Uncover - S21 E2: The Smartest Man I Ever Met | "The No Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman"

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

The Shermans’ funeral is weird, the list of eulogists long, and it’s attended by Canadian boldface names. But ask anyone who knew Barry Sherman and they all say the same thing:he was the smartest person they'd ever met. Always finishing at the top of his class, Barry was smart enough to claw his way to the top of the infamously cutthroat generic drug industry and make billions of dollars. But he was also arrogant and unreasonable, driven and deceptive. Just the sort of man who dies under suspicious circumstances.For transcripts of this series, please visit here.Sherman funeral

Hi, I'm Caitlin Prest, and I am here in your ear to tell you about a very incredible show called Asking For It. Asking For It is a darkly comedic series that follows a queer femme singer whose herstory of violence finds her no matter how many times she runs away. It has an original soundtrack, and it'll make you laugh laugh, cry and feel a little bit less alone. Asking for it. Subscribe now. Binge listen to the entire series by searching for the no-good, terribly kind, wonderful lives and tragic deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman, wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen ad-free by subscribing to the CBC True Crime channel on Apple Podcasts. Alliancegate Sound and CBC Podcast Production. CBC Podcast Production. God is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He lieth me down in green pastures and leads me beside the still waters. He guides me on the path of righteousness and revives my own soul. Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death. This is how the funeral for Honey and Barry Sherman begins. I fear no harm, for you are with me. Your staff and your rod comfort me. You protect me from my enemies.

Starting things off is Ellie Rubenstein. He stands on a stage behind a lectern in front of three flags, Canada, Ontario, and Israel. And beside him, the cantor, someone who leads the congregation in song. Rubenstein is speaking out towards rows upon rows upon rows of mourners. All 7,500 seats seemed to be full. In front of him, two plain caskets. Each of us has a name. L'chol Ish, Yashem. Each of us has a name given by the universe and given by our parents. I love you. Please, my little darling.

My legal given names were Bernard Charles, but I've always been called Barry. My mother later told me that she preferred the name Barry, but thought that Bernard sounded more distinguished and would serve me better as a legal name in later life. This is from Barry Sherman's memoir, read to us by actor Saul Rubinick. I was born in Toronto on February 25th, 1942, to Herbert Sherman and Sarah Winter Sherman. Barry left behind an unfinished autobiography that he called A Legacy of Thoughts. It's strange to watch his funeral and hear all that's being said about him and then read the story that he's telling about himself. My parents had both also been born in Toronto. My father in 1906 and my mother in 1910.

A lot of it is quite straightforward, just a census of his early life. Their parents had arrived in Canada at the turn of the century as a result of anti-Semitic pogroms in Eastern Europe. My father's parents from Russia and my mother's parents from Poland. But there are some insights and small reveals. And it makes me wonder what he would really think of this display. You anoint my head with oil and my cup overfloweth. Because this whole scene... Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. ...doesn't really seem to be his scene.

From my earliest years, I have been an atheist. I find it incomprehensible that countless persons, including some of apparent intelligence, believe not only in existence of a supreme being, but in very specific and seemingly preposterous mythologies. I shall dwell in the house of the Eternal One forever. I have always felt disdain for organized religion and for the foolishness or hypocrisy of clergymen who sell religion as a source of morality or everlasting life.

Last episode, we focused on December 15th, 2017, the day the bodies of the billionaire couple were found by their real estate agent, gruesomely hanging from the railing beside their indoor pool. beside their indoor pool. We still can't tell you the exact time or even the day they died, but police believe that they'd been dead for at least 36 hours before they were discovered. In this episode, or attending their funeral, held six days later. That's a long time to wait if you're Jewish.

