KD 2020:
And, in a second indication of activity on the almost three-year-old case, detectives have recently served a search warrant somewhere in Canada.
“The results (of these searches) have yielded new evidence and have assisted investigators in corroborating existing evidence, such as witness statements, tips and video surveillance,” according to Det.-Const. Dennis Yim of the Toronto homicide unit. Yim made these statements in an affidavit filed in court as part of an ongoing proceeding where the Toronto Star is seeking access to sealed police investigative files.
The foreign country is not identified in the Yim affidavit. It is one of 35 countries that have a special treaty with Canada — Israel, the United States, Italy, Austria and Mexico are examples.
KD 2022:
First, they collected roughly 300 cellular telephone numbers from the Sherman family, friends, business associates, and people who worked for the Shermans. Those numbers and the associated names went into a spreadsheet. According to the documents, these were numbers that came from several sources. First, interviews police conducted — detectives asked people for their cellular phone number or numbers of people that the interviewee speculated could have committed the murders. Documents released reveal that the Sherman family and some friends were pointing fingers at three individuals not named in the documents (police say they have found no evidence these individuals were involved.) Police also received 18 cellphone numbers from tips the public made directly to Toronto Police; 41 numbers from tips made to a dedicated Sherman murder tip line police set up a year into the case; and 184 numbers passed on by the Sherman family’s private investigation team led by criminal lawyer Brian Greenspan.
Of additional interest in the newly-released documents is the fact that something police discovered in the tower dumps caused them to run a comparison with information police received in an international production order they obtained in 2020. Canadian police, through the federal government, can gather information overseas with 35 countries covered by what is known as a “mutual legal assistance treaty.”
The final page of police documents released to the Star as of Monday has a completely blacked-out section headed, “
Relevant results from mutual legal assistance treaties.”
And a week later:
KD in 2022:
But Yim told court that police failed to come up with any relevant information when they compared the “tower dumps” to those 300 cellphone numbers. Nor did they have success in comparing it with some other information they had gathered from a production order served somewhere outside Canada. Police will not say which country was involved or what the information was. Yim said there is still a second out-of-country production order served a year ago and they still await the results.
Now, Yim told court during cross-examination, police are focusing their efforts elsewhere.
“The investigation has gone on to a different phase,” said Yim, but he did not describe what he meant. The documents show police have received two batches of information, apparently from people they had previously interviewed. The pages describing that information are completely redacted (even the headings), and police say to reveal this would hurt their probe by revealing “persons of interest.”
The Star is arguing that police are too liberally using that definition, telling the court that a person speculating that someone may have been upset with Barry and Honey does not justify sealing the documents.