BACKGROUND: (FROM THIS STORY): "Apotex founder and owner Barry Sherman and his wife Honey were murdered on the evening of Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. Their strangled bodies were found on the pool deck of their indoor swimming pool. Belts around their neck looped to a low safety railing at the end of the pool kept them in a semi-seated position. Investigators have told the Star the Shermans were killed elsewhere in the 12,000 square foot home and brought to the pool and “staged” in a macabre tableau. Toronto police and a pathologist initially theorized it was a murder-suicide; the theory changed after a Star investigation revealed detailed autopsy findings, including that the Shermans’ wrists had been tied but no ties were found at the scene. Also, the belts did not kill them — thin ligatures did but those were also not found at the scene."
STORY: "Toronto police turn to AI tool to investigate the murders of Barry and Honey Sherman," by Toronto Star Chief Investigative Reporter Kevin Donovan, June 11, 2025, updated on November 19, 2025. (Kevin Donovan is the Toronto Star’s Chief Investigative Reporter. His focus is on journalism that exposes wrongdoing and effects change. Over more than three decades he has reported on the activities of charities, government, police, business among other institutions. Donovan also reported from the battlefields in the Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan following 9/11. He has won three National Newspaper Awards, two Governor General’s Michener Awards, the Canadian Journalism Foundation award and three Canadian Association of Journalists Awards. As the Star’s editor of investigations for many years, Donovan led many award-winning projects for the paper. He is the author of several books, including “Secret Life: The Jian Ghomeshi Investigation” and the “Dead Times” (a fiction novel).
SUB-HEADING: "While artificial intelligence is routinely used these days by police investigators in other jurisdictions, this is the first time it has been applied as an investigative tool in the Sherman case."
SUB-HEADING: "Honey and Barry Sherman were found dead near their basement swimming pool in December 2017. Their killings remain unsolved."
GIST: "The Toronto police homicide unit has recently turned to an off-the-shelf program with AI capabilities to try and solve the double murder of billionaires Barry and Honey Sherman.
More than seven years into the investigation, with dozens of people still considered “persons of interest,” the lone detective working the case says he got the idea last month after attending a seminar at police headquarters by the Toronto police intelligence unit.
While artificial intelligence is routinely used these days by police investigators in some jurisdictions, this is the first time it has been applied as an investigative tool in the Sherman case.
“I was looking at that presentation and I was thinking (about) a lot of the data from the Sherman investigation,” homicide Det. Const. Dennis Yim said during a recent court hearing, in which the Toronto Star is challenging sealing orders on thousands of pages of search warrant information. As the officers leading the seminar were showing graphs and maps that charted movement and location, Yim explained, “I (was) thinking of all the information that I have from this investigation (that) was not analyzed in this manner or to this extent.”
Asked in court last Friday what the AI program turned up, Yim said he has had the results for two weeks. “And I still have to look through it.”
Yim revealed a second significant change in the investigation, one that reduces the amount of human investigative time spent on the Sherman case. Until February, Yim had been working full-time on the Sherman case. As of February, his bosses told him to “split his time” between the Sherman investigation and managing administrative tasks on other homicide cases. Yim said he was immediately concerned “that I would need time to work on the Sherman case as well.” He said he now understands he must “manage my time accordingly.”
Apotex founder and owner Barry Sherman and his wife Honey were murdered on the evening of Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. Their strangled bodies were found on the pool deck of their indoor swimming pool. Belts around their neck looped to a low safety railing at the end of the pool kept them in a semi-seated position. Investigators have told the Star the Shermans were killed elsewhere in the 12,000 square foot home and brought to the pool and “staged” in a macabre tableau. Toronto police and a pathologist initially theorized it was a murder-suicide; the theory changed after a Star investigation revealed detailed autopsy findings, including that the Shermans’ wrists had been tied but no ties were found at the scene. Also, the belts did not kill them — thin ligatures did but those were also not found at the scene.
The Star’s ongoing push for information on the Sherman murders
A Star reporter first went to court in March 2018, asking a judge to unseal the early search warrant information in the case. Search warrants filed in court contain witness statements from family, friends and business associates; forensic results; cellular phone records; vehicle GPS data; security video; and police theories. The Star has returned roughly every six months to renew its request, seeking access to all additional search warrant documents filed in court by police. The court has allowed the Star reporter to cross-examine the detective during these hearings to unseal documents.
To date, about half of the 4,000 warrant pages have been unsealed, allowing the public a great deal of insight into many of the mistakes made in the Sherman investigation. Among them, failure to properly canvas the neighbourhood or obtain security video in a timely fashion; the misdiagnosis of murder-suicide; failure to obtain alibis from key individuals; and asking the wrong question for the first six weeks (police asked interview subjects why Barry would kill Honey, instead of asking who would have murdered them.)
