I was thinking the exact same thing. It's most logical this was on his way back after leaving their house.
CANADA Canada - Barry, 75, & Honey Sherman, 70, found dead, Toronto, 15 Dec 2017 #16
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I was thinking the exact same thing. It's most logical this was on his way back after leaving their house.
Toronto police announce ‘suspect’ caught on video in murders of billionaires Barry and Honey Sherman
By Kevin Donovan rbbm.
''Police on Tuesday released a short video loop of the man walking near the couple’s North York home. Police say he is between five-foot-six and five-foot-nine.
The video was recorded by a home security on the street sometime in the evening hours of Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017, the night of the murders.''
''The person can be seen walking into a defined area near the Shermans home on Old Colony Road where there is no video coverage, and then leaves the same way. Police would not reveal the timing of the video.''
Price asked anyone who recognizes the person to come forward. He also noted the person “kicks up his right heel” as he walks.
Investigators have spent four years scouring video and used special software to identify many people caught on video that day, Price said. This is the only person they cannot identify, said.
He added that police are now classifying this person as a “suspect.”
By Kevin Donovan rbbm.
''Police on Tuesday released a short video loop of the man walking near the couple’s North York home. Police say he is between five-foot-six and five-foot-nine.
The video was recorded by a home security on the street sometime in the evening hours of Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017, the night of the murders.''
''The person can be seen walking into a defined area near the Shermans home on Old Colony Road where there is no video coverage, and then leaves the same way. Police would not reveal the timing of the video.''
Price asked anyone who recognizes the person to come forward. He also noted the person “kicks up his right heel” as he walks.
Investigators have spent four years scouring video and used special software to identify many people caught on video that day, Price said. This is the only person they cannot identify, said.
He added that police are now classifying this person as a “suspect.”
IMO, they are truly at the end of profitably being able to turn up any more evidence related to this suspect. IMO, they're hoping a tip will lead them to this person. Or, possibly, they think they know who he is, and are releasing it to dial up the pressure/stir the pot to see what happens...
The fact this was released on the 4th anniversary of the crime indicates, to me, it's not because anything new turned up recently.
JMO
Lalalacasbah
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The release of this new video has to be total strategy. They've had it for how long? Releasing it now, on death anniversary, close to Christmas... Has to be a way to make someone panic.
Is the gait real or fake? I've waffled on hands on personal murder from someone close or hired hit from someone close. Is it weird for me to say the person in this video seems to be thuggish in their walk? Like a big muscle-type tough walk? Maybe it's just me..
Is the gait real or fake? I've waffled on hands on personal murder from someone close or hired hit from someone close. Is it weird for me to say the person in this video seems to be thuggish in their walk? Like a big muscle-type tough walk? Maybe it's just me..
Something about the guy makes me think hitman. Like he's all business, not looking behind him or worried at all.
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On Tuesday, December 14th, 2021, at 1100AM, Detective Sergeant Brandon Price of Toronto Police Homicide updated the media on the investigation into the murders of Barry and Honey Sherman.
TPHQ: Good morning everybody. Welcome to please headquarters thank you for joining us today. Detective Sergeant Brandon Price from our homicide section will provide a brief update on the Sherman double homicide investigation. He'll then take questions from our media partners online and then here in the media gallery, Brandon
DSBP: Thank you for joining us today. My name is Brandon Price. I am a detective sergeant with the Toronto Police Service, homicide squad. Four years ago, the Toronto Police Service responded to an emergency call for service at the home on Old Colony Road. When officers arrived, they located Barry and Honey Sherman deceased within their residence.
It was later determined that both had died of ligature neck compression. Since that time, members of the homicide squad with the cooperation and support of numerous other Toronto Police Service units have worked diligently to identify the person or persons responsible. So far the investigation has involved:
-41 judicial authorizations
-approximately 250 witness interviews
-1,255 tips have been provided to the police from the public
-992 investigative actions have been undertaken.
We have remained steadfast in our commitment to bring closure to the Sherman family, their friends, loved ones and the community.
At the outside of this investigation, we seized a very large amount of security video footage. Some of these videos are from locations in the area of Old Colony Road. Numerous individuals were found on the video in the neighborhood and our team took extraordinary efforts to identify and investigate those individuals to be able to include them or exclude them from our investigation. These efforts included, but were not limited to, requesting video analysis from law enforcement partners such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Ontario Provincial Police.
Our own forensic video analysis unit conducted photogrammetry measurements; this involves attempts to determine physical identifiers, such as the approximate height of persons captured on the videos. We've also obtained judicial authorizations to collect data from nearby cell phone towers and cross referenced that with the physical locations of individuals on the videos.
