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The Current Transcript for July 25, 2023

Host: Kathleen Goldhar

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

The fate of a U.S. soldier who ran into North Korea;

Guests: Jean Lee, Victor Cha

SOUNDCLIP

When they take an American, particularly soldier or captive, they exact a price for that. And that's what I worry about. It was a serious mistake on his part, and I hope we can get him back.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: An American soldier making a mad dash into North Korea, ongoing missile launches and increased concerns about widespread famine. Coming up, the mounting tensions in the Korean Peninsula and what it means for the stability in the region. Also this morning.

SOUNDCLIP

A lot of men of colour didn't share any experiences that could be painful. My dad didn't talk a lot. He talked a lot about his time with the Coloured All Stars.

KG: It was more than a decade before Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier. In 30 minutes, the story of a black baseball team from Chatham, Ontario, and how a 1934 championship season challenged racial norms. Plus Chapter two of my CBC podcast The No Good, Terribly kind, Wonderful lives and tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman. But we begin in North Korea. I'm Kathleen Goldhar, sitting in for Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

KG: Last week, U.S. Army Private Travis King sprinted across the North Korean border. U.S. authorities are investigating whether this was a planned defection. This wouldn't be the first time an American soldier has crossed into North Korea. To help us unpack the latest developments. I'm joined by Jean Lee. In 2012, Jean opened the first and only U.S. news bureau in North Korea. She's also the host of the BBC podcast The Lazarus Heist, which looks into how North Korea uses computer hackers to fund the regime. Gene, good morning.

JEAN LEE: Good morning.

KG: Thanks for being here. What do you know, if anything, about King and his whereabouts or where he might be right now?

JEAN LEE: We don't know anything about exactly where he is, apart from the fact that he is likely in North Korean custody or how he's doing in. And that's a big part of that is because he's an American. The United States does not have diplomatic relations with North Korea. And, you know, often the first word that we get about Americans in North Korean custody is through their state media. And sometimes that can take weeks. And so far, we have not heard a peep from the North Koreans through their state media about Travis King.

KG: So it's not particularly unusual that we have no information yet.

JEAN LEE: It's not surprising they are probably interrogating him. I mean, they have this U.S. soldier who's coming to their country. They're most likely interrogating and trying to figure out what to do with him. Absolutely terrifying and nerve wracking for his family and certainly an issue for U.S. authorities. But also, I should mention, this is a very busy time in North Korea as well. They're they're gearing up for big events coming later this week. So while it's not surprising, it's certainly not something that we can sit back and accept. I think it's it's very disturbing that there is this American who's gone into North Korea and that there's no word about his well-being or his whereabouts.

KG: And the U.S. has tried to reach out. How are they doing that?

JEAN LEE: So there are a couple of ways. They don't have diplomatic relations, but they do have channels of communication. And one of them is the U.N. command. That's a U.S. led force that is there at the DMZ to monitor the armistice that was signed in 1953. And that can be a source of a channel of communication. And according to the Associated Press, the deputy commander of the U.S. led even command, he's a British commander, has said that they have been in contact. We don't have any further details. We have no idea exactly what they haven't revealed, what the North Koreans have said. There's also a channel of communications through the North Korean mission to the United Nations. And the North Koreans do have a mission in New York. And it's quite possible that they've been trying to communicate to get some more information through that channel.

KG: Relations between the U.S. and North Korea have always been contentious. What are they like at the moment.

JEAN LEE: In not only do they lack diplomatic relations right now, but it's this is a good time to remember that technically North Korea sees the United States as its enemy. They're still locked in a state of war because that Korean War, it was never resolved with a peace treaty. And so, you know, it's interesting because we call it the forgotten war here in the United States, but the North Koreans have not forgotten it, and it is core to their ideology. So I think that we should also remember that North Korea, after the breakdown of nuclear negotiations between North Korean leader Kim Jong un and then U.S. President Donald Trump in 2019, North Korea has gone into isolation. A self-imposed isolation sealed the borders at the start of the pandemic and for more than three years has really kept itself apart from the world, except from China, and has been testing its and building its its nuclear arsenal in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. And that has certainly raised tensions in the region and is not going to make getting this American soldier out of North Korea easy.

