(Bloomberg) -- The investigation into the “targeted murder” of Canadian billionaire Barry Sherman and his wife Honey two years ago remains active even as a private investigation backed by the family has ended.
“The police investigation has been and continues to be active and ongoing,” Toronto Police Service homicide Inspector Hank Idsinga told reporters Monday, reading from a joint statement with the Sherman family. The Shermans “are committed to working with us and have full confidence that the Toronto Police Service will solve this crime.”
Barry Sherman, founder of closely held generic-drug maker Apotex Inc., and his wife were found hanging by belts near the basement pool in their Toronto mansion on Dec. 15, 2017. The post-mortem examination concluded that both deaths were caused by “ligature neck compression,” signaling strangulation.
Toronto Police initially considered the deaths “suspicious” and said there were no signs of forced entry into the home and were not seeking any suspects. Six weeks later, police called it a “targeted” attack and began treating it as a double-homicide.
The Sherman family had hired Brian Greenspan, a Toronto criminal defense lawyer who previously represented the likes of Justin Bieber and Naomi Campbell, to advocate for the family. Greenspan had assembled a team of retired police detectives to conduct a separate investigation, and set up a call center for tips.
So far, 343 tips had been provided to police by the private investigative team, prompting 701 investigative actions to be assigned, Idsinga said. The private probe has ended, he added.
“We are still asking for help,” he said. “I would encourage anyone who has provided tips in the past to the private investigative team to please resubmit those tips directly to the police.”
Read: Who Killed the Billionaire Founder of a Generic Drug Empire
Barry Sherman, 75, was one of Canada's richest men and he and Honey, 70, were well-known philanthropists in the city, donating to hospitals, the University of Toronto and other causes. His family offered a reward of as much as C$10 million ($7.6 million) in October 2018 for information in their deaths, alleging police had mishandled the investigation from the start. The family is still offering the reward, Idsinga said.
“The sheer volume of information is overwhelming,” Idsinga said. “There's just a massive volume of information in relation to this case.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Doug Alexander in Toronto at dalexander3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Jacqueline Thorpe, David Scanlan
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