We believe in burying people quickly, the next day if possible. But Honey and Barry Sherman's bodies had been held by police, so the family wasn't able to follow proper funeral rules. But it wasn't an overly religious funeral either. The prayers at the beginning, having a canter, and some of the men in yarmulkes, those were a few nods to Judaism. Maybe that was the family's way of acknowledging Barry's beliefs, or rather his lack of belief. This is the no good, terribly kind, wonderful lives and tragic deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman. And I'm Kathleen Goldhar. Chapter two,

The Smartest Man I Ever Met. How to describe a man as complex as Barry. He was a genius in so many ways with a fierce intellect that left many people describing him as the smartest person they ever met. Standing alone at the lectern, Jack Kay looked sad and small. For 35 years, I was incredibly privileged to work side by side, day by day, with Barry. In his eulogy, Jack described Barry as his brother and someone that over the course of more than three decades, he'd spent six days a week with, 10 to 12 hours a day.

decades, he'd spent six days a week with 10 to 12 hours a day. Literally, as our offices were next door to each other, joined by a shared washroom and a set of doors between our offices, which were hardly ever closed for the next 35 years. Together, Jack and Barry built the generic drug giant Apotex. Barry as founder and Jack as CEO. Apotex had grown into a company with serious clout. And Barry, he was pretty much Canadian royalty. The Sherman funeral was held at a convention center near Toronto International Airport, big enough to accommodate the thousands of people

who wanted to be there. And that included the mayor of Toronto, the premier of Ontario, and the prime minister of Canada. Every media outlet was there too. And their funeral was streamed live across Canada's public broadcaster. He could project arrogance. For example, he would correct your grammar, no matter who you were and whether he had just met you. But he was also humble, and he was incapable of putting on airs. With Barry, it was no bullshit. Straight shooter. No bullshit. In the course of our reporting, we heard that a lot when people described Barry. And depending on your perspective, that was either a compliment or an insult.

We also heard workaholic, aggressive, and difficult. Dr. David Satok, Barry's doctor and also a friend, told police that while Barry had a very high IQ, his emotional intelligence was lacking, that his friend was blunt and would not notice if he offended someone. Barry was so fiercely focused on business that his other obligations tended to get simply overlooked or purposefully ignored.

that his other obligations tended to get simply overlooked or purposefully ignored. Barry was and still is the most brilliant guy I ever met. Producer Michelle Shepard and I met Murray Rubin and his wife Rhoda at their midtown Toronto condo one beautiful May afternoon. Oh, this view is incredible. Wow. Yeah. Located on the fourth floor, their home has a western wall of windows that opens onto a sea of old trees.

Should we take our shoes off? No. Oh, you should. Okay. Well, thank you so much. Oh, the tulips. Look at those. Yeah, Mother's Day.

Oh, nice. Sitting on their coffee table, a cheery burst of pink, yellow, and purple tulips. Plants, photos of children and grandchildren, and various sculptures and art decorates their apartment. I can say without exaggeration, I think of Barry, if not once a week, once every two weeks. How could this have happened? Murray's friendship with Barry reaches back decades, to the mid-1960s, when Barry and his uncle were working together. But he was lucky enough that he had an uncle, Lou Winter, who started... Uncle Lou was a biochemist.

I spent the summer of 1960 and 1961 as a driver, picking up urine samples from and delivering pharmaceuticals to pharmacies. I did not know it at the time. These summers at Empire Laboratories would later prove to be of critical importance to my future career. I went on a Saturday to Empire Laboratories to pick up some drugs,

and Lou Winter was in the foyer, and Barry was climbing up the stairs and he said, Murray, I want you to meet my nephew. He probably at that time was 21, 22 years old. Murray was a pharmacist who owned a company called Vanguard, the first mail-order pharmacy in Canada. That brief introduction was the beginning of their nearly 50-year friendship. We did get together with them occasionally. When their kids were bar and bat mitzvahed, we were invited.

We were invited to a wedding of theirs. They were invited to bar mitzvahs of our kids and weddings. If ever he would call, chit-chat. How are the kids? What are they doing? You know, it would be that kind of a thing. But if you went to, let's say, a fundraiser or something, he was sitting by himself at a table. He wasn't mingling.

