence lawyer acting for a family had provided this sort of co-operation with police, Yim said, “I have never seen it before.”

Greenspan has told the media that he would like his team to work with the Toronto police in a “public-private partnership,” an offer the police declined.

Yim also revealed that both the Ontario Provincial Police and the RCMP provided assistance to Toronto police on the Sherman probe in the early days of the case. He said he could not describe the nature of the assistance.

Yim told court that the Toronto homicide squad had searched not only the Shermans’ Toronto home, but also their (now sold) condominium in Florida.

Yim answered questions about the “voluminous material” police received from a production order earlier this year. He said that material — he called it “data” — was sent to police from an “entity” on May 7, 2019, and on July 18 “the data was in possession of the intelligence unit with instructions to analyze it.” That analysis was completed in early September, Yim said. He said police will be seeking court approval to issue more production orders to obtain additional information as a result of the intelligence unit report.

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“For the record, can you tell the court what type of data this is? Is it GPS data? Cellphone data?” Yim was asked on the witness stand. “I can’t,” Yim said, explaining that to do so would harm the investigation.

He said the homicide squad needed the analytical expertise of civilian employees of the police department who work as analysts and are adept at “managing and analyzing large amounts of data.”

“The report will assist us in advancing the investigation significantly,” Yim told court.

Yim also spent some time explaining a concern of the homicide team that the person or persons whose records police have obtained not find out police are snooping around.

Of the 38 judicial orders police have obtained, the identity of the majority of the entities that have been ordered to produce information has been kept secret from both the general public and the person who is the “owner” of the records. Yim told court that in most cases police obtained a “non-disclosure order” from Judge Pringle, who also signed off on all the judicial orders in the case.

That means that, using the hypothetical example of a cellular phone company, or an automobile company that has GPS locational records, there is a court order in place to prevent the company from telling the individual that his or her records have been searched.

“There may be a harm if the entities divulged to the individual who owns the record … there may be a harm to the investigation,” Yim told court. (Yim uses the word “entity” to describe a company or organization that maintains records.)

“They can’t let anyone know they have produced this information,” Yim said.

As part of its questioning of Yim, the Star explained that it had reviewed numerous ITOs from other, unrelated cases. Each one had, the Star found, a section at the start of the ITO that identified “suspects” or “persons of interest.”

Yim, asked to differentiate the two, said a person of interest is “someone that may be involved in a crime, but there’s not enough evidence or proof to elevate them to a suspect.” A suspect is someone believed by police to have committed the crime.

Yim said that even though he has said police have a “theory” and an “idea of what happened,” he cannot reveal if they have a person of interest or a suspect.

“If I speak in general terms I may be able to explain it. If in a case there is only one perpetrator and that perpetrator knows that he is the only one, if I answer that we have a person of interest or a suspect then that may alert the perpetrator that the police are onto him. That’s why when you ask me that question, I am reluctant to answer.”

Pringle is expected to rule within a week on whether any parts of the ITO documents can be revealed.

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