THE BITTEREST PILL

The notorious double homicide of a pharmaceutical billionaire and his wife remains unsolved. Now the inheritance battle over their fortune threatens to pry open a family's vault of secrets and add another chapter to the saga of a gruesome murder mystery.

- JESSE HYDE

The house at 50 Old Colony Road belonged to the pharmaceutical billionaire Barry Sherman, one of Canada's richest men. For nearly 30 years Barry had lived there with his wife Honey, and the two, supporters of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, were fixtures on Toronto's charity circuit. Honey wanted to be closer to the city's center, so in 2017 Barry, 75, and Honey, 70, put the home on the market for just over $5 million as they built a new $25 million mansion in Forest Hill, one of the city's most exclusive enclaves.

One morning in December real estate agents turned up with a couple interested in the property. Their arrival had been preceded by those of the gardener and the housekeeper, who had noticed that the alarm was off and Barry was missing from his usual perch in the kitchen. The buyers were heading to the pool in the basement when one of the agents saw them. The Shermans were on the far deck of the pool, slumped over, in what the agent later described as "some sort of weird meditation or yoga" pose.

By the time the police arrived, rigor mortis had set in. The couple were seated side by side and fully clothed, and they each had a man's leather belt wrapped around their necks attached to a metal pool railing about four feet high. Their arms were constrained behind their backs. The double homicide became a media sensation, riveting newspapers, podcasts, and Reddit, where theories exploded. How did a man worth $4 billion end up slain in such a manner?