THE STORY IS PREFACED BY THE FOLLOWING WARNING: "This story contains sensitive subject matter, including a discussion of the pathology of suicide, that could be triggering for some readers."
PASSAGE ONE OF THE DAY: "In the Sherman case, the first autopsies determined the hyoid bones in both Barry and Honey’s necks were not broken, contributing to the early theory that both died by suicide, according to sources. A second, more experienced pathologist hired by the Sherman family disagreed and police ruled the deaths a double murder six weeks after their bodies were discovered. In the Epstein case, his hyoid bone was broken, but his jail cell death was ruled a suicide — a diagnosis a second pathologist hired by the family strongly disagreed with, fuelling conspiracy theories to this day that the registered sex offender with a string of wealthy friends was murdered to keep him silent. The bottom line, according to forensic experts interviewed by the Star and leading forensic pathology studies, is that a broken or unbroken hyoid bone does not on its own point to suicide or murder. As with so many things in both science and police work, the context is king."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Barry and Honey Sherman, billionaires and philanthropists, were discovered dead in their Toronto home on December 15, 2017, seated beside their basement swimming pool, belts looped around their neck and tied to a low railing.
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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: Epstein was a financier and hedge-fund manager with prominent friends, including former presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton as well as Prince Andrew. He was facing allegations of human trafficking of young girls and was awaiting trial in a New York Jail cell. Guards found him dead early on Aug. 10, 2019. New York City’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Barbara Sampson, ruled the death a suicide by hanging. Conspiracy theories, still prevalent today, held that he was murdered to keep him from naming names.
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STORY: "What do the mysterious cases of Barry and Honey Sherman and Jeffrey Epstein have in common? A U-shaped neck bone to which too much significance is attached during a death investigation," by Toronto Star Chief Investigative Reporter Kevin Donovan, published on March 16, 2021.
GIST: "The high-profile death investigations of Barry and Honey Sherman in Toronto, and Jeffrey Epstein in New York, were complicated by confusion and misdiagnosis allegations related to the post-mortem condition of a small U-shaped neck bone called the “hyoid,” the Star has found.
While in life the billionaire philanthropist Shermans and accused sex trafficker Epstein were polar opposites, in death there was a similar controversy over how they died.
In both cases, though in different ways, it appears too much emphasis was placed on whether their hyoid bones were broken or not, and not enough emphasis on other factors. The theory held by some is that a broken hyoid strongly suggests a violent murder by strangulation, and an intact hyoid is indicative of a suicide, where typically less pressure is applied. Not so, say leading experts.
In the Sherman case, the first autopsies determined the hyoid bones in both Barry and Honey’s necks were not broken, contributing to the early theory that both died by suicide, according to sources. A second, more experienced pathologist hired by the Sherman family disagreed and police ruled the deaths a double murder six weeks after their bodies were discovered.
In the Epstein case, his hyoid bone was broken, but his jail cell death was ruled a suicide — a diagnosis a second pathologist hired by the family strongly disagreed with, fuelling conspiracy theories to this day that the registered sex offender with a string of wealthy friends was murdered to keep him silent.
The bottom line, according to forensic experts interviewed by the Star and leading forensic pathology studies, is that a broken or unbroken hyoid bone does not on its own point to suicide or murder. As with so many things in both science and police work, the context is king.
“Hyoid bone fractures are one of those types of injuries you may see with compression of the neck. You can see it with hanging deaths, you can see it in a manual strangulation, you can see it in a ligature strangulation,” says Dr. James Gill, the president of the National Association of Medical Examiners in the U.S. Gill spoke to the Star about issues involving forensic pathology and the hyoid bone, and was not commenting on either the Sherman or the Epstein case.
“The fracture has to be interpreted in context of the entire case. What are the circumstances? Look at the big picture. It is not (a determination) you want to make in a vacuum,” said Gill, adding that the only difference between a ligature strangulation and a suicidal hanging is “what is causing the force.”
To understand this issue, you have to first know what a hyoid bone is, and where it is located.
Take your thumb and index finger, open them a couple of inches, and gently run them up your neck. Just above your larynx (voice box) and tucked under your chin, is your hyoid bone. The hyoid bone is often described as “free floating” — muscles and ligaments run off it but it is not attached to other bones. It does many things, but one of its most important functions is assisting with movements of the tongue, including swallowing, and with chewing. Scientists are still learning about this little bone — one theory being studied is that an improperly positioned hyoid contributes to sleep apnea.
In the case of death caused by some type of compression to the neck, the hyoid is always examined as a clue, as it was in both the Sherman and Epstein cases. When a forensic pathologist tries to understand how a person came to die from a neck compression they look to see if the bone and cartilage around it has been broken.