We've also conducted numerous canvases of the neighborhood to identify individuals on the videos. We have been able to eliminate the vast majority of people captured on the video. We are left with one individual who we have been unable to identify. I'll ask that you take a look at the screen and observe this individual.
Through our investigation we have been unable to determine what this individual's purpose was in the neighborhood. The timing of this individual's appearance is in line with when we believe the murders took place. Based on this evidence, we're classifying this individual as a suspect. Though there is a lack of detail in features of this individual we believe that further information from the public could assist us in making an identification.
I would ask that you pay particular attention to the gate, or the stride or walk style, that this person has on the video. We are not able to provide you with any certainty of the person's age, weight or skin color. However, through photogrammetry performed, we have been able to determine that the suspect in this video is standing between five foot six and three quarters, and five foot nine and a half inches.
There may be a legitimate explanation as to what this person's actions were in the area. If you recognize yourself in this video, please come forward so you can be excluded from our investigation. However, it is our hope that someone will come forward with a name when they recognize the individual's walk - the way in which they kick up their right foot with every step, knowing that the person was, or is connected to the Sherman family, or was in the area on that day at that time.
To be clear this release is in no way an indication of a conclusion to this investigation. From the beginning, this has been a multifaceted investigation and we will continue to work on various other avenues of investigation that we have undertaken and keep an open mind to new ones. In my recent conversations with the Sherman family, they have asked me to remind the public that their private, 10 million dollar reward is still available. Thank you.
TPHQ: Thanks Brandon, we're going to go online first, I will call out your name. If you have a question, please ask, if not, just please say pass and we will provide another opportunity at the end. Ellen Bessner. Please go ahead.
EB(CJN): Hi, thank you very much, I’m Ellen Bessner with the Canadian Jewish News. Detective Sergeant, are there other people assisting you now with the investigation or are you still solo?
DSBP: No, I've never been a solo on this investigation. From the beginning we had a huge complement of officers to sort of take care of the initial mass of data and information processing at the beginning.
At this point, now I have my primary partner in this is Detective Constable Yim, who is on a daily basis assigned to this and works diligently on this investigation.
TPHQ: Do you have another question Ellen?
EB(CJN): Not for now, thanks.
TPHQ: Enzo, please go ahead……Enzo, sorry, please try again, you’re muted Enzo
Enzo: No more questions thank you.
TPHQ: Thank you, JP Nadeau please go ahead.
JP(CBC): I’m JP with CBC French. Detective Sergeant can you please tell me what time is it on the tape right now, because from here, on my screen it seems like it's daylight but I guess it's night time, no?
DSBP: That's correct. I'm not going to say exactly the time of this clip but I will say it is in the evening or night hours of December 13th 2017, and you're correct, it's sort of quite bright but that's partly to do with the type of camera that was recording.
TPHQ: Do you have another question JP?
JP(CBC): Yes, and the only description you can get, is the height of that suspect person?
DSBP: I think that, you know, when people take a close look at this individual, they'll be able to determine that there's a jacket that's being worn. There's some type of headdress, whether it be a hat or part of a hood, long pants and some boots that can be seen, um, further scrutiny and detail was undertaken, to determine with finer with, you know, to get a better idea of what it exactly it was that those items were and we're unable to sort of determine exactly what type of boot that was or those kinds of those kinds of things.
TPHQ: Thanks, JP…MK, Do you have a question?
MK: I do. Yes, good morning Detective Sergeant, thanks for taking my question. I'm just wondering why I believe this is the first time the term suspect is being used in this investigation and why you said this person could potentially be eliminated. So why they’re a suspect versus a person of interest? I was wondering, if you could you elaborate on that.
DSBP: Sure. That's a good question. So this footage is not the only footage of this individual that we have, we have done an exhaustive video canvas of the whole area. And we have, based on the timing of when we understand, when we believe, the murders took place, we have this individual coming into a very defined area aah, surr…around the Sherman's household and remaining in that area for a period and then leaving from that area. So we have been unable to identify what purpose that person had to be within that defined area. And therefore and the timing is, is in line with our belief as to when this, these murders took place. And so that is why we classify this individual as a suspect.
TPHQ: Any follow-up MK?
MK: Yeah. Just one. Just wanted to know if this video has been shared with the members of the Sherman family and if they were able to give you any information to whether they know or are unable to recognize this person
DSBP: I did share with the Sherman family and as always my conversations with them will remain private but they have been very supportive and very helpful all the way through this investigation, um, and I look forward to their continued support.
