Still a Mystery

You can't write this stuff.

It doesn't get any more strange or bizarre than this.

Police are treating the deaths

of Barry and Honey Sherman as suspicious.

One of the nation's wealthiest couples found dead

at their mansion in Toronto.

You don't get to be someone of Barry Sherman's wealth

and not make a few enemies along the way.

Police say this could be the key.

This individual is a suspect.

This was clearly done expressively.

Is this done as some sort of message?

Or is this done strictly for some perverse gratification?

I am just frantic.

I'm calling everyone I can think of.

We have to find Nieko.

His cell phone ping heading to Michigan

and then heading to Tennessee.

After almost five years of dead-end leads,

today police found the pick-up truck

Nieko Lisi had been driving when he disappeared.

It was just, like, the wind had been sucked right out of my sails.

The police are called to a mansion

in one of Toronto's wealthiest neighborhoods.

What they discover sends shockwaves across the country.

Canadian police are investigating

the mysterious death of one of the nation's wealthiest couples.

We turn to that murder mystery that has gripped Canada.

The Shermans were found there Friday, strangled.

CBC News has confirmed they were found beside the pool in the basement.

Police are treating the deaths as suspicious

and homicide detectives have taken over the case.

The memorial will be held at the International Centre.

To hold everyone who came to say goodbye,

the prime minister among them.

Remember this...

Our parents never left anyone behind.

They were taken from us.

Barry Sherman was born in 1942

into a Jewish family in Toronto.

His father, a partner in a zipper-making company,

dies when Barry is nine years old.

Barry grew up as a bookish kid.

He was gifted in math and science from a very early age.

Was not into sports,

was quiet, shy, reserved.

A bright teenager,

at 16 Barry studies engineering

at the University of Toronto

and completes a PhD in astrophysics at MIT.

He was very driven.

In his teens he worked for his uncle who ran a pharmaceutical company.

Barry was a workaholic.

He was invested in math and science,

and he learned the pharmaceutical business

from his uncle and he excelled.

This was also someone who admitted to having an ego.

He told a Globe and Mail reporter that his IQ was 180,

and that he'd declined an offer to work for NASA.

By the mid '70s, Barry owns his own pharma company

with annual sales ultimately exceeding $1 billion.

Honey was volunteering at a a hospital when she met Barry.

She was there. Her mom said it was a good place to meet a doctor.

And a friend, a nurse, had introduced her to Barry.

A year later they were married.

They have four children.

Three daughters and a son.

Barry's wife Honey rises to prominence in Canadian philanthropy,

serving on the boards of several charities.

Dancing in the drugstore...

with Apotex products.

I think from the moment we heard whispers that the Shermans,

that there was something involving the Shermans,

it was very obvious that it was going to be a huge deal.

On December 12th, Honey misses a board meeting at her hospital foundation

without notifying them beforehand.

This is highly unusual for her.

Reached by email, Honey says I'm dealing with some stuff.

The next day, Honey meets Barry at work

to discuss design plans for a new house they're constructing.

She drives home and Barry leaves the office a little later.

It's the last day the Shermans are seen alive.

So, Barry and Honey were in the process of selling their home,

and it was a real estate agent who came by the house on December 15th.

The Shermans' real estate agent

was showing the home to two prospective buyers.

They're touring this big magnificent home

and now it's time for the lap pool, the hot tub area.

And they walk into this horrific scene

where they discover the homeowners have been killed in this room.

Barry was seated with his legs outstretched in front of him.

One was crossed over the other.

His glasses were sitting on his face untouched.

They had belts tied around their necks

hanging from the railing around the pool.

They're both almost in this seated position.

It's very strange.

The manner in which the bodies were discovered

is indicative of what's known as a low hang.

You're going to stage a crime scene

to look like a murder-suicide,

a very expedited convenient method

to use for the offender.

One eerie detail about the scene,

the positions of Barry and Honey's bodies,

nearly match those of a sculpture of human figures

sitting on speakers in the basement.