I think on a personal level, I found him to be warm with me when I spoke to him, but other people may not have seen him in that way. Did you find him to be a funny friend? Oh yeah. I can say he was the smartest guy I knew and you could have a joke with him. Could he laugh at himself? Yeah, of course. He laughed at himself. When young Barry wasn't working for his Uncle Lou, he was collecting degrees. This just might be when he started to think of himself as the smartest guy in the room. In September 1960, I began undergraduate studies in engineering physics, now engineering science, at the University of Toronto. I specifically chose engineering physics because it was reputed to be the most difficult of programs related to

mathematics and the physical sciences. Among all students in the Faculty of Engineering, I ranked fourth in first year, third in second year, second in third year, and first in the fourth and final year. Upon graduation, I was thus awarded the Wilson Medal for standing first in engineering physics and the gold medal of the Association of Professional Engineers for standing first in the entire faculty. It seems that the tougher the going got, the better I did. Barry's academic accolades just kept piling up. He studied at MIT and was one of only two Canadian students selected for a NASA summer program. My first choice of university for graduate work was at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I was accepted into the graduate program in MIT's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and was awarded a fellowship, which covered both tuition and living costs. I thus set out for Boston and MIT in September 1964. I had expected that graduate work at MIT would be much more challenging than undergraduate studies at U of T, and that competition would be much tougher. I was surprised to find otherwise.

He got his master's and then became a doctor of philosophy in systems engineering. He got both of those in just three years. My grade point average on leaving MIT was a perfect 5.0. My PhD thesis was entitled Precision Gravity Gradient Satellite Altitude Control. I have no idea what that means. It consisted of about 200 pages of mathematical analysis of the dynamics of a system for controlling the orientation of a satellite in Earth orbit, a system which I had invented and on which I subsequently obtained a U.S. patent. So yeah, the smartest guy in the room. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the

news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get

your podcasts. There's a line in the memoir, and the memoir, by the way, is written in a style that is just so, it's just so humorless. It's just very, very serious. This is Bloomberg reporter Matthew Campbell. Matthew not only covered the killings, but he knew the Sherman's just very, very serious. This is Bloomberg reporter Matthew Campbell. Matthew not only covered the killings, but he knew the Sherman's only son, Jonathan, from school. And the memoir is well written in a technical sense, but it's sort of clinical, the language. It's almost like a scientist kind of dissecting the results of an experiment. Matthew's right. It does read a little bit like an extended resume, sprinkled with some Barry philosophy and self-help tips. He was a very, very smart kid who was very determined to do well in school, didn't have a lot of interests outside of academics. It's obvious

that Barry was very smart academically, and he had natural business instincts that made him the billionaire he was destined to be. But the foundation for his riches came from a family tragedy. In the first week of November 1965, during my second year at MIT, I received a phone call in the middle of the night. On hearing the phone ring, I expected that it would be a call to tell me that Beverly Winter, my Uncle Lou's wife, had died as she was then terminally ill with leukemia. I was astounded to be told by my sister, Sandra, not that Beverly had died, but that Lou, who was then 41 years of age, had died. Lou died suddenly of a brain aneurysm.

age had died. Lou died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. He had been taken to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died soon after arrival. St. Joseph's was the very hospital in which his wife Beverly lay terminally ill. I went to Toronto for Lou's funeral, and I visited Beverly at St. Joseph's Hospital. Three weeks later, I had to return to Toronto again for Beverly's funeral. Lou and Beverly Winter left behind four young sons and Empire Labs. By the time I obtained my PhD in January 1967, I had decided that I did not want to seek employment as an astronautical engineer. I was interested in both science and business. The obvious target was Empire Laboratories. The reason that Barry got Empire is because Lou's wife died quite young, and Lou himself died quite young.

He never would have sold and Barry wouldn't have had the money to buy. But then I mentioned a guy, Joel Ulster. Hello, I'm Joel Ulster and I'm Barry's oldest friend. We met 59 years ago when we were 16 and immediately became best friends. Joel Alster and Barry were high school friends with a dream of working together. And after Barry's Uncle Lou died, they put together enough money to buy Empire Labs. And in 1962, we incorporated as Sherman and Ulster and bought the pharmaceutical company.