Some of the 4,000 pages in the court file are partially unredacted, some are completely unredacted and many are entirely redacted. For example, the bulk of the statements by the four Sherman children, aunts and uncles, and business and charity world associates of Barry and Honey have been unsealed. However, the seal has remained in place on any speculation in those statements as to who might have killed the couple.
To maintain the existing sealing orders, Yim provided Justice David Porter of the Ontario Court of Justice with his reasoning. First, he is concerned that revealing the identities of “persons of interest” (one rung below a “suspect” in police jargon) would alert those individuals that the police were on to them. Yim has repeatedly said that Toronto police have not cleared anyone in the case, so anyone who was a person of interest at the start — investigative sources say there are “dozens” — is still a person of interest.
Yim also told court that the seal order must be maintained because the Sherman case is “active and ongoing” and far from a “cold case.” If it were ruled a cold case, more information would likely have to be revealed through the ongoing court process. Yim also said that he, not any senior officer, is making all of the decisions on maintaining the sealing order.
How AI is changing how investigators look at data
This new use of AI in the investigation appears to be the main plank in his argument that the case is not cold.
The program the intelligence unit used on the Sherman files is called Microsoft Power BI (for Business Intelligence). Yim told the court in a sworn affidavit that Microsoft Power BI was not “previously available to investigators.”
During cross-examination by the Star reporter, Yim was shown Microsoft documents revealing that the program has been available for a decade, with the most robust version of the software (with enhanced AI capabilities) released in 2023. Yim was also shown pricing for the program — as low as $20 a month. Yim was asked why he, as the lead investigator, had not used this before.
“I didn’t know about it,” Yim said.
Justice Porter asked Yim: “Is that a type of AI?”
Yim responded: “It’s a way to collate, or take a lot of data and analyze in conjunction with itself.” (On the witness stand, Yim seemed confused about the capabilities of the program now being used in the Sherman investigation. Shown by the Star reporter the description he had provided in a web link to the court, stating that AI is a key feature, Yim responded, “I did not know that.”)
Yim also said that “analysts” at the Toronto Police have looked at the same information in the past, but he said it’s his understanding that this new program will do a better job.
“I guess the programs that they had back then were nothing like what we have today,” Yim said.
Yim said he provided the intelligence unit officers conducting this new analysis with cellular tower transmissions and other electronic information related to the movements and “geography” of various individuals in the hopes that they could hone in on suspects or suspects in the Sherman case.
Power BI is used by police forces, including the Toronto police, most often to analyze and visualize crime statistics and detect patterns in particular neighbourhoods.
Yim said he expects to look at the results of this analysis soon. Meanwhile, he is still assessing a mountain of business information obtained two years ago with a search warrant served on a location that housed electronic information related to Barry Sherman’s business deals. Yim told the court he has reviewed 60 per cent of the 14,801 electronic files obtained related to Barry’s deals.
In the warrant papers related to this 2023 search, Yim said they were seeking “documents and data that would further implicate or exonerate current persons of interest in this investigation and determine if any persons had, or did not have, a motive to kill Bernard and Honey Sherman.”
Yim said he is also hoping to get information from “entities” in three countries outside of Canada. Yim would not identify the countries or describe the type of information. He said only one “entity” has responded, but he has not received any information.
Asked when either he or the other officer on the case — the supervisor of the file, Det. Sgt. Brandon Price — have last interviewed someone relating to the Sherman file, he said it has been about two years.
Justice Porter, who replaced the judge initially hearing the Star’s case for openness when she retired, asked Yim if he had ever given thought to releasing additional information as a means of obtaining more from the public. Porter referred to a ruling on court openness by now-retired Justice David Doherty — a ruling Porter noted was upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada — and used the analogy of “shaking a tree.”
Porter put a scenario to Yim, asking him if it might be time to consider a different tack and release a swath of information. “Someone’s sitting there, they read about it, and they think, wow, I never knew that about the case. And you know what? I heard X say in a bar the other day something that sure resonates with what I’m reading about. Maybe the police would like to know about X.”
Yim told court that he cannot reveal more than he has, though he said he understood the value of Porter’s analogy.
“I think it may shake the tree, but I think this tree (the Sherman investigation) is so big that even if I do try to do something, it’s not going to shake. You see what I mean?”
The Star is continuing its fight to unseal more information, with a hearing for legal arguments scheduled this fall."
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/toronto-police-turn-to-ai-tool-to-investigate-the-murders-of-barry-and-honey-sherman/article_e3925020-8bbc-4da5-8f5e-935e47549a11.htmlPUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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