Veteran forensic pathologist Dr. David Chiasson stood beside Barry Sherman’s body on the stainless steel table, preparing to do a second, private autopsy. Natural light filtered through the frosted glass windows of the modern Ontario coroner’s building. Three private detectives, former homicide cops, stood nearby.

The skin was missing from around Sherman’s wrists, surgically removed by another pathologist several days before in the first examination, the official autopsy requested by the police. The same had been done to Honey Sherman’s wrists.

Why? Chiasson wondered. The answer, provided to Chiasson by the first pathologist, and other pieces of information learned that day last December eventually changed the police theory on the Sherman deaths from murder-suicide to double homicide.

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An ongoing Toronto Star investigation has discovered new information about the high-profile case, from how and when the bodies were discovered to the lengthy deliberations over the manner of death which may have negatively impacted the police investigation.

Information in this story is based on interviews with people with close knowledge of the private investigation into the case, who provided the details on the condition that they not be identified.

Barry and Honey Sherman were both at Apotex headquarters late in the afternoon on Wednesday, Dec. 13. They had a meeting with architects from the firm designing their new home in Forest Hill, an upscale Toronto neighbourhood.

Honey left Apotex first, before 5 p.m. Barry, founder of the generic drug giant, left in the early evening. His last known email from his Apotex account was sent between 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., sources at Apotex say. The Star could not determine the contents of the email, but it was business-related. The Star could not determine if anyone at Apotex responded to the email.

Both Shermans went to their home on Old Colony Rd. that Wednesday evening. The house was for sale, with a listed price of $6.9 million. Barry had wanted to live the rest of his life at Old Colony Rd.; Honey had convinced him it was time to move.

Thursday passed without anyone raising an alarm over not hearing from Barry or Honey. Family and friend sources say that with both Barry and Honey having busy lives it was not unusual to go a day without hearing from them.

Friday morning, at 8:30 a.m., the housekeeper and a person who waters the Shermans’ plants once a week arrived at Old Colony Rd. for regularly scheduled Friday-morning visits.

Both housekeeper and plant waterer busied themselves on the main and second floor for the next two hours. Both floors are roughly 3,600 square feet with multiple rooms. Neither the housekeeper or the person watering the plants descended to the lower level, which includes a garage, recreation area and swimming pool.

At 10:30 a.m., two real estate agents and a couple interested in purchasing the house arrived. The house was listed for sale by agent Judi Gottlieb. Gottlieb was away in Florida, and an other agent went in her place. The other agent present represented the prospective purchasers.

After touring the upper floor, the agents and the clients went downstairs and walked along a corridor leading to the pool. Gottlieb’s assistant went first. She walked through the doorway to the pool room and recoiled. At the other end of the room she saw two bodies, backs to the pool, held in a sitting position by something tied around their necks. She turned and ushered the other agent and the clients back, making an excuse, saying this part of the home was off limits at the moment.

The discovery was made shortly after 11 a.m. Friday. Gottlieb’s assistant called up to the housekeeper, telling her what she had seen. Then Gottlieb made a phone call, seeking direction on what to do. The Star could not determine who she called.

Meanwhile, the housekeeper called 911. Toronto Police 911 system records a call coming in at 11:43 a.m. Police were en route by 11:44 a.m. Toronto EMS told the Star they dispatched two paramedic crews and a supervisor at the same time.

Determined to be “suspicious” deaths, the bodies were kept at the home until the forensic identification unit of the Toronto Police could photograph and examine the scene.

The Star could not determine when the family was notified of the deaths. Officials at Apotex learned of the deaths from media reports published online around 3:30 p.m. Friday.

That evening, as condolences poured in from around the world and the media continued to descend on the normally quiet neighbourhood, statements were made by police that would upset the Sherman family.

The case was initially assigned to local investigators at 33 Division, though homicide detectives did attend at the death scene. On that Friday evening, there were two statements made by Toronto police officers at the scene, one from a police spokesman and one from Det. Brandon Price of the homicide squad. The media was told by police that there were no signs of forced entry and no suspects were being sought.

By the next day, Saturday, numerous media outlets quoted police sources saying that police believed Barry strangled Honey, then committed suicide.

Police documents filed in court in support of search warrants show that in the first month of the investigation, police provided information to Justice Leslie Pringle stating that Honey was the only victim at 50 Old Colony Rd. When police file information to obtain a search warrant (Pringle has issued all of the warrants in this case) they must list the offences they are pursuing. Between the discovery of the bodies and mid January, the only offence was the murder of Honey.

Saturday, the day after the bodies were discovered, autopsies were conducted at the Office of the Chief Coroner in north Toronto. Pathologist Dr. Michael Pickup, a staff pathologist at the provincial forensic pathologist unit in Toronto, did both autopsies. Police were present at the autopsies.

Pickup has been qualified as a forensic pathologist since September 2010, according to the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

In performing the autopsies, Pickup examined photos of the scene taken by police, showing how the bodies were positioned, and conducted a forensic examination of both bodies, taking skin biopsies from various areas to be tested to see if injuries were old or recent.