KG: So back to King. He crossed over at the DMZ or the demilitarised zone. Can you describe that for me and others who don't have a sense of what it looks like?

JEAN LEE: Yeah. You know, I have made many, many trips to the DMZ, both from the South Korean side and from the North Korean side. I was just at the border last summer and went inside the JSA. Now, to explain what this DMZ is, it stretches all the way across from east to west at the 38th Parallel, so bisecting the Korean Peninsula. It's about 250 kilometres across and about four kilometres deep and it's a buffer zone. It was not meant to be permanent, but because that that armistice was never turned into a peace treaty, it remains there. Monitored by the U.N. command and the North Koreans and the South Koreans do have troops stationed along that DMZ. Now. It's heavily ringed by barbed wire strewn with landmines. But there is a pocket called the JSA. That's the joint security area, which we also know it is Panmunjom, which is the name of the village that was originally there that is now not armed because as part of a military agreement between North and South in 2018, they agreed not to armed that little region. And that is the one area where if you go on a tour. North Korea is right there and you could just step over. It's a tiny concrete ledge. You could just step over it and be in North Korea. And that's exactly what President Trump did in 2019 when he met with Kim Jong Un in this impromptu meeting and called the handshake at the DMZ. He stepped over very dramatically and was the first U.S. president to step in to visit North Korea.

KG: And I mean, he's not the first U.S. soldier to make his way to North Korea. It's rare, but it's happened. So how did North Korea use the previous soldiers that made their way to their country?

JEAN LEE: There is a fascinating history of four American soldiers who did cross over into North Korea decades ago. So in the, in the sixties, for example, Charles Jenkins, in 1965, he was an US Army sergeant, disgruntled, drunk, went into North Korea and ended up there for decades. So there are two of them. There's another named James Joseph Drezner, also an American soldier who went to North Korea. He ended up in North Korea for decades as well. Now I have movies, dramas on my shelf here in my my home in D.C. that show Charles Jenkins in North Korean dramas playing the evil American. So he was used in their propaganda. Now, he eventually got out of North Korea because he married a Japanese who had been- a Japanese woman who had been abducted by the North Koreans. And Japan's prime minister managed to get her and other Japanese who'd been abducted back to Japan, and he joined his wife and ended up passing away in Japan. We have had more recent cases. There was a case in the early eighties of an American soldier who defected to North Korea. Unfortunately, he passed away. So often we do see them used in North Korean propaganda and North Korea using them as bargaining chips and leverage as well in negotiations with the United States.

KG: And all of this is happening at the same time that there is reports of a food crisis inside North Korea. How bad are things there?

JEAN LEE: It's hard for us to know exactly what's happening because we don't have international aid groups in North Korea right now to give us an accurate assessment of how dire the situation is. But I can tell you from my time in North Korea that even in the best of times, it's extremely difficult electricity shortages, food shortages, they just don't have enough food to feed their people. And they for many, many years have relied on outside help. They are not getting that outside help from aid groups because they've sealed the border. They're most likely getting some food aid from Russia and China. But I think that we can assume that there is incredible deprivation happening inside North Korea, a humanitarian crisis unfolding, and that's something that we should pay attention to as well, because with the beds of these missiles, it comes at the cost and at the price of the people's well-being.

KG: Yeah, And certainly there's a precedence there for famine as well.

JEAN LEE: Absolutely.

KG: Jean, thank you. And thanks for your work.

JEAN LEE: Thank you so much.

