CANADA Canada - Billionaire Couple Barry & Honey Sherman Murdered at Home, Toronto, 15 Dec 2017 #24

[Clue Keeper]

The ledger is not zeroed. The estate trustees have a fiduciary duty to collect the outstanding balance based on the loan agreement now owed to the estate. Of course the trustees can negotiate with the borrower and alter the terms and sums. Since I am pretty sure Barry always involved lawyers to draw up these loans, rest assured Barry or Honey's death would not eliminate or clear the loan.
The borrowers, no doubt would be fully aware of this fact, and the motive for murder to eliminate the debt would be invalid.

I am looking at the reality of estate litigation - past the "letter of the law". Even if lawyers drew up the paperwork, Barry was the sole witness to the personal side of these deals. Many of these "loans" were actually high-pressure psychological tools. Without Barry there to testify about the verbal conditions, the intent, or the missed payments, a debtor can tie the estate up in court for a decade by claiming Barry had verbally forgiven the debt or changed the terms before he died. In a massive estate, trustees often settle for pennies on the dollar just to stop paying their own lawyers. A trustee’s fiduciary duty is to the beneficiaries, not to the abstract concept of the debt. If the heirs (the new beneficiaries) don't want to sue their own cousin or a family friend for a loan, they can instruct the trustees to settle the debt for a nominal amount or "write it off" as uncollectible. Barry was the only one with the ego and the drive to actually hit the "sue" button; the heirs are often much more likely to want the drama to end.

A desperate debtor doesn't need the debt to vanish legally forever; they just need the immediate pressure to stop. The law says the debt remains, but the will to enforce it died with Barry, which defines the motive as "strategic paralysis" rather than "legal erasure". In my view, this gap between legal paperwork and street reality is the key to understanding this murder. On paper, a long list of debtors might not look like "winners" because, in theory, the debt still exists. But in reality, once the enforcer is gone, the debt is often effectively dead. All IMHO.

 

[Clue Keeper]

Am I the only one who sees some wicked, morbid sense of humor in the killer? He did it for a reason, not for fun. But it also looks as if he read about Herb Baumeister, the serial ritualistic killer from Indiana, and since the pool was used, he also “ritualized” the positions of the bodies a little bit, to resemble the Shermans’ odd dolls? I think it was a mockery of their poor taste and pretentiousness (after all, they didn’t have taste, did they?) but something else, too.

I think that person should have acerbic humor in life.

In my view, this isn't humor; it is cynical, sadistic, and frankly psychopathic. If the killer staged the bodies to mimic those statues, he wasn't cracking a joke. He was committing an act of total dehumanization.
This staging feels like the work of someone who spent years feeling small or "less than" in Barry’s presence. It’s a "final word" from someone who hated their success and wanted to mock it. This kind of staging is meant to traumatize whoever finds them. A cynical sadist doesn't just want the victim dead; they want the survivors and the public to be haunted by a grotesque image. That level of calculated cruelty actually points away from the Sherman children.
JMO

 

[planet]

In my view, this isn't humor; it is cynical, sadistic, and frankly psychopathic. If the killer staged the bodies to mimic those statues, he wasn't cracking a joke. He was committing an act of total dehumanization.
This staging feels like the work of someone who spent years feeling small or "less than" in Barry’s presence. It’s a "final word" from someone who hated their success and wanted to mock it. JM

The placement and location of the bodies is the main reason I'm transfixed by the case. For example, they were not found in separate rooms or hallways, dropped where they were killed. The killer went to great trouble to place them together. Why?

No other feature--the size of the estate, Barry's business practices, the social standing of the Shermans, their philanthropic activities, or the documented antagonism among family members--engages me to the same degree.

The scene seems remarkably personal and vindictive. That leads me nowhere, because I don't know anyone in their circles. It simply suggests this was an atypical act of violence, intended to accomplish more than just ending two lives.

 

[Charlot123]

In my view, this isn't humor; it is cynical, sadistic, and frankly psychopathic. If the killer staged the bodies to mimic those statues, he wasn't cracking a joke. He was committing an act of total dehumanization.
This staging feels like the work of someone who spent years feeling small or "less than" in Barry’s presence. It’s a "final word" from someone who hated their success and wanted to mock it. This kind of staging is meant to traumatize whoever finds them. A cynical sadist doesn't just want the victim dead; they want the survivors and the public to be haunted by a grotesque image. That level of calculated cruelty actually points away from the Sherman children.
JMO

Honestly, I suspect children as much, or as little, as other people close to the Shermans. But it was someone who was close, and also, intensely disliked/maybe envied the Shermans. That staging was the ultimate mockery.

I think it the murders were sadistic because, after all, two elderly people were brutally killed in own home.

The staging i view as self-serving. But I can imagine the type of a person who'd do it, although I don't have my own suspect. And I see why you call it psychopathic, although I think the killer is more than that.