Barry and Honey Sherman, billionaires and philanthropists, were discovered dead in their Toronto home on December 15, 2017, seated beside their basement swimming pool, belts looped around their neck and tied to a low railing. The first set of autopsies, by Dr. Michael Pickup, a forensic pathologist with Ontario’s forensic pathology unit, determined that both died of “ligature neck compression.” What caused the neck to be compressed, Pickup did not initially say, and the lead homicide detective on the case said in the early stages of the probe investigators were “alive” to the possibility of double suicide, murder suicide or double homicide.
According to investigative sources, friends and family of the Shermans, and police documents released to the Star, the double-suicide and murder-suicide possibilities were vigorously pursued for six weeks.
One reason was that their hyoid bones were intact. The theory was, sources have told the Star, that if the Shermans were violently strangled, the hyoid bones would have broken. Think of a turkey wishbone, which can be pulled apart or compressed and snapped. Add to that the fact of their age (Barry was 75, Honey was 70). The hyoid bone becomes less pliable and more brittle, and sources say the investigators on the case — police and forensic — speculated that if they were manually strangled, the bones would have snapped.
When Dr. David Chiasson — the more experienced pathologist hired by the Sherman family, Ontario’s former chief forensic pathologist — conducted his examination, he had the benefit of being the co-author of a study in 1995 that found that the condition of the hyoid was not necessarily indicative of murder or suicide. He found that the hyoid bone was not fractured in two-thirds of the homicide cases reviewed in the study. Chiasson did the study with Dr. David Pollanen, Ontario’s current chief forensic pathologist, who is Pickup’s boss. Pollanen was not available to do the autopsies on the Shermans; the more junior Pickup did them.
Sources say that Chiasson considered other factors in arriving at his double-murder determination. First, while a man’s belt was tied around each of the Sherman necks, it was not what killed them, sources say. The marks of a more narrow ligature — speculation is that it may have been similar to a large “zip tie” used to bind wires or pipes — can be seen on the Sherman necks, sources say. Chiasson also considered similar marks on each of the Sherman wrists — an indication that they were bound at some point. No ties or bindings were found at the crime scene.
The other factor Chiasson put a great deal of weight on is that the Shermans were in a seated position. He determined, sources say, that it would be highly unlikely that a person could die of suicide in that position; not enough weight was applied to the neck.
How these markings on the Shermans and their body position were not properly considered by forensic and police investigators until Chiasson came along remains a mystery. Homicide detectives probing the Sherman case were aware of them — they asked Barry and Honey’s personal trainer, who saw the couple the morning before they died, about marks on the Shermans’ wrists. Meanwhile, all police files related to the autopsies remain sealed by judge’s order. Since this is an ongoing case, Pollanen and Pickup said through a spokesperson that they could not comment. Police say they cannot comment on the forensics in the case.
Information related to the Sherman autopsies was kept from the family, according to Sherman son Jonathon. “We did not know about the little bone,” he told the Star in an interview.
The police apparently did not share very much information and Jonathon told the Star that the family’s team of private investigators decided it was better that the Sherman family only knew what was in the public domain relating to the case. He said their private team only told them “we know the police are wrong, the suicide thing is bulls--t.”
In the high-profile Epstein case, the hyoid also factored, but in a completely different way.
Epstein was a financier and hedge-fund manager with prominent friends, including former presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton as well as Prince Andrew. He was facing allegations of human trafficking of young girls and was awaiting trial in a New York Jail cell. Guards found him dead early on Aug. 10, 2019. New York City’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Barbara Sampson, ruled the death a suicide by hanging. Conspiracy theories, still prevalent today, held that he was murdered to keep him from naming names. His brother hired Dr. Michael Baden, a former New York City medical examiner, to conduct a second autopsy.
As Baden told TV’s “Fox and Friends,” he discovered that one side of Epstein’s hyoid bone and some cartilage were broken. Baden said these injuries “are extremely unusual in suicidal hangings and could occur much more commonly in homicidal strangulation.”
In her reply, Sampson issued a statement to several media outlets confirming her original findings — Epstein hung himself. To this day, there is an active online group of conspiracy theorists who point to Baden’s findings and the fact that guards were not doing regular checks on Epstein’s cell as proof that he was murdered. Two jail guards are facing charges of falsifying records related to completing rounds — authorities in New York alleged they were sitting at their desks and browsing websites for furniture sales and sports news instead of doing rounds every 30 minutes. As to Epstein’s positioning in the cell when he was discovered, media reports say there are no photos because the guard who found him cut the bedsheet ligature that was tied to an elevated bed frame and attempted to resuscitate him.
Dr. Judy Melinic, a forensic pathologist and CEO of a consulting company Pathology Expert, wrote in an online journal article in response to Baden’s comments on the Epstein case, that “the hyoid bone and thyroid cartilages can get broken in both hangings and strangulations.” What is of great importance, she wrote, is the “death scene investigation” — close examination of the injury to the neck and the surroundings.
Meanwhile, in Toronto, homicide detectives say the investigation into the Sherman deaths is “active and ongoing.”
The entire story can be read at:
