Barry and Honey Sherman: how the second autopsy revealed it was a double murder
Info about the autopsy just to refresh our memory if need be:
"From his conversation with Pickup, and from the police news release, Chiasson knew ligature neck compression had been determined as the medical cause of death. He was curious to see the condition of the horseshoe-shaped hyoid bones in both necks he was going to examine. Though not conclusive, the condition of the hyoid bone would inform his determination."
"There were those in the forensic pathology world who believed that to make a ruling of murder by strangulation it was imperative that the hyoid bone be fractured. But 20 years earlier, Chiasson and Michael Pollanen, now the province’s chief forensic pathologist, had authored a study that proved this was not the case."
"They found the bone was fractured in only one-third of the cases of homicide by strangulation. In the other two-thirds, an intact hyoid was found to be related to several factors, including the pressure that was used on the neck, the condition of the hyoid bone to begin with, and the type of ligature that was used. The softer the ligature wrapped around the neck, the less likely the hyoid bone was to fracture."
"Compounding this, and creating further confusion, was how age factored in. In the two-decade-old study, Chiasson and Pollanen had found that the older the victim, the more likely the hyoid bone was to fracture in a homicidal strangulation.
"Barry Sherman’s hyoid bone had been removed in the earlier autopsy by Pickup. But through information provided to Chiasson that day, he came to understand that neither Barry nor Honey’s hyoid bone was fractured. Chiasson wondered if that was why police thought it was a murder-suicide. As he had shown with his research years before, a murder with a soft ligature could leave an intact hyoid."
"Later in the day, Chiasson looked at the death scene photos Pickup had brought to the autopsy suite. The Shermans were in a seated position, legs outstretched away from the pool, with jackets on but pulled down off the shoulder. A belt was looped around each person’s neck, with the end of each belt fed through the buckle and the end then looped or tied around the metre-high railing they were positioned against."
"The leather belts would qualify as a soft ligature. If pressure was applied firmly but not suddenly, the hyoid would likely not fracture."
"Chiasson, who would later discuss his findings with Cairns, did not see how the murder-suicide theory could work. While it was theoretically possible that one of the two had strangled the other and then staged the body, the other person could not have died by strangulation simply by looping the belt over the rail and sitting down. There would not be enough weight or downward force. The retired detectives present in the room agreed."
