Canada - Barry, 75, & Honey Sherman, 70, found dead, Toronto, 15 Dec 2017 #8

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  • #601
That is good news!

What do you think about the lockbox? Can someone retrieve info from that application?

Sorry, I have no information on these new type lock boxes or that application.

IMO, the lock box key card will only identify the realtor’s name and her company plus the date and time of the appointment.

I can’t imagine what that application shows. In the US, there is a MLS book for realtors only, that gives a little more information. Things such as estate, divorces, job transfer, company will buy, reasons for selling etc. info on loan. IIRC, anything listed is about the house, something to give the agent a tip to help sell it. Nothing really personal. Now these books were sometime ago! Who knows what is available to the agents now. I don’t think much more info than what I have just stated.

Are you familiar with Trulia and Zillow on line? They show real estate for sale or rent, give you information, and pictures of inside the house.
 
  • #602
Sorry, I have no information on these new type lock boxes or that application.

IMO, the lock box key card will only identify the realtor’s name and her company plus the date and time of the appointment.

I can’t imagine what that application shows. In the US, there is a MLS book for realtors only, that gives a little more information. Things such as estate, divorces, job transfer, company will buy, reasons for selling etc. info on loan. IIRC, anything listed is about the house, something to give the agent a tip to help sell it. Nothing really personal. Now these books were sometime ago! Who knows what is available to the agents now. I don’t think much more info than what I have just stated.

Are you familiar with Trulia and Zillow on line? They show real estate for sale or rent, give you information, and pictures of inside the house.

In Canada, everything about listings are input by the seller's realtor into a regional MLS system. Info from it is available to anyone via Realtor.ca. If you say you are looking to buy, a realtor will readily give you access to their agency system, which shows more info: for example, original selling price, and final selling price which stays up during the period before closing. They rarely remove you from their system, so lots of people have access to these detailed listing, just out of curiosity to see what the market is doing.

There are very strict privacy laws in Canada that prohibits realtors from adding any personal info to these listings. Anything they know about the client is transmitted verbally if a potential buyer asks: for example, the reason why the house is being listed.

Lock boxes are just a way to avoid having keys being physically shared around amongst realtors, and potentially lost or copied.

The lock box is only applied to the front door, I think. It doesn't prevent someone with an old key coming in another door, or using the garage door opener, etc.
 
  • #603
  • #604
  • #605
What I mean about the lock box is can a reader be attached to get the code to open the box? Of can someone sit a ways away and get the code to open the box like they do with the ATM,s, gas pumps, or keyless entries for cars.
 
  • #606
I wonder when it was broken.

Good question. I wonder what a Realtor says when showing the pool room and a Buyer notices the security camera and asks about the system... Does the Realtor say “Oh it’s broken, the Sellers didn’t feel the need for it to be operable to sell the home”. Makes me wonder if the smoke alarms were operating. If it was broken prior to the listing Realtor would have all the info in the disclosure statement. If it were broken after the listing the Realtor would be sure that it was repaired. All this is based on personal experience.
Regardless I am having a hard time processing the mindset.
 
  • #607
  • #608
  • #609
The successful realtor's that I know are very driven individuals, who seem to be working constantly. I find it strange and unusual that a well known Toronto Realtor, highly successful, would obtain a 7 million dollar listing, in a fairly hot Toronto real estate market, and then take off to Florida and leave the showings to an assistant. The realtor's I know would stay in town, trying to sell the house before Xmas. After all, the listing was recent, and there is a significant list of people that had viewed the house, indicating potential buyer interest. Leaving town doesn't reconcile with the behaviour I have seen with agents that I know .
'Successful' realtors are always going to have listings, most 'successful' realtors also have 'assistants', or sometimes work in 'teams', and even 'successful' realtors deserve and take vacations from time to time. Communication is easily done via phone, and even real estate contracts can be completed via fax or other electronic means nowadays. There is no reason for a realtor to have to be present in the flesh at every showing done by every realtor showing every one of their client's listings, and I feel confident that any client would need to be accepting of the fact that working with their chosen realtor may mean that at times they may be dealing instead with the assistant (or team member).