In the meantime, I got married and had four kids. Barry, who always loved and wanted children, ended up spending most evenings at my house and became Uncle Barry to my children. This is Joel at Barry and Honey's funeral. Aside from being his high school friend and then business partner, Joel was also the reason that Barry met Honey. At some point, my ex-wife Cindy, who was a nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital, met a candy striper there who was looking to meet a nice Jewish doctor. Cindy told her she had a perfect fit for the bill, although, of course, Barry was a Ph.D. and not an M.D., and that's how Honey came into Barry's life and into my life.

During these empire years, in August 1970, I met Honey Reich. On July 2, 1971, we were married by a judge at York County Courthouse. We have four children, a daughter, Lauren, born October 9th, 1975, a son, Jonathan, born January 28th, 1983, and daughters, Alexandra and Kaylin, born April 22nd, 1986, and November 17th, 1990, respectively. Before we begin, I would like to take a moment, a moment to breathe and reflect. This is the Shermans' only son, Jonathan. A moment to look around this room and consider the enormous impact that this is having on everyone gathered here today.

Feel each other's love and know how much you all meant to my mother and my father. These last few days have been really fucked up for my family. Standing behind Jonathan are his sisters, Lauren, Alex, and Kaylin. They look tired, strained. We are all very private people. And so I will not share too many of our cherished family times and experiences at this time. But I will share some things. at this time, but I will share some things. Lauren, your free spirit and your ability to love life is perhaps your greatest tribute to mom and dad.

When you provided them with their first grandchild six years ago, everything changed. Alex, you are the heart of this family. Your warmth and insistence on always worrying about other people is perhaps your greatest tribute to mom and dad. When you and I were participating in a grueling desert multi-marathon so that we could raise money to help people with AIDS, you gave away your walking stick to a poor local villager. When I looked at you like, why? You shrugged and said, he needs it more than I do.

That is so Alex. Kaylin, you are the youngest child and the sweetest individual I know. You have had the least amount of time to foster your own relationships with our parents on your own terms as a mature adult. But you have always been very kind and soft, emotional and loving. And that comes from mom and dad. I just want to note something here about the funeral. I didn't watch it live.

I saw it on YouTube. So I could stop, start, rewind, really study it. Focus on what was being said and how the mourners were saying it. Remember, at the time of the funeral, the police were still suggesting that Barry killed Honey and then killed himself. And I appreciate that grief is not uniform. Everyone expresses it in their own way, so this isn't a judgment. But just like Barry's memoir, the funeral feels technical, like they were going through the motions. The hugs between siblings seemed awkward and forced, and it felt a bit performative.

Maybe not a surprise given the sheer size of the event. I mean, it was a performance. But the main focus was on what Honey and Barry had accomplished in their lives, not really on who they were. I don't know. Maybe not really on who they were. I don't know. Maybe their accomplishments were who they were. Our mother always had everything taken care of. Our father was an amazing dad. We clearly knew why our dad wasn't always present.

He was a pretty busy guy. But I can remember literally every single individual occurrence when my dad did father stuff with me. He would come watch me play hockey or baseball once every season or two. But those few games were my Stanley Cups and my World Series. It jumps out when you hear Jonathan say, we clearly knew why our dad wasn't always present. It's something we heard a lot during our interviews. No one ever said that Barry was a bad father, just a bit absent. No one ever said that Barry was a bad father, just a bit absent.

The fact that I make little mention of my wife and children should not be taken as suggesting that they're not important to my life, as that would be anything but true. However, it seems to me that information about my family is likely to be of less interest to a reader than my observations relating to philosophy, Canadian politics, and the pharmaceutical industry. There was no direct mention in Jonathan's eulogy about the crime. As my sisters and I congregated for two days, waiting to hear any facts other than through Twitter and the unreliable news media, I kept expecting my parents to walk through the front door and say, everything will be fine. We've taken control of the situation. These last few days have been a shocking adjustment to our reality. The Sherman children and close friends were furious with the police and the media for suggesting that Barry had killed Honey and then killed himself.

