Real estate agent discovers dead Toronto billionaires while showing house

A Canadian real estate agent took clients to see a Toronto mansion last December and found two dead billionaires laid out by the pool.

Police initially thought it could have been a murder-suicide: pharmaceutical mogul Barry Sherman would have killed his wife and then himself, belts fastened around both their necks.

But after surviving family members hired their own investigators, police changed course and are investigating the case as a targeted murder involving one or more assailants.

There were no signs of forced entry, the Wall Street Journal reported, but police said the lockbox used by real estate agents to enter the home was a possible vulnerability.

Sherman had no shortage of enemies. Over the years he built a reputation of ruthless litigiousness in defending his medicinal empire. He even told a writer in 2001 he was surprised rival firms had never killed him. “The thought once came to my mind, why didn’t they just hire someone to knock me off?” he said. “For a thousand bucks paid to the right person you can probably get someone killed.”

Toronto police investigators are now chasing 580 leads. [WSJ] — Will Parker