THE NO GOOD, TERRIBLY KIND, WONDERFUL LIVES AND TRAGIC DEATHS OF BARRY AND HONEY SHERMAN: Transcripts | Listen
News of the mysterious deaths of billionaire Canadian pharma giant Barry Sherman and his philanthropist wife Honey in December 2017 reverberated around the world. Five years later, with no arrests and little news from the police, their deaths remain shrouded in mystery and conspiracy theories, with too many lingering questions. Not just who killed them, but what kind of life do you have to live that when you’re found dead, there are multiple theories, including some involving your own family? That’s the question journalist Kathleen Goldhar set out to discover, in The No Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman, as she explores who the Shermans really were and why too much money might have been what killed them in the end.
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News of the mysterious deaths of billionaire Canadian pharma giant Barry Sherman and his philanthropist wife Honey in December 2017 reverberated around the world. Five years later, with no arrests and little news from the police, their deaths remain shrouded in mystery and conspiracy theories, with too many lingering questions. Not just who killed them, but what kind of life do you have to live that when you're found dead, there are multiple theories, including some involving your own family?
That's the question journalist Kathleen Goldhar set out to discover, in The No Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman, as she explores who the Shermans really were and why too much money might have been what killed them in the end.
Episode 1: Bitter Pill
The Lives and Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman32:35Chapter One: Bitter Pill
What does a Philadelphia junk artist have to do with the deaths of a wealthy Canadian pharma giant and his philanthropist wife? Maybe nothing, but it’s odd that their bodies were reportedly posed like a piece of junk sculpture that the Shermans displayed nearby. But this strange coincidence is just one of many in this most baffling of unsolved murder cases in Canadian history. Host Kathleen Goldhar goes on a byzantine journey to find out what kind of life do you have to live that your death spurns on multiple theories about who might have killed you, including some involving your closest family.
Leo Sewell’s website:
https://www.leosewell.net/
Matthew Campbell’s The Unsolved Murder of an Unusual Billionaire:
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-apotex-billionaire-murder/
Saul Rubinek’s IMDB:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0007210/
The Lives and Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman31:00Chapter Two: The Smartest Man I Ever Met
The Shermans’ funeral is weird, the list of eulogists long, and it’s attended by Canadian boldface names. But ask anyone who knew Barry Sherman and they all say the same thing:he was the smartest person they'd ever met. Always finishing at the top of his class, Barry was smart enough to claw his way to the top of the infamously cutthroat generic drug industry and make billions of dollars. But he was also arrogant and unreasonable, driven and deceptive. Just the sort of man who dies under suspicious circumstances.
Sherman funeral: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=external&v=10154971508191175
The Lives and Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman40:28Chapter Three: The Scorpion
To get ahead in the generic drug industry you need to be focused, hard-nosed and fearless. Especially because half the battle is taking on one of the richest, most powerful industries in the world — Big Pharma. Barry Sherman was the perfect generic drug lord — more litigator than innovator — but did his ability to win in court, and slough off the losses, end up getting him killed?
Katherine Eban’s Bottle of Lies: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42448266-bottle-of-lies
Jeffery Robinson’s Prescription Games: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7224625-prescription-games
Nancy Olivieri’s How John le Carré Changed my Life: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/12/22/nancy-olivieri-how-john-le-carr-changed-my-life.html
John le Carré The Constant Gardener: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19000.The_Constant_Gardener
Nancy and Barry on 60 Minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ancpMMJUvQ
Shashank Upadhye’s website: https://ipfdalaw.com/shashank-upadhye/
The Lives and Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman25:34Chapter Four: The Winters are Coming
It is no secret that some family members wanted Barry Sherman dead. And no one had a bigger grudge against Barry than his first cousins, Kerry Winter and his brothers. The Winter cousins were close to Barry — especially Kerry. They were father/son close. And the Winter boys lived well off Barry's money. But that good blood turned bad after a 10-year court battle that pitted cousin against cousin, in a fight over a billion-dollar fortune of which the Winters claimed their cousin robbed them.
Kerry Winter on The Fifth Estate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov7SCivAo5A
The Lives and Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman33:38Chapter Five: Just Skate
If Honey Sherman showed up unannounced at her favourite hair salon and someone was in her chair — that person got moved pretty darn quickly. Honey wasn't the one who made the billions, but she certainly spent them. So much is known about her husband, but very little about Honey Sherman. A child of Holocaust survivors, family and community meant everything to Honey. And as for her friends? They aren’t talking.
Rosemary Sexton’s website: https://rosemarysexton.com/
The Lives and Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman32:35Chapter Six: It's Complicated
The lack of justice, or any resolution, has left a void in this story that has been filled by online sleuths, investigative reporters, nosey neighbours, and conspiracy theorists. From Covid to the Clintons. From family to the Mafia. With more than a dozen theories on the table, and little information from the police, is it any wonder this case remains constant fodder for the darkest corners of the internet?
Websleuths: https://www.websleuths.com/forums/
Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/
Corrina Oates’ Sleuthing Websleuths: https://infocom.hyperlib.sjsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Oates_ResearchPaper.pdf
Ann Brocklehurst: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8571418.Ann_Brocklehurst
The Lives and Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman41:16Chapter Seven: My Blood is Yours
After a notorious 2018 interview on CBC television, Kerry Winter became a familiar figure in the tale of the Shermans’ deaths. “The Cousin Did It” wasn’t just a snappy headline on the cover of The National Enquirer, it also became a favourite theory. Yet Kerry is not a suspect. And all these years later the humiliation, anger, and deep sadness Kerry feels towards his cousin Barry are still right on the surface. How did such a good thing go so bad, and why is Kerry so certain Barry killed Honey then killed himself? Was a man capable of “ripping off little orphans” also capable of killing his own wife? And himself?
Kerry Winter on The Fifth Estate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov7SCivAo5A
The Lives and Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman33:45Chapter Eight: Thin Lines
After our year-long investigation, in this final episode we revisit the murder/suicide theory. That misstep set the whole investigation off on the wrong foot, and might have derailed any chance of finding out who killed the Shermans. To the Sherman's children, it's one of the biggest police screw-ups in recent history – a botched job that muddled the truth and stained the family. But the theory hangs in the air because its adherents, especially Kerry Winter, aren’t budging. In the end, what is the Shermans’ legacy? And what was all that money really for?
Itiel Dror’s Cognitive Bias in Forensic Pathology Decisions: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1556-4029.14697
Douglas Young’s website: https://triadforensic.com/