TPHQ: Rob Gillies do you have a question?
RG(AP): Yes, that's quite a unique gate that he has the way he walks with that right foot kicking it up. You mentioned there was other video. Why not release the other videos of the suspect?
DSBP: The reason is that this is amongst the, the best images of this individual that we have. So, we've sort of chosen the best one that has the greatest likelihood of somebody being able to identify this individual from. So that's why we've chosen to release this one.
TPHQ: Any follow-up Rob?
RG(AP): No, I’m good, thank you.
TPHQ: Thank you. Okay. Tyler Dawson. Please go ahead.
TD: You mentioned this individual is seen going into a defined area, what do you mean by that? Is that they are going on to the Sherman's property, were they all on public property walking down the street, like, what do you mean by “defined area”? So, I mean what makes that of interest?
DSBP: Yeah. So, so, in our exhaustive video canvas, we were able to get images from nearby, on either side, kind of, and around the Sherman household, and this individual walks into that area, does not continue to walk through, but remains in that area that's not covered by video footage and remains in there and then comes back out sometime later. And that's how we have been able to sort of narrow this individual's location down.
TPHQ: Any follow-up, Tyler?
TD: um, yeah, I mean is there anything else to lead you to believe this person’s a suspect other than they sort of go out of camera view for a period of time?
DSBP: Well it's a fairly defined area. So, and like I said before, we were able to eliminate pretty well every other person on the video footage that we've obtained. And so we're left with a very glaring, sort of unknown with this individual, that requires an explanation. If there's a legitimate one.
TPHQ: Thanks everyone, we're just going to move into the room now, Catherine, go ahead, please.
C: Hi, Cathy from… unintelligible…Why did it take you four years to release this video?
DSBP: So as you can see partly to do with the sort of poor quality of the image, um, the investigative considerations were that, the cost to the investigation by releasing this early on, would have outweighed the benefit of releasing it early on. So we undertook these investigative steps, exhaustive investigative steps, um, to identify this individual. And now having gotten to the point where we have not been able to do so with this videos, this is now the prudent time to release this to the public and seek the public's assistance.
Reporter: (Voices talking over each other) …He’s in that defined area for a period of time, around the time of the murders, correct? Are we talking five minutes or ten minutes or an hour or a few hours? How long? Can you give us an idea of how long he was loitering and I guess kinda hanging out in that area?
DSBP: Um, so I'm not going to get into the exact timing of it. I would say, I mean I can just generally answer that it is a very suspicious amount of time. It's in line with our belief as to when these murders took place and so that's, that's the, about as tight as I can get you.
Reporter: And is there any video showing him leaving in a vehicle or arriving in a vehicle? Do you have any idea of how he came to Old Colony Rd and when?
DSBP: So I'm not going to get into that. I'm sorry. Thank you.
Reporter: You mentioned there is a cost that outweighed the benefit at the time, what do you mean when you say cost? Can you expand on that for me?
DSBP: So I mean I'm gonna get into what those are, but they're investigative considerations and that's about as deep as I can get into it with regard to this.
Reporter: Is it budget?
DSBP: No, no it's not, nothing financial, it is a cost to the integrity of the investigation or the potential benefit to the investigation if we identify this individual on our own, as opposed to releasing it widely to the public.
Reporter: unintelligible
DSBP: You can see this as well as I can. It's very difficult to say with any level of certainty whether this is a male or a female. So I wouldn't declare one or the other at this point.
Reporter: With this video do police believe that one person committed these murders or still potential that it was committed by…unintelligible
DSBP: There's certainly a potential, we're keeping an open mind to, to that possibility. There's a lot of scenarios but one thing I can say is that this individual's actions are highly suspicious.
Reporter: unintelligible
DSBP: Well, I mean this is a commonly, we get questioned for updates, updates, updates and the, the common misconception in the public and often in the press, is that nothing's going on when the police are not updating. And, and really, at the end of the day, the most important thing for us is the integrity of the investigation. And unless it is beneficial to the investigation to release information, it's not going to be something that we're going to do.
We are constantly balancing, you know, the public interest to know what's going on and to scrutinize the police work and that is why we have released information. Um, and…but we're do it on a tactical, um, very calculated and careful timeline.
And so we will not rush into releasing information. This, like I said, is a very multifaceted investigation, right from the beginning. It continues to be. This was a very complex effort to reach this point, the cellular telephone data portion of this investigation, in attempts to identify this individual, yielded tens of thousands of data lines that needed to be analyzed. These kinds of things take a great deal of time and earlier I spoke of 992, I believe, investigative actions. Analyzed data from cell phone tower download is one line of the 992, to give you some measure of perspective of what can be going on in this investigation.
