Canada - Barry, 75, & Honey Sherman, 70, found dead, Toronto, 15 Dec 2017 #9

[MistyWaters]

Kevin Donovan interviewed:

'Concerns over the security of the evidence'

Thanks for posting up this link, it’s a good summary of where the case is at. I wonder what’s the Police Union stance regarding a TPS and private investigative partnership. Often in Canada complexities arise that involve organational and structural issues to that regard.

 

[andreww]

Joe Warmington ✔ @joe_warmington


Respectfully @marksaunderstps your statement that Toronto Police never said Sherman case was a murder suicide is incorrect. Knowing my column was going to describe a double homicide a senior Toronto Police officer was adamant Honey was murdered followed by Barry suicide

4:35 PM - Oct 26, 2018

Joe Warmington on Twitter

This is the kind of thing that upsets me. I have heard similar comments from other reporters as well. So if the people that are actually in the field and doing the investigation are saying its a murder suicide, why is a change in direction made and exactly who made that decision?

 

[andreww]

Thanks for posting up this link, it’s a good summary of where the case is at. I wonder what’s the Police Union stance regarding a TPS and private investigative partnership. Often in Canada complexities arise that involve organational and structural issues to that regard.

The police union stance? You really have to ask that? Their stance will be that TPS needs to hire more staff instead of cutting it back. How could anybody possibly believe that "investigators for hire" is a good idea???

 

[Satchie]

bbm
The public doesn't know anything from LE and so can't help in whatever way, IMO.

I believe he is referring to people who have actual inside information/evidence on who committed the crime. For example, someone who may have lied to give someone else an alibi. Someone who knows a person with an abiding hatred for the Shermans. Someone who overheard something strange.

Websleuths is a fun pastime, IMO we should never confuse our sleuthing with the real thing.

 

[Satchie]

From the press conference it seemed like Greenspan spent a lot of time trying to pitch his services as a solution to an over burdened police department. Greenspan was careful to point out that the police missteps were the product of over stretched resources rather than incompetence. Greenspan was proposing that TPS hire him and his team to look after cases that require more time and effort.

Not sure I entirely agree, I think Greenspan wants to take over this particular case, on behalf of his particular clients. Pretty sure he doesn't give a rats a** about any other cases.

 

[1&2&3]

One point from Greenspan that’s caught my attention is his remark on how the entry into the house was made. He
insinuated he had the answer. He made a sly comment to imply TPD considered murder/suicide and had not followed SOP in checking for evidence.

This was in the Friday press conference.

 

[andreww]

Not sure I entirely agree, I think Greenspan wants to take over this particular case, on behalf of his particular clients. Pretty sure he doesn't give a rats a** about any other cases.

What do you base that on? This would be a huge precedent, and not a good one in my opinion.

 

[andreww]

One point from Greenspan that’s caught my attention is his remark on how the entry into the house was made. He
insinuated he had the answer. He made a sly comment to imply TPD considered murder/suicide and had not followed SOP in checking for evidence.

This was in the Friday press conference.

Greenspan can say what he wants. Wow, 38 undiscovered fingerprints! People gasp! But where were they found? Police will go through a crime scene and try to cover every area that a perp may have touched. Those are the places that they check. Are there fingerprints on the top of the fridge, or on the back of the oven? Probably, but very unlikely that they have anything to do with the case. But he doesn't have to tell just that. You or I could probably go in to that house and find another 50 prints if we try hard enough. You know how many fingerprints are in a home that size? So what was the entry point Brian? The chimney?

 

[Satchie]

Thanks for posting up this link, it’s a good summary of where the case is at.

I disagree.

For example, at the end, Donovan confuses the reward committee, which will at some future point decide who gets a reward and how much, with the process of passing tips on to police (which was never discussed by Greenspan ).

The story also confuses together the passing along of tips (in which case, the police will independently interview the tipster), with the issue of passing along of forensic evidence which the team allegedly collected from the house.

He just muddles the whole thing into a 30 second sound-bite. The media want to take complex issues, whether political, economic, or procedural, and turn them into the verbal equivalent of a stick figure drawing.

 

[MistyWaters]

The police union stance? You really have to ask that? Their stance will be that TPS needs to hire more staff instead of cutting it back. How could anybody possibly believe that "investigators for hire" is a good idea???

Did you listen to the press conference? Greenspan said there’s only one Center in Ontario that conducts fibre analysis and the wait time is up to one year. There been several media reports pertaining to TPS and their financial and resourcing issues, most recently that the drug squad was facing cutbacks as a result of increased demands on the homicide division.

Its not for me to say what the solution should be but certainly it can impact the focus and expediency regarding all current investigations. I recall the example of Det Gomes only working part time on the case being used here as a reason TPS was fabricating the homicide investigation. Obviously there’s far more to it than that involving TPS resourcing and support situation. Greenspan offered one solution and whether TPS takes it up I guess is a decision made by that organization and the Board of Police Services who oversees it. IIRC he did mention last he’d heard the collaborative arrangement was in the hands of an attourney referred by TPS, so it could be determined how the PI team could legally hand over potential evidence.

Outsourcing police/government services to private business in accordance to legal perimeters isn’t entirely out of the realm of reason. During homicide trials in the the US, experts including PIs and pathologists and from others private DNA labs testify for the prosecution, indicating their system is much different than ours.

 

[Satchie]

What do you base that on? This would be a huge precedent, and not a good one in my opinion.

You think the family has set up this tip line to catch anyone other than the Sherman's killers? Or will send their PIs out to work on other cases?