I don't know whether the news article got it wrong or not, however it wouldn't surprise me or make me think less of the listing sales rep to know she was away at the time..... although it does add another layer of weird coincidence imho, if she was out of the country at the time, in addition to the other weird timing things, such as:
i)the home had very recently been put up for sale on the open market so people could access the home, see photos and perhaps floorplans online, gather details about the property, etc.;
ii)HS was leaving for Florida within days, to be gone for a month, so it was one of the last occasions to have them together while the home was still for sale (nobody would know when it might sell);
iii)both husband and wife had been out of the house at a meeting together, at his office where it's possible that many people would have seen them and known they were there and not at home, just prior to this event;
iv)the weird timing of only days after the judge's decision to have the cousins pay costs to the billionaires regarding the 10 year lawsuit the cousins had already lost (twice? - I believe this most recent 'loss' was on appeal?).
 
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  • #610
The Wall Street Journal has issued a "correction" to their recent article on the Shermans. There are no external security cameras at the Sherman home. There was only one, in the pool room, and it was broken.

Their lack of home security measures just amazes me. smh

How the investigation into the deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman turned from murder-suicide to double homicide
Do you have the links?
Sorry, I had supplied the wrong link. Here it is.

Corrections & Amplifications
For our easier reference, here is the WSJ wording:
Corrections & Amplifications
Corrections & Amplifications
July 4, 2018 8:03 p.m. ET
The Toronto home of Barry and Honey Sherman had one security camera, located in the indoor swimming pool room, and it was broken. In Saturday’s edition, a Page One article and an accompanying graphic about the investigation into the deaths of the Shermans incorrectly said the house had external security cameras.
 
  • #611
Sorry, I had supplied the wrong link. Here it is.

Corrections & Amplifications
Thank you, here is where the first story can be read (it is paywalled at the WSJ):

"The Sherman home wasn’t gated, but security cameras pointed outside. The two-story, 12,000 square-foot house had been listed for sale at more than $5 million. Real-estate agents could enter the house using a door key kept in a lockbox that, police said, could be easily thwarted.
....
"The private team was struck by the position of Mr. Sherman’s legs, said people close to the case. They wondered how his legs could have been so neatly aligned if he had strangled himself. There were no signs of thrashing and contortion, which typically mark such deaths.

"The photos showed another clue inconsistent with a suicide, these people said: The belt loop around Mr. Sherman’s neck didn’t appear to extend far enough from the railing to provide the force he would need to kill himself."

After a Billionaire and His Wife Are Found Dead, Their Children Try to Crack the Case

The correction (as linked above):
July 4, 2018 8:03 p.m. ET
"The Toronto home of Barry and Honey Sherman had one security camera, located in the indoor swimming pool room, and it was broken. In Saturday's edition, a Page One article and an accompanying graphic about the investigation into the deaths of the Shermans incorrectly said the house had external security cameras."
 
  • #612
Here is a statement from the media where Gottlieb discloses her friendship with the Sherman’s.

“The Sherman’s were very dear friends of mine for many, many years and we’re all in shock,” the agent wrote in an email in response to media requests for a comment on the unusual timing of putting up the property for sale, National Post reports. “More than this, I’m not prepared to talk about.”

https://m.*************.com/billion...ion-suspicious-investigators-say_2389228.html

I am sorry I am not able to post this link. I am not sure why I am having the difficulty. It is from the Epoch times. A basic Google Search will find the article above quoted.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/billi...ion-suspicious-investigators-say_2389228.html
 
  • #613
Must be a blocked site.
 
  • #614
WARMINGTON: Someone could have entered Shermans’ home, lawyer says
January 10, 2018
"TORONTO — Could a killer of Apotex billionaire philanthropists Honey and Barry Sherman have obtained a key to their mansion through a realtor’s lock box stationed on one of the home’s doors?

