The Toronto Police intelligence unit has been called in to the Barry and Honey Sherman murder probe and has recently made a "significant contribution," according to documents filed in court in the high-profile case.

The details of that contribution were not revealed by the police detective who filed the court document, but in it he outlined that he believes the unit's contribution will soon lead to more search warrant requests.

Multi-billionaire pharmaceutical titan Barry Sherman and his wife, Honey, well-known philanthropists, were found dead in the basement swimming pool room of their Toronto home on Friday, Dec. 15, 2017. Strangled, they were seated with their backs to the pool, leather belts looped around their necks and attached to a metre-high railing just above their heads. The Shermans were most likely killed late Wednesday evening, two days previous. For six weeks, police investigators strongly considered the possibility it was a murder-suicide.

The Toronto Star is in court this week attempting to get access to more than 600 pages of search warrant material that lay out the progress to date of the Shermans murder probe. Called an "information to obtain," these pages to date have led to 38 separate search warrant or production orders.

Toronto Police homicide detective Dennis Yim has filed an affidavit with the Ontario Court of Justice in support of the police attempt to keep these documents secret. To maintain the court seal on these records, Yim and crown attorney Peter Scrutton have to convince Justice Leslie Pringle that release of the documents would tip off the killer or killers and jeopardize the investigation. The Star will argue this week that, two years in, it is time to open at least some of the documents — particularly those detailing any missteps by police — to public scrutiny.

Pringle, the justice who has authorized all the warrants, has three times before denied the Star's request, although during the court process some information has been released. Most notably, it was revealed in April through cross examination of Yim by a Star reporter that the police have a "theory" of the case and an "idea of what happened."

Yim's affidavit does provide some new information relating to the case, including the revelation about the intelligence unit, a squad that carries out surveillance and other covert operations, wiretaps, and also has expertise in computers and data.

The last time the Star was in court on this matter, in April, Yim said the homicide unit was expecting a significant amount of electronic records as a result of a production order on an "entity."

According to Yim's latest affidavit, that information came in and police received "voluminous material."

"This material was analyzed by the Toronto Police Service Intelligence Unit, which produced a 41-page analytical report to investigators on September 6, 2019," Yim states in his affidavit. Yim said the report is still being reviewed by the homicide squad, and "more judicial authorizations have been contemplated."

Yim also said that based on the review of the intelligence report, coupled with previous information police obtained, detectives have developed "several avenues that warranted further investigation."

The Supreme Court of Canada, in numerous rulings over the years, has stated that once a search warrant or production order has been served on a person or a company, the search warrant documents are deemed public, unless the police can show that to make them public would harm the "administration of justice" — in other words, that the release of the information would hurt the police unit's chance of catching and convicting a killer. Courts have held that the expected damage to the investigation must be "well-grounded in evidence" and not speculative. The Star has filed information in court suggesting police are only speculating the probe will be harmed.

In his affidavit, Yim said the case is ongoing and active, and all information must remain sealed. His job is to prepare search warrant applications and review the results, and he is the only detective working full-time on the case. Two others are assisting, but they are also working on other cases.

"This case remains a priority to the investigators involved and to the Toronto Police Service as a whole," Yim stated.

He said a total of 250 people have been interviewed and recently, "several witnesses have provided additional statements to investigators, in addition to their original statements." New information provided by earlier witnesses led police to obtain another search warrant.

Another revelation in Yim's affidavit relates to the private investigation led by criminal defence lawyer Brian Greenspan and private detective Tom Klatt. According to Yim, some of the information Greenspan and Klatt's team have provided is short on details.

"Some of the tips (provided by Greenspan's team) appear to be incomplete or missing and required further follow up with the private investigators," Yim says in his affidavit. "It is also my understanding that the private investigators will be providing the Toronto Police Service with further disclosure in the near future. The information received from the private investigators will be reviewed in conjunction with the evidence that the Toronto Police Service has collected in this investigation thus far."

The relationship between police and private detectives has been rocky at times. Last October, Greenspan and his team publicly criticized the Toronto Police team on the Sherman case, alleging that it missed a number of fingerprints and palm prints at the crime scene.

Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders responded by raising concerns that crime scene details released by Greenspan could damage the case. Saunders told CTV News after the Greenspan press conference that details the lawyer revealed — describing specifically how the Sherman bodies were positioned and how Barry's glasses were perched seemingly undisturbed on his nose — potentially "taints your investigation."

The Toronto Star is continuing its attempt to unseal the search warrant material.

Kevin Donovan can be reached at (416) 312-3503 or kdonovan@thestar.ca

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