Huge article!
Oct 24 2018
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
"Last December, a Canadian pharmaceuticals executive and his wife were strangled in their home.
No one knows who did it or why, but everyone has a theory.
By Matthew Campbell"
"A Winter’s Tale
The person with the most obvious reason to confront Sherman at the time of his death was almost certainly his estranged cousin, Kerry Winter. Winter and his siblings—the children of Louis, who’d hired Sherman at Empire Laboratories in the 1960s—spent much of the past decade fighting Sherman in court, claiming he’d concealed a provision in his acquisition of Empire that would have let them buy 20 percent of its shares if certain conditions were met. They further argued that Apotex wouldn’t have existed without Empire to build upon—and that they should therefore receive the same proportion of Apotex, or the cash equivalent. But then the judge
threw out their claim, finding that Sherman had acted properly and that any such provision disappeared with his sale of Empire. The timing of the ruling, so close to the murders, looked suspicious to just about everyone involved—something Winter well understood.
I first spoke to Winter in late April, when I called him to ask if we could meet in Toronto. He was initially enthusiastic, but when I later tried to confirm our appointment, he was hesitant. “I’ve been told I’m a prime suspect,” he said, almost apologetically, asking that I give him time to consult with his lawyer before he committed to an interview. Two days later he emailed, suggesting lunch at United Bakers, a vast canteen devoted to Ashkenazi comfort food in a heavily Jewish neighborhood. He gave me the address, unnecessarily—I’d been there dozens of times as a child for potato latkes and split-pea soup.
Winter arrived alone, looking slim and much younger than his 56 years, wearing a navy blue polo shirt and jeans under a slightly frayed Nike windbreaker. He ordered a niçoise salad; I stuck to the hits, with a platter of lox and a bagel. After Sherman’s sale of Empire, Winter told me, the four siblings lost touch with their cousin for years. When they reconnected in 1988, Kerry was addicted to crack cocaine; his brother Dana was also struggling with drug addiction. Sherman reacted with generosity, writing checks and bankrolling his troubled kin’s business ideas. Kerry got clean, got married, and went to work building homes, developing a close relationship with Sherman along the way. (Dana was less fortunate, dying of a heroin overdose in 1995.) The amounts involved were substantial: According to court filings, Kerry alone received about C$8 million in help over the years.
“When I sued him, I broke
his F---ing heart”
Sherman became a sort of substitute father, Winter said, filling the void left by Louis’s death. Eventually, though, he and his siblings grew suspicious of Sherman’s motives. They began seeking documentation from the sale of Empire and became convinced that he owed them far more. “Barry Sherman was bribing me,” Winter recalled. “I grew to hate him.” The Winters first sued Sherman in 2007. Sherman fought back hard, cutting off his cousins financially and countersuing to recover the funds he’d provided. “When I sued him,” Winter said, “I broke his f---ing heart.” (He and his siblings continue to press their claims against the Sherman estate, though their legal options are narrowing. An appeal was thrown out in August.)
“I had plenty of opportunity—and motive—to kill Barry,” Winter acknowledged. He’d been working as a supervisor on building sites, where “nobody’s watching me. I don’t punch in, I don’t punch out. I start my day when I want, I leave when I want. I take lunch when I want. … But I didn’t do it. It’s the truth.” On the night of Dec. 13, he said, “I watched
Peaky Blinders. I like Netflix. I went to a Cocaine Anonymous meeting, every Wednesday I go.” The fact that Winter was still free suggested the police, who’d interviewed him at length earlier this year, accepted this alibi.
He was convinced the true culprit was obvious: Sherman himself. His first reaction when he heard the news, he said, was, “I can’t believe it. He finally snapped.” In Winter’s telling, the Shermans’ marriage was rocky, and his cousin’s outward kindnesses masked a capacity for wrath. “When he lost his temper, the ceiling would shake,” Winter said."
