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Billionaire couple found dead in their basement had been strangled, Canadian police say

Canadian police are investigating the mysterious deaths of billionaire philanthropists Honey and Barry Sherman who were found dead in the basement of their multi-million dollar home. (Reuters)

The billionaire couple were found strangled, their bodies dangling from the railing around their basement lap pool.

Honey and Barry Sherman died of “ligature neck compression,” a form of strangulation in which a cord or rope is used to exert fatal pressure on a person’s neck, Toronto police said.

It was a gory and puzzling detail in the deaths of the Shermans, who made billions in the pharmaceutical industry, then gave a significant chunk of their fortune away to charity.

Shocked neighbors called the Shermans “lovely people.” Now, their deaths are being probed by homicide investigators.

Their bodies were found Friday in the lowest level of their $7 million home by a real estate agent preparing the mansion for an open house.

Since then, family members and people who had been touched by the couple’s philanthropy have been poring over the final weeks of the Shermans’ lives — trying to figure out why investigators had described their deaths as “suspicious.”

“The circumstances of their death appear suspicious, and we are treating it that way,” Constable David Hopkinson said at a news conference outside the couple’s home in Toronto’s affluent North York neighborhood.

Police have been tight-lipped about the case and, until Sunday, didn’t say anything about what might have aroused their suspicions.

Hopkinson said there were no signs of forced entry at the Shermans’ home. No one has been arrested in the case, which police have still not deemed a homicide. Sunday’s news release called them “two suspicious deaths.”

On Saturday afternoon, the Toronto Star reported that police were investigating the possibility of a murder-suicide, but relatives dismissed that theory.

The family released a statement, saying: “We are shocked and think it’s irresponsible that police sources have reportedly advised the media of a theory which neither their family, their friends nor their colleagues believe to be true.

“We urge the Toronto Police Service to conduct a thorough, intensive and objective criminal investigation, and urge the media to refrain from further reporting as to the cause of these tragic deaths until the investigation is completed.”

Barry Sherman, 75, was the founder of Canadian pharmaceutical giant Apotex and one of the richest people in the world. Forbes estimated his net worth at $3.2 billion, earning him the 12th spot on the list of the wealthiest Canadians. He’d appeared on the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires for 15 years.

The Shermans were known for their largesse, doling out tens of millions of dollars to universities, hospitals and the United Jewish Appeal, according to the Globe and Mail. Honey Sherman was a board member at several institutions: York University, the Baycrest Foundation and Mount Sinai Hospital. She had been chair of the Jewish Foundation of Greater Toronto and the Holocaust Education Centre.

They are survived by their four children, including one who just gave them a grandchild.

Their deaths brought condolences from the highest rungs of Canadian society and government, including from the organizations they had spent years supporting. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was among those expressing grief.

But Barry Sherman’s rise had not been without conflict.

Apotex, according to Sherman’s biography in the Globe and Mail, “revolutionized the pharmaceutical industry in Canada.”

Sherman started the company in 1974 after using his mother’s life savings to buy out a similar business started by his uncle; it manufactures and exports generic drugs to more than 115 countries.

But his gains came at the expense of larger pharmaceutical companies. The Globe and Mail obituary described him as a “ruthless fighter capable of waging as many as many as 100 lawsuits at a time against business rivals.”

“He was the bane of the existence of the branded drug companies in Canada. He was not their favorite person, but he was respected,” Paul Grootendorst, associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

[A family has searched for a missing woman for months. They keep finding other people’s bodies.]

Some of the conflicts over the years were familial.

For more than a decade, Barry Sherman had been involved in an acrimonious legal battle with three cousins and the widow of a fourth — sons of the uncle who instructed him in the generic-drug business that preceded Apotex. That uncle, Louis Winter, died in 1965, 17 days before his wife died.

At the legal fight’s lowest point, Winter’s sons accused their now-billionaire cousin of plotting to kill Winter, according to the Globe and Mail.

They said that he used handouts to silence them, and that they deserved a stake in Apotex.

“Barry’s father died when he was young, and my dad took him under his wing and taught him the family business,” Kerry Winter, one of the cousins, said in filing the lawsuit. “It’s disappointing that we’re fighting this way now.”

The original suit was dismissed in 2015 but reinstated a year later, according to Forbes. A judge ruled in favor of Sherman in September, but the cousins have appealed.

[A family suspected a caregiver was abusing an Alzheimer’s patient. So they installed a camera.]

It was unclear what Sherman’s death would mean for the suit — or for his company.

Sherman stepped down as chief executive in 2014, but he remained chairman, according to Forbes.

Before they died, the couple had been planning to head south to their winter home in Palm Beach.

Honey was scheduled to arrive on Monday; her husband would follow a week later, according to the Globe and Mail, which talked to some of their Toronto friends slated to attend a dinner party.

“Looking forward to getting together in Florida,” Honey wrote in an email to friends. “Please let me know your dates south ASAP so i can place in my calendar … Looking forward to hearing back ASAP. Xoxo Honey.”

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