Reporter: If this is the best quality of this person, suspect…what has linked the other videos to think it's the same person?
DSBP: I mean it’s like, when we're tracking individuals, you can, you can logically connect one individual walking out of one frame and into another frame with some measure of certainty. As you can see there, you can tell the, to some measure with the clothing this individual is wearing it is discernible on the other footage, it's just not as, not as clearly discernible but we have a great deal of confidence that we have properly tracked this individual to and from the location.
Reporter: Can you tell us where this video was captured and even which direction the suspect appears to be going in?
DSBP: No, I'm not going to get into further detail as to the location or the directions of travel. Thank you, though.
Reporter: How many videos do you have of this person and what’s he doing or what are they doing in the other video…?
DSBP: So we have gathered four terabytes of video footage in this investigation and a great deal of it was from the area around Old Colony Road and the surrounding neighborhood. Um, I'm not going to get further into it, but the walking is generally the action, um, leading hi-, this individual, to and from the defined area.
Reporter: Is this your biggest lead in the case right now?
DSBP: I don't know if I would say it’s, it's the biggest lead. It is, it's been with us from the, from the early stages of this investigation. It took some time to collect all of this footage. It took some time to analyze the footage to be able to link the, these images together and identify that this individual's time-timeline was, was consistent with when we believe these offenses took place. Um, but there's other avenues of investigation that we have undertaken, and are ongoing. This is certainly a valuable piece of evidence, though.
KD(TS): I have two questions, Kevin Donovan, Toronto Star. The first one is: Last year, there was discussion, you put out a release saying there were numerous persons of interest and you haven’t identified them. Have you looked at each of those people to see if they match this person and have you excluded them…people of interest?
DSBP: So, I don't like to say that we've excluded people or included people, specifically, so I certainly won't get into that, um, but it's a consideration. Now, the fact is, is that nobody can be 100% excluded because there's always a possibility and we’ll keep an open mind to, that there's more than the one individual who executes the action, that may be culpable. So we're certainly keeping an open mind to that and so
KD(TS): But you had a look at those people that you identified as persons of interest to see if their body style and walking matches?
DSBP: Yes.
KD(TS): You’ve done that, and they do not.
DSBP: Well, we need to get a lot more than that to be able to move that any individual that we are looking at to a level of a suspect. But this individual is a suspect.
KD(TS): Second question. Do you have video that shows that person entering the Sherman property?
DSBP: So, um, I don't think it's a, so like I said, it's a very well defined area around the Sherman property. I won't say whether we have onto specifically the property itself though.
KD(TS): But there is video across the street…of low quality…should show you something. I’m sure you checked that…from that home to see this person going in or does he come in from the street to the north?
DSBP: All footage that could be collected was collected by the Toronto Police. We have analyzed it all and I'm not going to get into what exactly we see this individual doing when it comes to the address itself.
KD(TS): Last question, the defined area, does it include, it obviously includes the Sherman property, does it include a couple of other houses around there or is the defined area-
DSBP: No, it's, it's a well it's a well-defined area. It is tight to the Sherman property.
KD(TS): Tight to the Sherman property.
TPHQ: Any other questions in the room? Any other questions online?
Reporter: I have one. Sorry if, just because it's hard for us, we're online to see this video. Is it going to be on the TPS website so we can download it or how to get it.
TPHQ: Yes, a news release will be published if it has not been published already, it includes a link to the video as well as a screen capture in a still format as well. If there are any other question after that news release has been published, you can please contact Corporate Communications. Thanks for joining our news conference today.
TPHQ: Good morning everybody. Welcome to please headquarters thank you for joining us today. Detective Sergeant Brandon Price from our homicide section will provide a brief update on the Sherman double homicide investigation. He'll then take questions from our media partners online and then here in the media gallery, Brandon
DSBP: Thank you for joining us today. My name is Brandon Price. I am a detective sergeant with the Toronto Police Service, homicide squad. Four years ago, the Toronto Police Service responded to an emergency call for service at the home on Old Colony Road. When officers arrived, they located Barry and Honey Sherman deceased within their residence.
It was later determined that both had died of ligature neck compression. Since that time, members of the homicide squad with the cooperation and support of numerous other Toronto Police Service units have worked diligently to identify the person or persons responsible. So far the investigation has involved:
-41 judicial authorizations
-approximately 250 witness interviews
-1,255 tips have been provided to the police from the public
-992 investigative actions have been undertaken.