And we were told by those who know them that that anger brought them together. During the funeral, Jonathan said that the hardship his Jewish family had faced in their past was giving them the resilience they needed to face what was happening to them now. These last few days have reminded us what it means to be a Jewish family. When someone tries to snuff you out or eliminate important parts of your family,

we rally together and emerge stronger than ever. Our family legacy, like so many others, emerged like a phoenix from the ashes of the European Holocaust, shattered and broken, only to rise and rebuild and to thrive. In honor of our parents, we promise to do the same thing now. In honor of our parents, we promise to do the same thing now. My sisters and I pledge to rise again and to continue thriving and to continue building our parents' legacy of loving life, caring for others, and knowing, as our parents always reminded us, that with great privilege comes enormous responsibility.

comes enormous responsibility. That great responsibility rests solely now on the shoulders of the Sherman children. And exactly what the scope of that privilege is was hard to uncover. Media organizations had to go all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada to fight for their estate to be unsealed. Barry Sherman held $67 million in personal property.

Honey Sherman had over $45 million in personal property and about $10 million in real estate. This is all in Canadian dollars. But this still doesn't account for their entire fortune. Forbes magazine estimated that together they were worth more than $3 billion. Other media outlets have suggested that it was higher, somewhere between $5 and $10 billion. And now most of that money was going to the Sherman children. Money. When a billionaire couple shows up dead, murdered, money is the obvious motive. But the thing is, the Bank of Barrie was always open, especially for his kids.

You were also my business partner. Jonathan even made mention of it at the funeral. When I entered your office about five or six years ago with my good friend Adam, we told you about our plan to start a business together and you were so incredibly supportive and excited. We had the world's shortest shareholder agreement which basically said anything, anytime. It gave me so much motivation to succeed knowing that my little business meant so much to you. I promise to carry on and to treat my employees and my customers in a manner that will make you proud.

And while it's clear that Barry strove to make money, we were also told by many people that Barry, despite his vast wealth, really didn't care about money, that he drove a really old car, didn't put a lot into what he wore, and would fly economy rather than first class. Barry did what he did not to make money. Money was his way of keeping score. That's Barry's friend Marie Rubin again. Barry had a lot of money. Everybody knew he had a lot of money. That's Barry's friend Marie Rubin again. And people in all strands of society might know that he would invest.

What I think happened was, and this is my own opinion, he invested with people and the people lost the money and didn't want to pay him back. Barry would demand. He was a very tough guy that way. He didn't deserve what happened to him, not even remotely. He wasn't a bad guy.

Barry and Honey's kindness touched countless numbers of people in Canada and Israel and around the world whose lives were literally raised up by their generosity. and around the world, whose lives were literally raised up by their generosity. The funeral ended and the family left to hold a private burial in Shiva. But the pursuit for those who killed Honey and Barry, that was only beginning. It is clear that numerous questions can be asked for which we have no answers and may never have answers. Did time have a beginning? How could the universe have had a beginning without there being something present to cause the beginning? Is the universe finite? Are there other universes? The fact that

there are imponderables does not, however, prevent intelligent beings from coming to some conclusions with a high degree of confidence in their correctness based on observation and logical deduction. Coming up next time on the no good, terribly kind, wonderful lives and tragic deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman. I have often said about my beat that I cover organized crime. I'm writing about organized crime. You know, it just happens to be organized by pharmaceutical executives,

but organized crime nonetheless. Do you ever face threats? Sure. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. This episode was written and produced by me, Kathleen Goldhar and Michelle Shepard. Lisa Gabriel is our producer.

It was executive produced by Charlie Webster, along with Lisa Gabriel and myself. Andrea Varsanyi is our associate producer. Our technician is Laura Antonelli. Sound design and mixing by Reza Daya. The role of Barry Sherman is played by Saul Rubinick. Stuart Cox is the executive producer for Antica. The prayers recited at Honey and Barry's Memorial are the El Mele Rahamin prayers and Psalm 23,

sung by cantor Aviva Radjki, as well as Each of Us Has a Name by the Israeli poet Zelda. This is a Lionsgate Sound co-production with CBC Podcasts. Lionsgate Sound, engineered by Pilgrim Media Group in collaboration with Antica Productions, exclusively for CBC.