Sources say Pickup saw indications that it might be a case of double murder. However, Pickup did not make that ruling. Neither Pickup or his boss, chief forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Pollanen, would discuss the case with the Star, citing provincial privacy rules.

Toronto Police will only say that until late January, they considered all options, including murder suicide, double suicide and double murder. Police will not shed light on the conversations between Dr. Pickup and the Toronto Police investigators in the autopsy room regarding the first autopsies.

At 4:14 p.m. on the Saturday, about the time the autopsies were concluding, the Sherman family released a statement through Apotex taking issue with the news circulating that it was a murder suicide.

“We are shocked and think it’s irresponsible that police sources have reportedly advised the media of a theory which neither their family, their friends nor their colleagues believe to be true,” the family said in the statement.

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“We urge the Toronto Police Service to conduct a thorough, intensive and objective criminal investigation, and urge the media to refrain from further reporting as to the cause of these tragic deaths until the investigation is completed.”

The family hired top criminal lawyer Brian Greenspan, who in turn assembled a team of former homicide detectives who had retired and become private investigators. Greenspan also hired Dr. David Chiasson, who was the Ontario’s chief forensic pathologist from 1994 to 2000 and is now is a senior pathologist at Toronto’s Sick Children’s Hospital.

The funeral for the Sherman couple was scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 21. Chiasson and others on Greenspan’s team had to move fast. They sought and received permission from the coroner’s office to conduct private autopsies before the scheduled funeral. It is unusual for a family to conduct their own autopsy, but not unprecedented.

On Wednesday, Dec. 20, Chiasson entered the pathology suite at the modern coroner’s office.

In the new, state-of-the-art autopsy suite at the Office of the Chief Coroner in north Toronto, natural light filters through frosted glass and the scene looks like a high-tech set for a modern medical drama. Chiasson, when he was Ontario’s chief forensic pathologist, performed autopsies in the cramped, old building downtown.

Chiasson noticed that all of the skin had been removed from the wrists of both Barry and Honey. Present with Chiasson were three private investigators — Tom Klatt, Ray Zarb and Mike Davis — all former members of the Toronto Police homicide squad.

As Chiasson began the first autopsy, Dr. Michael Pickup entered the autopsy suite. With him, he brought a series of photographs taken at the death scene by Toronto police forensic identification officers, and also detailed photos of the bodies taken prior to the first autopsies that Pickup had performed.

Det.-Sgt. Susan Gomes during a press conference at Police Headquarters, January 26, 2018.

The photos showed markings made by some type of rope or plastic tie that had encircled both Barry and Honey’s wrists and damaged the skin. The deduction Chiasson and the private detectives made was that their wrists had been bound prior to death. From the photos they could not determine if the hands were bound in front, or behind their backs. As to the biopsy that would determine the age of the skin abrasions on the wrists, the Star could not get answers. The photographs indicated they were recent abrasions, sources said.

Photos of the scene did not reveal any ropes or ties that could be responsible for the abrasions.

The photos displayed by Dr. Pickup also showed the positioning of the bodies near the pool. As has been previously reported, leather belts were looped around their necks and used to hold them in a sitting position, backs to the pool.

In Chiasson’s examination, it was determined that they were likely not strangled with the belts. Instead, they were strangled with some other type of ligature, and the belts were then put around their necks.

Sources have told the Star that while one belt appears to be Barry Sherman’s (he was not wearing a belt when found) it is not known where the other belt came from.

“Photographs of both the scene and the autopsy, certain things struck all of them collectively and lead them to the conclusion that it was a double homicide,” said a source close to the private investigation.

That conclusion was made on Dec. 20, the day before the funeral. The Toronto Police did not interview Chiasson at that time.

Photos of the death scene are included in the search warrant application documents, according to information filed in court by police in support of the force’s successful challenge of the Star’s attempt to access the entire search warrant file under seal in court. The Star was successful in getting the court to release some information, including the locations searched by police (the provincial health ministry for Barry and Honey Sherman’s health records, and banking and loyalty card information for parties not disclosed in the documents).

In all of the warrant and production order applications filed by police between Dec. 20 and Jan. 15 — 14 in total — Toronto police state that they considered only Honey a victim of a crime.

On Friday, Jan. 19, the Toronto Star published an investigative report revealing that the private investigation team, including Dr. Chiasson, had concluded it was a case of double murder.

The following Monday, the Toronto police homicide squad interviewed Dr. Chiasson. That Friday, Jan. 26, at a well-attended press conference at police headquarters, Homicide Det. Sgt. Susan Gomes announced that after closely investigating three theories of the death, police had ruled it a double homicide.

The next batch of search warrants and production orders filed by police, on Feb. 15, listed both Barry and Honey as victims of homicide. One of those production orders is a judicial authorization to obtain “all medical records for Bernard Sherman and Anna Debra Honey Sherman obtained by Dr. Michael Pickup under the authority of the Coroner’s Act during the coroner’s investigation” into the Sherman deaths. That document, filed in court, does not detail or explain the records at issue.

The Sherman investigation is now into its fifth month.

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