We have remained steadfast in our commitment to bring closure to the Sherman family, their friends, loved ones and the community.
At the outside of this investigation, we seized a very large amount of security video footage. Some of these videos are from locations in the area of Old Colony Road. Numerous individuals were found on the video in the neighborhood and our team took extraordinary efforts to identify and investigate those individuals to be able to include them or exclude them from our investigation. These efforts included, but were not limited to, requesting video analysis from law enforcement partners such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Ontario Provincial Police.
Our own forensic video analysis unit conducted photogrammetry measurements; this involves attempts to determine physical identifiers, such as the approximate height of persons captured on the videos. We've also obtained judicial authorizations to collect data from nearby cell phone towers and cross referenced that with the physical locations of individuals on the videos.
We've also conducted numerous canvases of the neighborhood to identify individuals on the videos. We have been able to eliminate the vast majority of people captured on the video. We are left with one individual who we have been unable to identify. I'll ask that you take a look at the screen and observe this individual.
Through our investigation we have been unable to determine what this individual's purpose was in the neighborhood. The timing of this individual's appearance is in line with when we believe the murders took place. Based on this evidence, we're classifying this individual as a suspect. Though there is a lack of detail in features of this individual we believe that further information from the public could assist us in making an identification.
I would ask that you pay particular attention to the gate, or the stride or walk style, that this person has on the video. We are not able to provide you with any certainty of the person's age, weight or skin color. However, through photogrammetry performed, we have been able to determine that the suspect in this video is standing between five foot six and three quarters, and five foot nine and a half inches.
There may be a legitimate explanation as to what this person's actions were in the area. If you recognize yourself in this video, please come forward so you can be excluded from our investigation. However, it is our hope that someone will come forward with a name when they recognize the individual's walk - the way in which they kick up their right foot with every step, knowing that the person was, or is connected to the Sherman family, or was in the area on that day at that time.
To be clear this release is in no way an indication of a conclusion to this investigation. From the beginning, this has been a multifaceted investigation and we will continue to work on various other avenues of investigation that we have undertaken and keep an open mind to new ones. In my recent conversations with the Sherman family, they have asked me to remind the public that their private, 10 million dollar reward is still available. Thank you.
TPHQ: Thanks Brandon, we're going to go online first, I will call out your name. If you have a question, please ask, if not, just please say pass and we will provide another opportunity at the end. Ellen Bessner. Please go ahead.
EB(CJN): Hi, thank you very much, I’m Ellen Bessner with the Canadian Jewish News. Detective Sergeant, are there other people assisting you now with the investigation or are you still solo?
DSBP: No, I've never been a solo on this investigation. From the beginning we had a huge complement of officers to sort of take care of the initial mass of data and information processing at the beginning.
At this point, now I have my primary partner in this is Detective Constable Yim, who is on a daily basis assigned to this and works diligently on this investigation.
TPHQ: Do you have another question Ellen?
EB(CJN): Not for now, thanks.
TPHQ: Enzo, please go ahead……Enzo, sorry, please try again, you’re muted Enzo
Enzo: No more questions thank you.
TPHQ: Thank you, JP Nadeau please go ahead.
JP(CBC): I’m JP with CBC French. Detective Sergeant can you please tell me what time is it on the tape right now, because from here, on my screen it seems like it's daylight but I guess it's night time, no?
DSBP: That's correct. I'm not going to say exactly the time of this clip but I will say it is in the evening or night hours of December 13th 2017, and you're correct, it's sort of quite bright but that's partly to do with the type of camera that was recording.
TPHQ: Do you have another question JP?
JP(CBC): Yes, and the only description you can get, is the height of that suspect person?
DSBP: I think that, you know, when people take a close look at this individual, they'll be able to determine that there's a jacket that's being worn. There's some type of headdress, whether it be a hat or part of a hood, long pants and some boots that can be seen, um, further scrutiny and detail was undertaken, to determine with finer with, you know, to get a better idea of what it exactly it was that those items were and we're unable to sort of determine exactly what type of boot that was or those kinds of those kinds of things.
TPHQ: Thanks, JP…MK, Do you have a question?
MK: I do. Yes, good morning Detective Sergeant, thanks for taking my question. I'm just wondering why I believe this is the first time the term suspect is being used in this investigation and why you said this person could potentially be eliminated. So why they’re a suspect versus a person of interest? I was wondering, if you could you elaborate on that.
