Yahoo – AFP,
January 20, 2018
Montreal
(AFP) - Private investigators hired by the children of late Canadian
pharmaceutical tycoon Barry Sherman concluded that he and his wife were
murdered, the Toronto Star reported Saturday.
The
75-year-old chairman of Apotex and his 70-year-old wife Honey were found dead
in their Toronto home on December 15. Apotex is the largest maker of generic
drugs in Canada, and the Shermans' fortune was estimated at more than $3
billion.
Toronto's
homicide unit, which took over the investigation into the "suspicious"
deaths, earlier said that they had been strangled to death, but stopped short
of calling them homicides.
The
Shermans' bodies were found hanging from a railing around a basement pool, the
theory being that the Apotex chairman killed his wife Honey, hung her body and
then hanged himself by the pool's edge, Canadian media reported in December,
citing a police source.
Sherman's
four children however said that a murder-suicide made no sense, and hired
criminal lawyer Brian Greenspan to help, the Star reported.
Greenspan
in turn hired private detectives and asked for a second autopsy, which was
carried out by a forensic pathologist on December 20, just before the funeral.
"Contract killing"
The
pathologist and the detectives, which included former Toronto homicide
investigators, found markings on the victims' wrists indicating that their
hands had been tied with cord or a plastic zip tie.
When the
bodies were found the wrists were untied, and no rope or cords were found, the
newspaper said. Furthermore, toxicology tests on the bodies showed no abnormal
sign of drug use.
The team
concluded that the couple was strangled to death with men's leather belts found
around their necks attached to a bar at the edge of the pool.
Sources
close to the family probe used words like "professional,"
"contract killing," and "staged homicide" to describe the
couple's death, the Star said.
The private
detectives have not been granted access to the house, according to the Star,
which quoted sources as saying that there was no damage or other evidence
inside pointing to a home invasion.
And though
both the police and private detectives canvassed nearby home for surveillance
video, "nothing has come from a study" of the footage, the Star said.
Sherman
founded Apotex in 1974, and over the following decades became known as a
ruthless businessman who shunned the limelight while revolutionizing the drug
industry in Canada.
Today, the
company employs over 11,000 people and sells 300 generic drugs in 120
countries.
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