Canada - Barry, 75, & Honey Sherman, 70, found dead, Toronto, 15 Dec 2017 #1

[human]

Doesn't everyone have some rope somewhere in the house? Blinds have a rope. I don't think it's unusual to have some rope in the garage, for the garden, or near the pool for whatever reason.

Guns make a mess of bodies and they don't look good in the casket. Strangulation is something that is spur of the moment, so the murder could have been crime of passion. Staging the bodies may have taken some thought. Clearly, murder or suicide, they were meant to be found together and to have died in the same way.

The only rope I have is clothesline. I suppose there would be ropes on life rings for the pool. Are there ropes on life rings?

Is a cord on a blind long enough for hanging? I would think that they would have something far more advanced than blinds on their house, though. Do rich people have window blinds with cord? I imagine they have something with motors.

 

[otto]

The only rope I have is clothesline. I suppose there would be ropes on life rings for the pool. Are there ropes on life rings?

Is a cord on a blind long enough for hanging? I would think that they would have something far more advanced than blinds on their house, though. Do rich people have window blinds with cord? I imagine they have something with motors.

Did police release information that they were hanging by rope? If they were, and it doesn't look like the rope came from the house, then perhaps it was premeditated and police can determine where the rope came from and who bought it.

 

[Inthedetails]

The only rope I have is clothesline. I suppose there would be ropes on life rings for the pool. Are there ropes on life rings?

Is a cord on a blind long enough for hanging? I would think that they would have something far more advanced than blinds on their house, though. Do rich people have window blinds with cord? I imagine they have something with motors.

I was thinking rope that was for the pool too.

jmo

 

[Abundance]

"Mr. Sherman was often in the news for his company’s voluminous lawsuits, aimed at opening the market to his generic versions of drugs, and its “at-risk launches” of generic drugs, flooding the market before litigation concluded.

His personal life was also dragged into court, by a lingering lawsuit originally filed in 2006 by Mr. Sherman’s cousins, who claimed they were owed part of the company’s assets. An Ontario court threw out the case this September as “wishful thinking, and beyond fanciful.”

Excerpt from NYT article.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/17/world/canada/barry-sherman-death.html
Ongoing case with his cousins was thrown out in September.
Motive!

 

[Satchie]

It's so mystifying. If it were a double suicide why not use pills? Why hanging? BS above anyone else would have had access to and knowledge of lethal dosages.
Murder suicide I am having such a hard time getting my head around. I can't see how you can move from being such a benevolent human being to a murderer without something substantially shifting in your personality and this being noticed by others.

There's this description of his personality:

While Honey Sherman was known for her warm personality, her husband was famous for being cantankerous.

“She was a very outgoing, charming, bombastic lady and he was introverted, quiet, an unbelievably hardworking guy..."

http://nationalpost.com/news/toront...after-bodies-found-in-couples-toronto-mansion

Not being critical of that type of personality, but it's possible he had no ability to express how he felt or deal with strong emotions except through anger.

I think it would be an act committed in some fit of suicidal rage, desperation or deep depression, not in the person's normal, rational frame of mind. We've all experienced how in some moments we "lose it", ie lose our normal niceness.

The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person...will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me...the variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors.

David Foster Wallace https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/20...ly-depressed-person-who-tries-to-kill-herself

A suicidal person might want to grab their beloved spouse and push her out the window of what they experience as a "burning high rise".

 

[spanishshara]

That's pretty much my understanding at this time. Police have said that there's no sign of a break-in and they are not currently looking for a suspect. In their estimation, it must look like a murder-suicide, and there must be reasons for that conclusion. The family has a lot of money and is unwilling to consider the possibility of murder-suicide, so police have brought in the homicide team to look for anything that was missed that would indicate a double murder.

There is security camera coverage of the property, so I think that will be the best option for ruling out a double murder. If security cameras were turned off at some point, it should be evident when that happened and who did that because security systems are tied to computers which are tied to passwords. I suspect that even an erased portion can be retrieved with today's technology.

I think a lot of family and friends don't want to believe someone they know could do something so horrific. Not saying that's the case here at all but just in general it's such a common, natural reaction. I think all of us here have watched enough true crime stuff to know people can live completely different and double lives. You can almost guarantee this case will eventually be a story on Dateline or 48 Hours or something.

 

[perfectingpink]

The only rope I have is clothesline. I suppose there would be ropes on life rings for the pool. Are there ropes on life rings?

Is a cord on a blind long enough for hanging? I would think that they would have something far more advanced than blinds on their house, though. Do rich people have window blinds with cord? I imagine they have something with motors.

I agree. I think the blinds would be inside the windows as well.

 

[andreww]

Rich people have no need to impress anyone . The truly rich, that is.

I cannot comprehend why they would have a rope in that house. I can see no reason for a rope.

If Honey was strangled first with a rope, that does not indicate a domestic violence scene that got out of hand. To me, that implies she was premeditatively murdered.

Why would a 75 year old man use such a method that would take strength? Why not use a gun? Easy, quick.

He would have to haul her dead weight to the pool area and string her up. Lots of exertion with at least 130 or so pounds it looks like.

How tall were they?

I am simply wondering how it was accomplished and why use such a difficult method. Unless he was working with weights and he may have been, the elderly lose a lot of muscle tone

I read earlier that honey may have been killed in another part of the house then moved to the pool room. Possibly BS strangled her then stages a double suicide?

 

[dotr]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6525016

Arch Kriminol. 1984 Nov-Dec;174(5-6):141-53.

[Hanging: suicide or homicide?].

