Toronto police were investigating a mysterious 911 call down the street from Barry and Honey Sherman’s home at the same time as the Apotex founder and his wife lay dead or dying, a Star investigation reveals.

The Shermans lived at 50 Old Colony Rd. They were last seen alive on the evening of Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. Their bodies were discovered two days later. No official time of death has been released but sources close to the case have said it is believed the Shermans died late on Wednesday or early Thursday morning. Police are investigating the case as a targeted double homicide.

On the Thursday morning at 9:45 a.m., a full day before the Sherman bodies were discovered, homeowners down the road from the Shermans answered a knock on their door. The Star has agreed not to identify the homeowners or their exact address. They live roughly 10 houses away on Old Colony, near Bayview Ave. and Hwy. 401.

The man at the door was a uniformed police officer asking if someone in their home had made a 911 call. The homeowners said no. The officer shared few details, but said police believed it came from the homeowners’ house, but did not say if the call had come from a cellular phone or a landline. The officer did not say what time the call came in.

The next day, when news surfaced late in the afternoon of the Shermans’ bodies being discovered, one of the homeowners happened to be driving near Toronto Police Services 33 Division (the local division that was at the time investigating the Shermans’ deaths before the homicide unit took over). The homeowner went in to make a report, wanting to alert them to the fact a police officer had been on Old Colony Rd. the day before.

“It was just too much of a coincidence and I thought police should know,” the homeowner told the Star. That Friday night at the police division, the homeowner was told by police that “maybe some wires were crossed” and that is why it appeared a 911 call had been made.

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“They made light of it and they said they didn’t think it was anything that was relevant,” the homeowner said.

At the time, police were pursuing the theory that it was a murder-suicide. Six weeks later, police announced it was a double murder. Homicide officers have been probing the case for the last 17 months and recently an officer said during a court proceeding that detectives have a “theory” of the case and “an idea of what happened.” Police will not say if they have a suspect or suspects.

The homeowners who had the visit from police checked with Bell and Rogers and were told there was no evidence of a glitch, crossed wires or a 911 call coming from their house.

“It has left me feeling really weird that (police) would think there was an emergency call coming from me. It just seemed too much of a coincidence,” the homeowner said. Numerous questions have sprung to the mind of the homeowners. Did the police have the wrong address when they came to knock on the homeowners’ door? Did the call come from a cellphone which then hung up and police were not able to get the exact location? Had the call come from 50 Old Colony Rd.?

That was not the only unusual occurrence on the normally quiet Sherman street that Thursday.

At the same time police were checking out the 911 call down the street, a four-door car pulled up in front of the Sherman home. It was 9:11 a.m. and the car remained on the street until 10:16 a.m. By this time, it is most likely that the Shermans were dead, according to sources close to the case.

A security camera on a house across the street from the Sherman home captured a man getting out of the car three times, each time walking onto the Sherman property and up to the front door, according to neighbours whose cameras recorded these events. The neighbours, who provided the video to police, said the images on the video are blurry, as it was focused on their own property and only picked up the Sherman property in the background. They said it was not possible to make out the man’s face, the licence plate on the car or the type of car. The neighbours have said they believed the man went in and out of the Sherman house but the Sherman private detective team has studied the same video and it is “inconclusive” as to whether the man enters the house or stood in the alcove leading to the front door, according to Brian Greenspan, lawyer for the Sherman family.

Given the location of Old Colony Rd., a dead-end street on the east and accessed off Bayview (a main thoroughfare) from the west, it is likely that a police officer would have passed the car parked in front of the Sherman home that Thursday morning on the way to check out the 911 call.

The Star presented these two pieces of information to the Toronto police last week and asked two questions. First, could the police provide information about their investigation of a 911 call from a nearby home that morning, including the time of the call and whether police were certain it came from the homeowners’ house down the street. Second, the Star asked if it was possible that the person knocking on the Shermans’ door was a police officer in an unmarked car, who was also checking out the 911 call.

Director of communications Allison Sparkes gave the following response: “As for your questions below, we are unable to comment on any aspects of open, ongoing investigations.”

The Star went back to Sparkes, noting that it would likely be of public interest if the 911 call was related to the Shermans case, and also that, if the person knocking at the Shermans’ door was a police officer, that would also be of public interest. Sparkes said, “We can’t comment on any aspect of open and ongoing investigations.”

Sources close to the Sherman family say the family is aware of these two events but in the dark on the significance — if any — of the occurrences.

After the Star and other media published information in late March about the mysterious visitor outside of 50 Old Colony, Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders said at a press conference that the police know who the person is — but are not saying.

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“I can tell you we knew who the person was, why they were there, (the person) was interviewed,” Saunders told reporters earlier this year.

The Star reached out to the police constable who went to check out the 911 call but he was unavailable for comment.

Meanwhile, 50 Old Colony has been torn down by the Sherman family and will likely be sold as a building lot. Friends of the Shermans were upset as they drove by the home and saw that almost nothing from the home was carried out and donated to charity. Of concern were items that included two almost new, high-end Sub-Zero refrigerators, other kitchen appliances and the kitchen cabinets themselves. Workers at the site said they were upset, but were following orders to demolish the home and truck all the rubble to a landfill site.

Kevin Donovan is the Star’s chief investigative reporter based in Toronto. He can be reached at 416-312-3503 or via email: kdonovan@thestar.ca

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