DSBP: Sure. That's a good question. So this footage is not the only footage of this individual that we have, we have done an exhaustive video canvas of the whole area. And we have, based on the timing of when we understand, when we believe, the murders took place, we have this individual coming into a very defined area aah, surr…around the Sherman's household and remaining in that area for a period and then leaving from that area. So we have been unable to identify what purpose that person had to be within that defined area. And therefore and the timing is, is in line with our belief as to when this, these murders took place. And so that is why we classify this individual as a suspect.
TPHQ: Any follow-up MK?
MK: Yeah. Just one. Just wanted to know if this video has been shared with the members of the Sherman family and if they were able to give you any information to whether they know or are unable to recognize this person
DSBP: I did share with the Sherman family and as always my conversations with them will remain private but they have been very supportive and very helpful all the way through this investigation, um, and I look forward to their continued support.
TPHQ: Rob Gillies do you have a question?
RG(AP): Yes, that's quite a unique gate that he has the way he walks with that right foot kicking it up. You mentioned there was other video. Why not release the other videos of the suspect?
DSBP: The reason is that this is amongst the, the best images of this individual that we have. So, we've sort of chosen the best one that has the greatest likelihood of somebody being able to identify this individual from. So that's why we've chosen to release this one.
TPHQ: Any follow-up Rob?
RG(AP): No, I’m good, thank you.
TPHQ: Thank you. Okay. Tyler Dawson. Please go ahead.
TD: You mentioned this individual is seen going into a defined area, what do you mean by that? Is that they are going on to the Sherman's property, were they all on public property walking down the street, like, what do you mean by “defined area”? So, I mean what makes that of interest?
DSBP: Yeah. So, so, in our exhaustive video canvas, we were able to get images from nearby, on either side, kind of, and around the Sherman household, and this individual walks into that area, does not continue to walk through, but remains in that area that's not covered by video footage and remains in there and then comes back out sometime later. And that's how we have been able to sort of narrow this individual's location down.
TPHQ: Any follow-up, Tyler?
TD: um, yeah, I mean is there anything else to lead you to believe this person’s a suspect other than they sort of go out of camera view for a period of time?
DSBP: Well it's a fairly defined area. So, and like I said before, we were able to eliminate pretty well every other person on the video footage that we've obtained. And so we're left with a very glaring, sort of unknown with this individual, that requires an explanation. If there's a legitimate one.
TPHQ: Thanks everyone, we're just going to move into the room now, Catherine, go ahead, please.
C: Hi, Cathy from… unintelligible…Why did it take you four years to release this video?
DSBP: So as you can see partly to do with the sort of poor quality of the image, um, the investigative considerations were that, the cost to the investigation by releasing this early on, would have outweighed the benefit of releasing it early on. So we undertook these investigative steps, exhaustive investigative steps, um, to identify this individual. And now having gotten to the point where we have not been able to do so with this videos, this is now the prudent time to release this to the public and seek the public's assistance.
Reporter: (Voices talking over each other) …He’s in that defined area for a period of time, around the time of the murders, correct? Are we talking five minutes or ten minutes or an hour or a few hours? How long? Can you give us an idea of how long he was loitering and I guess kinda hanging out in that area?
DSBP: Um, so I'm not going to get into the exact timing of it. I would say, I mean I can just generally answer that it is a very suspicious amount of time. It's in line with our belief as to when these murders took place and so that's, that's the, about as tight as I can get you.
Reporter: And is there any video showing him leaving in a vehicle or arriving in a vehicle? Do you have any idea of how he came to Old Colony Rd and when?
DSBP: So I'm not going to get into that. I'm sorry. Thank you.
Reporter: You mentioned there is a cost that outweighed the benefit at the time, what do you mean when you say cost? Can you expand on that for me?
DSBP: So I mean I'm gonna get into what those are, but they're investigative considerations and that's about as deep as I can get into it with regard to this.
Reporter: Is it budget?
DSBP: No, no it's not, nothing financial, it is a cost to the integrity of the investigation or the potential benefit to the investigation if we identify this individual on our own, as opposed to releasing it widely to the public.
Reporter: unintelligible
DSBP: You can see this as well as I can. It's very difficult to say with any level of certainty whether this is a male or a female. So I wouldn't declare one or the other at this point.
Reporter: With this video do police believe that one person committed these murders or still potential that it was committed by…unintelligible
DSBP: There's certainly a potential, we're keeping an open mind to, to that possibility. There's a lot of scenarios but one thing I can say is that this individual's actions are highly suspicious.