[Article in German]
Püschel K, Holtz W, Hildebrand E, Naeve W, Brinkmann B.

Death by Hanging: Suicide or Homicide. Six cases of homicidal hanging and murder presented as suicidal hanging are recorded. Suspension followed strangulation by ligature or throttling and head injuries in 4 cases. Distinction between homicide and suicide was easy in 5 cases: two of the perpetrators gave themselves up to the police, one committed suicide immediately after he had hanged his 15 year old daughter; in two cases tracks of blood, heavy injuries of the victims, and traces of robbery were obvious. Unless the victim is an infant or an adult person incapacitated by drink, disease, or drugs, or unless there are several assailants murder is difficult to accomplish. Distinction between murder and suicide may be impossible by an examination of the body alone. Detailed investigation of the scene, reconstruction of the position of the suspended body, examination of the rope, the knots, the direction of the fibres on the rope may serve to discover homicidal hanging. - Compared to suicidal hanging homicide has a frequency of about 1% in our autopsy material. However, we cannot estimate the number of obscure cases.

http://forensicoutreach.com/library...-hanging-and-a-murder-that-looks-like-one-ii/

[h=1]How to Tell the Difference Between a Hanging and a Murder That Looks Like One (II)[/h] By The Forensic Outreach TeamSeptember 26, 2012

http://forensicoutreach.com/library...n-a-hanging-and-a-murder-that-looks-like-one/

 

[andreww]

The photo is from the real estate website, so the cover could have been moved or in a different position at the time of the murders.

Very odd that and indoor pool would have a cover. What is the point?

 

[Satchie]

It's possible the hanging is what strangled the victims, but the Manner of Death can only be natural, accident, murder, suicide, or undetermined.

I think the word "manner" throws people off. Perhaps think of MOD as what type of death it is. Is it murder? Is it suicide? Is it an accident or natural? That's what MOD addresses.

Cause of Death is what specifically ended the person's life...was it heart failure, neck compression, blunt force trauma, drowning?

jmo

Yes, and there's something in between, I don't know the techical name for.

Say COD is drowning, and no MOD is announced. You don't know whether the person died in a bathtub, or the pool, whether they couldn't swim, or were held under water by someone, or drowned themselves deliberately.

 

[BillieL]

Very odd that and indoor pool would have a cover. What is the point?

To reduce risk of pets/children falling in and to reduce evaporation which can cause mold in the room/building.


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[anonypotomous]

I know a lot of millionaires and billionaires who have rope around their places.

Wow, you know a LOT of millionaires and billionaires? AND you know if they have rope in their homes? :thinking::thinking:

 

[anonypotomous]

I'm wondering about her new blonde hair, working out with a personal trainer, etc.. I'd like to hear more about that trainer. Just saying, in a case like this, anything is possible. Perhaps she and Barry were in the midst of a separation and she was already moving on.

MOO MOO MOO :cow:

 

[Inthedetails]

Yes, and there's something in between, I don't know the techical name for.

Say COD is drowning, and no MOD is announced. You don't know whether the person died in a bathtub, or the pool, whether they couldn't swim, or were held under water by someone, or drowned themselves deliberately.

I think MOD is announced no matter what. In the case you mentioned, the drowning would be "Undetermined," which is one of the five Manners of Death.

Natural, Accident, Homicide, Suicide, Undetermined.

Okay, I promise I'll quit talking about MOD (for awhile).

jmo

 

[dyannaON]

I'm wondering about her new blonde hair, working out with a personal trainer, etc.. I'd like to hear more about that trainer. Just saying, in a case like this, anything is possible. It's possible she and Barry were in the midst of a separation and she was already moving on.

MOO MOO MOO :cow:

This stood out to me as well. I don't know why. Jmo.


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[Satchie]

I think MOD is announced no matter what. In the case you mentioned, the drowning would be "Undetermined," which is one of the five Manners of Death.

Natural, Accident, Homicide, Suicide, Undetermined.

Okay, I promise I'll quit talking about MOD (for awhile).

jmo

Yes, but in this case no MOD has been announced. So there are many possible scenarios.

The conversation started because some people concluded COD (ligature neck compression) = ligature strangulation=double homicide.

I am trying to show that is jumping to conclusions which are incorrect.

 

[Satchie]

I recall from the Sievers case (and my workplaces), most entrances/exits, including windows, have alarms and track every time a door is opened. So if the Shermans went in and nobody ever went out, that would be strong evidence for murder-suicide.

 

[Inthedetails]

Yes, but in this case no MOD has been announced. So there are many possible scenarios.

The conversation started because some people concluded COD (ligature neck compression) = ligature strangulation=double homicide.

I am trying to show that is jumping to conclusions which are incorrect.

Exactly! We're on the same page.

:lookingitup:

 

[dotr]

Fwiw.
Unrelated to the case, but wondering if these people have been located.
http://torontopolice.on.ca/newsreleases/39867

The Toronto Police Service is requesting assistance identifying a man and a woman wanted in a Break-and-Enter investigation in the Lawrence Avenue East and Leslie Street area.

It is reported that:

- on Friday, December 8, 2017, at approximately 3 p.m., a woman, 96, was alone in her residence when she heard the sounds of someone else in her home

- she followed the sounds and discovered a man and woman ransacking her bedroom

- the woman, 96, yelled out to the pair to stop

- they ignored her and continued to go through her belongings

- the man ordered the woman, 96, to “Stay out of the way”

- the pair then fled the home, taking a jewellery box containing a quantity of costume jewellery and other items

https://www.google.ca/maps/dir/Lesl...372f7f2f!2m2!1d-79.3692959!2d43.7359565?dcr=0