This was clearly done expressively.

Is this done as some sort of message

that only a handful of people would understand?

Or is this done strictly for some perverse gratification

to further degrade the victims in death.

After initially investigating the scene,

the police can't say definitively

if it's a homicide or murder-suicide.

The first investigators on the scene would have

no doubt been a little perplexed.

This was not the type of scene that they were accustomed to seeing.

The cause of death for both Shermans was ligature neck compression

with the only presented options being double suicide,

homicide-suicide, or double homicide.

Now we have to consider was this murder or was this suicide.

And also we have the fact that there's no forced entry into the home.

The fact that there's no forced entry,

the offender was known to the Shermans and was allowed entry

or got the drop on Honey Sherman when she arrived home

and essentially forced his way in.

The Sherman family is not convinced this is a murder-suicide.

They hire a famous lawyer, Brian Greenspan, to conduct a parallel investigation.

The lawyer assembles his own team

of private investigators and forensic specialists

and even conducts a new autopsy.

The second pathologist hired to look at the bodies

determines it's unlikely Barry or Honey died by suicide.

Furthermore, the abrasions found on Barry and Honey's wrists

indicate that they may have been handcuffed,

possibly with something like zip ties.

The second pathologist was able to extrapolate

that the scene had been staged

just from the data he was able to acquire from the autopsies.

After the second autopsy,

We realized that we're talking about a double homicide investigation.

The police begin to change their tune.

I believe in the six weeks of review of the evidence that we've attained

that they were targeted.

Now that the police are convinced this is a double murder,

the question becomes who would want to kill Honey and Barry Sherman?

When it comes to strangulation homicides,

in the case of the Shermans,

this is either something very personal

or this was something that needed to be done with expertise.

Maybe a combination of both.

One of the first people police are interested in speaking with is

Barry Sherman's cousin, Kerry Winter.

Kerry Winter definitely had motive to kill Barry Sherman.

He hated the guy.

Kerry and Barry at some point were very close.

So much so that at one point

Barry was almost like a father figure to Kerry Winter.

In his younger years, Barry had actually been quite supportive of him financially.

You know, supporting his different ventures.

Many, most of them, failed.

But at some point he discovers these documents

that he said show that he was owed a share of Barry's fortune.

Their relationship sours when Kerry Winter finds out

that Barry allegedly lied to him about an agreement Barry had with Kerry's dad.

Kerry Winter's father owns Empire Laboratories.

Kerry's father passes away unexpectedly.

At some point Barry takes over Empire Laboratories.

And at this time, Barry Sherman fails to mention to his cousins

that they have the opportunity to purchase some of their father's company.

From there Barry Sherman goes on to great success

with his new company Apotex.

Kerry Winter believes that he is due money

or a portion of Barry's company

based off of his father's success in creating Empire Laboratories.

And so this led to a lawsuit that went on for a decade.

A lawsuit from Kerry Winter backfires in his face.

Three short months before the Shermans are killed,

a judge rules against Kerry Winter.

So much so that the judge also determines

that Kerry Winter is now due to pay $300,000

back to Barry Sherman in legal fees.

Kerry Winter is livid and in a strange twist shortly after the murders,

he makes a remarkable admission to Canada's public broadcaster

about a conversation he had with Barry years earlier.

He said, "Kerry, I want you to do me a favor."

And I said, "What's that, Barry?"

He said, "I want you to whack my wife."

And I said, "You're serious?

You're asking me to arrange whacking your wife?"

He said, "Yeah, I hate her."

Toronto police interview Kerry Winter as part of their investigation.

He was very vocal about his dislike for Barry.

He said he didn't do it,

but he also said he could have and would have.

The stories he had were far-fetched to say the least.

I don't believe for a minute that Kerry Winter had either direct involvement

or any direct knowledge of these murders.

Losing the lawsuit gave Kerry motive,