 

[MistyWaters]

@ Satchie, sorry I’m unable to quote your post.

When I listened to the press conference, I heard Greenspan publicly invite the Police Chief to sit on the independent committee to review and screen the tips. In the link I posted up above, Saunders replied in his own pc immediately following that he was considering it.

 

[MistyWaters]

You think the family has set up this tip line to catch anyone other than the Sherman's killers? Or will send their PIs out to work on other cases?

I got the impression that until or unless TPS works out the legal parameters of accepting evidence from a secondary party, any PI investigation of criminal cases that does yield evidence risks it becoming useless in criminal court proceedings. So I don’t know if it’d even be worthwhile at this time for anyone else to send out PIs for other homicide cases.

The issue of evidence from secondary parties would impact all provinces as potentially all changes impacting Canadian law get elevated to be heard by the Supreme Court of Canada at some point in time.

 

[Satchie]

@ Satchie, sorry I’m unable to quote your post.

When I listened to the press conference, I heard Greenspan publicly invite the Police Chief to sit on the independent committee to review and screen the tips. In the link I posted up above, Saunders replied in his own pc immediately following that he was considering it.

Greenspan says, after the interminable resumes of his blue ribbon panel:

"I invite Saunders to appoint a member...to join this panel in administering and assessing the eligibity for this reward."

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21:10 mark.

The panel can only get involved after any arrests and prosecutions. These outsiders, however distinguished, can't possibly be involved in discussing evidence in an ongoing homicide investigation.

I assume the staff of the tip line must work for the PIs, who will privately assess the tips and refer the contact info to police. Hopefully there is some integrity to prevent a staff member on the tip line from sharing their theories of the case with Joe Warmington.

 

[andreww]

You think the family has set up this tip line to catch anyone other than the Sherman's killers? Or will send their PIs out to work on other cases?

Sure, he's being paid by the Shermans now, but that won't last forever. The way it sounded to me is that he want's to work with TPS, taking up the slack when they are overburdened. So who would be signing his pay check if that were to happen? My guess is TPS.

 

[andreww]

I got the impression that until or unless TPS works out the legal parameters of accepting evidence from a secondary party, any PI investigation of criminal cases that does yield evidence risks it becoming useless in criminal court proceedings. So I don’t know if it’d even be worthwhile at this time for anyone else to send out PIs for other homicide cases.

The issue of evidence from secondary parties would impact all provinces as potentially all changes impacting Canadian law get elevated to be heard by the Supreme Court of Canada at some point in time.

Haha, we finally agree on something

 

[andreww]

Outsourcing police/government services to private business in accordance to legal perimeters isn’t entirely out of the realm of reason. During homicide trials in the the US, experts including PIs and pathologists and from others private DNA labs testify for the prosecution, indicating their system is much different than ours.

Yes, and we all know that in the States you can hire an expert to say whatever you want. No thanks, Canada has a much better system. If there is one thing that I've learned in Canada its that privatizing government functions always leads to higher costs for taxpayers. If our labs are overburdened, logic says to expand them, not to pay somebody else to do it.

 

[Satchie]

One point from Greenspan that’s caught my attention is his remark on how the entry into the house was made. He
insinuated he had the answer. He made a sly comment to imply TPD considered murder/suicide and had not followed SOP in checking for evidence.

This was in the Friday press conference.

A few hours after the police arrived, an officer spoke to the media waiting outside the house (in the cold/dark night). He said something to the effect "we have no signs of forced entry". Reporters got really excited.

Here is what the police chief says about that statement:

"The reason police initially said that “there was no sign of forced entry” was because the north Toronto neighbourhood where the Shermans lived had seen a spate of break-ins and the officer was trying to reassure the public. “That community was incredibly alarmed,”" Family of Barry and Honey Sherman offers $10-million reward for information on murder of billionaire couple | The Star

The police spent six weeks on the site, and I'm sure during that time they figured out how the intruders got in.

Greenspan's criticism was that police did not immediately detect how intruders got in, and therefore were incompetent in declaring 'there were no signs of forced entry'.

I disagree: Naturally police would examine all the windows and doors for signs of break in. Evidently there were no obvious signs like broken glass or a busted door lock. Unfortunately the Shermans had no security system, no cameras and were reputedly careless about locking doors. Imagine how shocked police were to discover that. Plus, there was a realtor's lock box. Police had a lot of work yet to do to consider all those issues, in order to figure out exactly how entry was made.

 

[Satchie]

Sure, he's being paid by the Shermans now, but that won't last forever. The way it sounded to me is that he want's to work with TPS, taking up the slack when they are overburdened. So who would be signing his pay check if that were to happen? My guess is TPS.

Greenspan is a very active defense lawyer, I doubt TPS could afford him.

He talked about this type of partnership in cases of commercial crime. That's true, police will not normally have the manpower to investigate, for eg, fraud within an organization. The company have to hire independent accountants to go through the books, interview internal staff, look at their own security video, and then take their findings to police.

But that's because police are much less concerned with property crime than with violence and issues of public safety.

 

[Satchie]

Yes, and we all know that in the States you can hire an expert to say whatever you want. No thanks, Canada has a much better system. If there is one thing that I've learned in Canada its that privatizing government functions always leads to higher costs for taxpayers. If our labs are overburdened, logic says to expand them, not to pay somebody else to do it.

Greenspan can't possibly say that the TPS, and policing in general, should get a budget increase. That would be seen as a political statement and would alienate a lot of his colleagues. He may well be against increased taxes himself.