Could the Shermans – Barry, 75, and Honey, 70 – have just simply opened the door of their home, which was up for sale, for a delivery person?

Or for somebody they knew?"

"“Original photographs of the exterior of the scene (showed) a real-estate lock box which are notoriously easy to open. Open it, go to Canadian Tire and get the key made, return the key to the lock box and you have a key to the house.”"
 
  • #615
Rbbm.
'Everything in this case raises an eyebrow': What we know, and don't know, about the Sherman investigation | CBC News
December 22, 2017
"However, CBC News has learned that the Shermans were found by the pool in their basement and that investigators have found no security cameras inside or outside the home."
Billionaire Canadian couple had been strangled with belts | Daily Mail Online
19 December 2017
"A security camera in the pool room had been shut off at some point before Honey, 70, and Barry, 75, died on Thursday"

Canada’s 12th richest man and his wife have been found dead
December 17, 2017
"No suicide note was found in the early stages of the investigation, but a search of the massive house, including reviews of the home’s video surveillance system, was just beginning."

Murder-suicide suspected in deaths of Toronto billionaire and wife
"Sources close to the case believe Honey may have been killed in a secondary location in the $6.9 million Old Colony Rd. house and then moved to the location where she was later found with her deceased husband."
 
  • #616
FYI I paraphrased the Wall Street Journal article due to the 10% copyright restriction at WS. Now that someone has copied the entire statement, I'm not sure I needed to do that?
 
  • #617
  • #618
Rbbm.
'Everything in this case raises an eyebrow': What we know, and don't know, about the Sherman investigation | CBC News
December 22, 2017
"However, CBC News has learned that the Shermans were found by the pool in their basement and that investigators have found no security cameras inside or outside the home."
Billionaire Canadian couple had been strangled with belts | Daily Mail Online
19 December 2017
"A security camera in the pool room had been shut off at some point before Honey, 70, and Barry, 75, died on Thursday"

Canada’s 12th richest man and his wife have been found dead
December 17, 2017
"No suicide note was found in the early stages of the investigation, but a search of the massive house, including reviews of the home’s video surveillance system, was just beginning."

Murder-suicide suspected in deaths of Toronto billionaire and wife
"Sources close to the case believe Honey may have been killed in a secondary location in the $6.9 million Old Colony Rd. house and then moved to the location where she was later found with her deceased husband."

Sheesh! What a bunch of media conflict-and all the articles are written within a couple of days of each other. From firstly, they were reviewing the homes video surveillance system. Secondly, a camera in the pool room had been shut off to thirdly, investigators couldn’t find any security cameras inside or outside.
And then somewhere on this feed there was a person stating Barry himself with a coat over his face was adjusting the audio/video controls.
I am going to travel the path of least resistance.
 
  • #619
FYI I paraphrased the Wall Street Journal article due to the 10% copyright restriction at WS. Now that someone has copied the entire statement, I'm not sure I needed to do that?
I didn't think the 10% rule applied to a brief correction of a lengthy article. But, not sure.
 
  • #620
Delving into lock boxes and Realtors on Google, I found two recent news articles regarding Real Estate Agents and Lockboxs in Toronto.

Realtors giving lock box codes directly to potential home buyers - May 1, 2018

Realtors giving lock box codes directly to potential homebuyers

Sheikhan says neither person was a real estate agent. They were potential buyers entering the home without an agent — a serious no-no in the real estate business.

Dozens of real estate agents have been slapped with fines by RECO over the last few years alone. The fines averaged $3,000, though RECO says agents can be fined up to $9,000.


In Toronto, realtors deal with lockbox lunacy - March 29, 2018

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.th...ors-deal-with-lockbox-lunacy/article38351875/

"I'm in my second year of real estate and am already aghast at the lockbox situation," says Susan MacKinnon, a sales representative with Royal LePage. "I was showing one condo that had the following instructions: 'The lockbox is behind the building, near the dumpster.' Can you imagine, being a female realtor, how scary that sounded to me? What if my showing was at 7 or 8 p.m. at night?"
 
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