Reporter: unintelligible
DSBP: Well, I mean this is a commonly, we get questioned for updates, updates, updates and the, the common misconception in the public and often in the press, is that nothing's going on when the police are not updating. And, and really, at the end of the day, the most important thing for us is the integrity of the investigation. And unless it is beneficial to the investigation to release information, it's not going to be something that we're going to do.
We are constantly balancing, you know, the public interest to know what's going on and to scrutinize the police work and that is why we have released information. Um, and…but we're do it on a tactical, um, very calculated and careful timeline.
And so we will not rush into releasing information. This, like I said, is a very multifaceted investigation, right from the beginning. It continues to be. This was a very complex effort to reach this point, the cellular telephone data portion of this investigation, in attempts to identify this individual, yielded tens of thousands of data lines that needed to be analyzed. These kinds of things take a great deal of time and earlier I spoke of 992, I believe, investigative actions. Analyzed data from cell phone tower download is one line of the 992, to give you some measure of perspective of what can be going on in this investigation.
Reporter: If this is the best quality of this person, suspect…what has linked the other videos to think it's the same person?
DSBP: I mean it’s like, when we're tracking individuals, you can, you can logically connect one individual walking out of one frame and into another frame with some measure of certainty. As you can see there, you can tell the, to some measure with the clothing this individual is wearing it is discernible on the other footage, it's just not as, not as clearly discernible but we have a great deal of confidence that we have properly tracked this individual to and from the location.
Reporter: Can you tell us where this video was captured and even which direction the suspect appears to be going in?
DSBP: No, I'm not going to get into further detail as to the location or the directions of travel. Thank you, though.
Reporter: How many videos do you have of this person and what’s he doing or what are they doing in the other video…?
DSBP: So we have gathered four terabytes of video footage in this investigation and a great deal of it was from the area around Old Colony Road and the surrounding neighborhood. Um, I'm not going to get further into it, but the walking is generally the action, um, leading hi-, this individual, to and from the defined area.
Reporter: Is this your biggest lead in the case right now?
DSBP: I don't know if I would say it’s, it's the biggest lead. It is, it's been with us from the, from the early stages of this investigation. It took some time to collect all of this footage. It took some time to analyze the footage to be able to link the, these images together and identify that this individual's time-timeline was, was consistent with when we believe these offenses took place. Um, but there's other avenues of investigation that we have undertaken, and are ongoing. This is certainly a valuable piece of evidence, though.
KD(TS): I have two questions, Kevin Donovan, Toronto Star. The first one is: Last year, there was discussion, you put out a release saying there were numerous persons of interest and you haven’t identified them. Have you looked at each of those people to see if they match this person and have you excluded them…people of interest?
DSBP: So, I don't like to say that we've excluded people or included people, specifically, so I certainly won't get into that, um, but it's a consideration. Now, the fact is, is that nobody can be 100% excluded because there's always a possibility and we’ll keep an open mind to, that there's more than the one individual who executes the action, that may be culpable. So we're certainly keeping an open mind to that and so
KD(TS): But you had a look at those people that you identified as persons of interest to see if their body style and walking matches?
DSBP: Yes.
KD(TS): You’ve done that, and they do not.
DSBP: Well, we need to get a lot more than that to be able to move that any individual that we are looking at to a level of a suspect. But this individual is a suspect.
KD(TS): Second question. Do you have video that shows that person entering the Sherman property?
DSBP: So, um, I don't think it's a, so like I said, it's a very well defined area around the Sherman property. I won't say whether we have onto specifically the property itself though.
KD(TS): But there is video across the street…of low quality…should show you something. I’m sure you checked that…from that home to see this person going in or does he come in from the street to the north?
DSBP: All footage that could be collected was collected by the Toronto Police. We have analyzed it all and I'm not going to get into what exactly we see this individual doing when it comes to the address itself.
KD(TS): Last question, the defined area, does it include, it obviously includes the Sherman property, does it include a couple of other houses around there or is the defined area-
DSBP: No, it's, it's a well it's a well-defined area. It is tight to the Sherman property.
KD(TS): Tight to the Sherman property.
TPHQ: Any other questions in the room? Any other questions online?
Reporter: I have one. Sorry if, just because it's hard for us, we're online to see this video. Is it going to be on the TPS website so we can download it or how to get it.
TPHQ: Yes, a news release will be published if it has not been published already, it includes a link to the video as well as a screen capture in a still format as well. If there are any other question after that news release has been published, you can please contact Corporate Communications. Thanks for joining our news conference today.
