Canadian Billionaire Couple Deaths Not Targeted Hit, Cousin Claims

Honey and Barry Sherman, Chairman and CEO of Apotex Inc., were found dead in their Canadian home on Friday, Dec. 15 in an incident police are calling a 'targeted double-homicide.' Photo taken during (UJA) fundraiser in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Aug. 24, 2010. (The Globe and Mail/Janice Pinto/via Reuters)

The cousin of a Canadian billionaire found dead with his wife in December said investigators are wrong to treat their deaths a targeted double-homicide.

Kerry Winter, a cousin of deceased Barry Sherman, told MailOnline that he’s convinced the man murdered his wife Honey Sherman, before taking his own life.

Winter added a disturbing allegation, saying that Barry Sherman once said to him “I want you to whack my wife.”

The CBC reported that police in Toronto, Canada, said on Friday, Jan. 26, that they were investigating the deaths of the pharmaceuticals mogul and his wife as a targeted double homicide. Canadian police had initially concluded the couples’ deaths as “suspicious,”—a murder-suicide. After six weeks of intensive investigation and support from friends and family, who decisively rejected the initial theory and hired private investigators to probe the matter, the police made a sea change.

But now, Sherman’s cousin is throwing his weight behind the original conclusion.

“That’s my feeling [and] I don’t believe somebody out there is going to be found because … Barry did the deed,” Winter said.

His assertion flies in the face of a report prepared by private investigators, as well as the current state of the police investigation, which saw 127 witnesses interviewed and thousands of hours of surveillance video reviewed to arrive at a different conclusion.

“I believe that they were targeted,” said, Det.-Sgt. Susan Gomes, a homicide investigator, at a press conference, according to the CBC.

In a Toronto Star investigative report, Winter was questioned about his bitter conflict with Barry Sherman over the dead man’s vast fortune. In the report Winter was cast as the central figure behind an “acrimonious, billion-dollar lawsuit” against Sherman that lasted over a decade. The newspaper pointed to a ruling one week before the couples’ death, that ordered the cousins who sued Sherman to pay the Apotex founder $300,000 in legal costs.

Winter told the Star that he is aware that the existence of the bitter feud might fuel speculation that he had something to do with the deaths.

“I had absolutely nothing to do with Barry and Honey’s death. Zero. I want to put that on the record,” Winter told the Star in an interview on Thursday, Jan. 25.

The Crime Scene

Barry Sherman, 75, and Honey Sherman, 70, were found dead on Dec. 15 in their $5.4 million home. They were in an upright seated position near a pool in the basement, with the coroner previously ruling they had died from “ligature neck compression.”

There was no indication of a forced entry.

A report by private eyes, including some ex-Toronto homicide detectives, says the deaths may be double murders after an extended struggle, probably two days before the bodies were discovered.

A source told CBC Toronto that their wrists were at one point bound together, but had been unbound by the time they were discovered.

Honey Sherman had cuts on her lip and nose and was sitting in a pool of her blood, according to the CBC Toronto source. But there was less blood on her upper-body clothing, which indicates she had been face-down and bleeding on the floor for some time, before she was bound to the handrail.

The Toronto police also believe it was homicide.

“We have sufficient evidence to describe this as a double homicide investigation and that both Honey and Barry Sherman were in fact targeted,” Gomes said, the Guardian reported. “We haven’t developed any suspects, outside of understanding that people are outstanding for – or a person is outstanding for – this offense.”

‘They Wouldn’t Do That’

The Shermans’ family and neighbors have rejected the murder-suicide theory since it was proposed, with neighbor Eli Kanter telling CBC Toronto, “They wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t end that way.”

Their son, Jonathon Sherman, said in his eulogy to his parents on Dec. 21, “We’ve had to navigate through a terrifying maze of non-information and unfounded speculation. I kept expecting my parents to walk through the front door and say, ‘Everything will be fine. We’ve taken control of the situation.’”

Barry Sherman was the founder of pharmaceutical giant Apotex and was believed to have accumulated a fortune of $4.77 billion before he and his wife died.

However, according to the NY Post he was fighting numerous lawsuits connected with both the pharmaceutical company and his own fortune.

The Post reported that family members said the couple had planned to travel to Miami and were delighted with the recent birth of a grandchild.

Epoch Times reporter John Smithies contributed to this report.

Recommended Video:

Neighbors React to Parents Arrest After Their 13 Children Found Shackled, Malnourished in Home