WARMINGTON: Slain billionaires Barry and Honey Sherman fondly remembered

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As the sun set, Heather Gilbert noticed something different inside her Old Colony Road home.

“We had the sun shining right into our eyes,” she said. “In 16 years that had never happened.”

Seems the home next door at 50 Old Colony Rd. was no longer blocking the sun. The house in which billionaires Honey and Barry Sherman were murdered was demolished in May.

“It brought it all back,” Gilbert said. “It’s not really the loss of the house as much as the loss of Honey and Barry.”

Two years post their murders, Gilbert is as suspicious as she was when she and her husband Eddie drove home past the police cars and fire trucks that had taken over her street on Dec. 15, 2017. 

“I knew something was very wrong. Eddie said not to jump to conclusions that maybe somebody fell. But I felt it was going to be bad,” she said.

She was right. 

“I feel for their children,” Gilbert said.

Now, as the mystery lingers, she wants the legacy of the Shermans to be more than famous murder victims.

She described the couple’s legacy of philanthropy toward Jewish and local charities in the tens of millions to be “unprecedented.”

But Heather also talked of the Shermans’ generosity to friends.

“Honey brought a gift over when we first moved in,” said Gilbert. “And she was always inviting us to their house or events.”

When the Shermans brought in an ice cream truck for a family party that every kid on the street got a cone from “we were there too.”

Other times Honey would drop by and say “Barry has a box at the Raptor game and you are coming with us.”

Her favourite story occurred the year before the nightmare.

“Eddie and I were at a golf course in Florida when Honey come up from behind me and said, ‘Funny I should see my neighbour in Florida,’” Gilbert recalled. “She then invited us to her and Barry’s planned New Year’s Eve dinner.”

But it didn’t quite turn out the way she had hoped.

“The restaurant was closed and they did not notify Honey,” remembered Gilbert. “She said, ‘No big deal, we will just all go to my favourite restaurant.’”

They “ended up spending New Years Eve eating pizza and wings” at a “nearby strip mall.”

There was no putting on airs for these billionaires who were both philanthropic and frugal.

“It was a fabulous night,” Gilbert said. 

There was no talk of Apotex or the world’s problems.

“It was so much fun. There was a lot of laughing,” Gilbert said. “Honey and Barry were so laid back and enjoying it.”

Close family friend, Senator Linda Frum, said this story captures Honey and Barry well. That, she said, would have been a perfect night for Honey, who would have preferred pizza and wings anyway.

“I miss my friends,” said Frum. “They were wonderful.”

On the second anniversary of their slayings, friends believe how they lived, and not how they died, is how the Shermans should be remembered.

“They were very good people who were very kind to us,” said Gilbert.

If the sun shines on anything, she said, it should be on “their giving nature” because “there was no end to what they would give.”

jwarmington@postmedia.com