I assume the 'defined area etc' (or dawvc for short
, is centred on the Sherman's home. I mean, it must be, for them to label him a suspect in the crime. They would have quickly learned which neighbours closest to the Sherman's, on all sides, had cameras. In between those cameras is the dawvc. IMO, this would be why, way back when, some neighbours complained to KD that police weren't interested in their footage: probably because police were interested in the cameras closest to the Sherman home, on either side (and front and back, likely). And also, footage at street crossings, and very high quality footage, to trace where the suspect came from/went, and to analyse details about them
Badgerette
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The gait reminds of the off kilter walk that Putin has from his KGB days carrying a weapon. It's lightly snowing in the video and it's late at night--because only some of the neighborhood Christmas lights are still lit...not much reason to be out wandering about at that time and temperature...
Thanks for that, it's a big job.
Window21
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What bothers me is that if this was a professional hit then usually hey shoot the person. In and out, super fast, no messing around. To strangle someone it takes quite a bit of time and usually it fits the motive of something very personal, like severe hatred, love relationship gone wrong, etc....
Also, for a hit man he is pretty small ( 5 foot 6 - 5 ft 9in)...but maybe I watch to many crime shows....
He (assuming this person is a he) does have a different kind of walk, maybe he hurt his knee or hip in a struggle or when he was strangling them?
Regardless, I think this was a very well thought out plan and whomever this person is he doesn't seem to be in a rush and not bothered at all because he's just walking and not looking around being paranoid at all......which yet again makes me think a hit man, but confuses me because it was strangulation...from what I understand and that doesn't fit the MO of a hit man! JMO
Also, for a hit man he is pretty small ( 5 foot 6 - 5 ft 9in)...but maybe I watch to many crime shows....
He (assuming this person is a he) does have a different kind of walk, maybe he hurt his knee or hip in a struggle or when he was strangling them?
Regardless, I think this was a very well thought out plan and whomever this person is he doesn't seem to be in a rush and not bothered at all because he's just walking and not looking around being paranoid at all......which yet again makes me think a hit man, but confuses me because it was strangulation...from what I understand and that doesn't fit the MO of a hit man! JMO
Lalalacasbah
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I kinda got that impression as well. For some odd reason my first thought was body builder/tough guy type!! Terrible to say, but that was what I thought when first saw.
I'm not sure what someone would walk like, when techniquely fleeing the scene where they'd just murdered two people, but being aware most of these luxury homes have video cameras.
IMO a walk can't be faked for any distance, the person gets distracted by their thoughts and forgets.
IMO the person is more concerned with their face not appearing, by looking toward the street. A normal person would at least glance at the mansion as they pass it.
Lalalacasbah
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I agree! That's why I'm torn on this... I surprised too at my impressions of a tough guy/body building type.
If someone close it would be hands on/taunting them while in a vulnerable tied up position perhaps telling them off or confronting them, not hitman at all.
Then the other part of me thinks - personal but person was too chicken to do the dirty work. Maybe hired someone to do the physical restraining and/or murder but they were there as well (already hiding in the house somewhere? not sure).
I'm still torn on this one.
Lalalacasbah
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Do we know if this happened after the murders for sure? Or could it be before? It said 'time of the murders' (unless I missed it which is possible).
I think of Lindsay Buziak murder where the suspects showed up in loud clothing as a distraction (so people only remember the dress not their face) and I think of that movie The Usual Suspects where the mastermind faked the limp walk.
I can't help but think that sometimes with these elaborately planned murders they can sometimes copy movie crime stuff. The Lindsay Buziak murder I'm almost certain was planned by a woman because of certain nuances. Who knows with this one though...
Window21
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It also takes a lot of physical strength to strangle someone, and this person did it 2 times!!! Also, like I said it takes time to do that...If there were more than 1 person involved in the actual killings then how did they leave the home undetected??? So far the police has only pointed to this person in the video which makes me think this person did the murders all by himself.
So this makes me wonder who is behind the murders? Who hired him if he was a hit man? This "hit man" could be in Japan for all we know.... plus the hit man (if he is a hit man) could very well be of a different nationality, given their short stature...Many North American men are taller.....JMO....just throwing out ideas....that's all
So this makes me wonder who is behind the murders? Who hired him if he was a hit man? This "hit man" could be in Japan for all we know.... plus the hit man (if he is a hit man) could very well be of a different nationality, given their short stature...Many North American men are taller.....JMO....just throwing out ideas....that's all
I posted above about the direction the person seems to be moving, based on google maps. The hydrant side of the driveway is the side closest to Old Colony rd, by my reckoning.
Lalalacasbah
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Could definitely be a red herring or murderer in "getaway disguise". We like to theorize around here though lol
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