KG: Jean Lee is a journalist and host of the BBC podcast The Lazarus Heist. Tensions in the region have heightened following North Korea's latest round of ballistic missile launches. Yesterday, two missiles were fired into the sea off its east coast shortly after a U.S. submarine arrived in South Korean waters. Efforts to de-escalate the situation have so far been unsuccessful. Victor Cha has been following the situation. He's the senior vice president for Asia at the Centre for Strategic International Studies and the author of the. Book Korea A New History of South and North. Victor, good morning.

VICTOR CHA: Good morning.

KG: So there seems to be an attempt at communication from the U.S. to North Korea, but they don't seem to be getting through. What do you think is behind North Korea's silence?

VICTOR CHA: I think part of it has to do with the fact that they are focussed on reaching certain thresholds in terms of their weapons programs and they don't really feel the need to sit down with the United States or anybody else to discuss a permanent or temporary cessation of those programs. I think another reason is that they felt so burned by the summit meetings with Trump in which they achieved nothing. They put their leader out there in front of the world to see and achieve nothing. You may remember that Trump actually walked away from the summit that took place in Hanoi, Vietnam, which is terribly embarrassing for the North Korean leader. And I think for this reason within their system, it's hard for anybody to advocate for re-engaging with the United States. So they've kind of got their door closed now or they're not answering their phone. I don't think that's going to change any time in the near future.

KG: What is the Biden administration's foreign policy for dealing with North Korea right now?

VICTOR CHA: So they've been pretty clear that they're willing to engage with North Korea in conversations about pretty much anything food assistance, COVID vaccine support. North Korea has no COVID vaccinations in their country, the nuclear program. They've been pretty much willing to engage in in almost any of these areas. And the administration, high level officials in the administration have said publicly they've tried on the order of 20 times through bilateral channels, through multilateral channels, through third parties, to try to begin a conversation with the North Koreans. And they've been completely unsuccessful.

KG: It's so interesting, you know, when Trump had his few meetings with him and the conversations, you know, the the glimmer of hope was that there would be a start of some communication. And now you're saying that that ended up hurting this administration?

VICTOR CHA: Yeah, I think ironically, that's true. I think in many ways, Trump moved too early and too fast in terms of going right to the summit level. In part, he thought he could make a deal on his own. And I think the North Korean leader thought that he was dealing with a US president that was also desperate for some sort of big foreign policy success given all the problems he was having at home. So you had two leaders that were either underprepared or ill prepared for this meeting and there was no agreement. And the problem in diplomacy is when you go to the summit level and you have no agreement, you really have no place else to go. And so I think that's kind of the situation we're in right now.

KG: So you served in the Bush administration as an adviser on Asia to North Korea geo policy. But at the time, the leader of North Korea was Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un's father. How were things different with those two leaders and how were they similar?

VICTOR CHA: They were different in the sense that we were engaged in pretty vigorous diplomacy with North Korea. The years the years that I was working on this, I was our deputy head of delegation for the nuclear talks, and we were meeting with the North Koreans very regularly, either in Beijing as part of something called the six party talks, which involved the United States, the two Koreas, Japan, Russia, and was hosted by China or in bilateral meetings we were having with just with the North Koreans in New York, in Berlin, in other places. So the North Koreans were committed to diplomacy at the time. We, of course, had some hiccups. They did do their first nuclear test back in 2006. So we had hiccups like that. But they seemed committed to the diplomatic track. The big difference now is that we really you know, we really haven't seen that certainly with Kim Jong un and the and the Biden administration. The way in which they're similar is I think they both have a singular focus on developing these weapons programs at the expense of the general welfare of the country. People inside of Pyongyang, the 1 million elite or so who are inside of Pyongyang, managed to do okay. But everybody outside of that, you know, the other 20 million, if you will, outside of that that are considered part of the wavering class or the the hostile class. They have a class system in North Korea are the ones who suffer the most.

KG: Just recently, I mean, there has been a number of short range missiles that North Korea has launched, but recently we've seen a few more. What do you think they're saying with that?

VICTOR CHA: I'm glad that you didn't use the word tests when you describe these missiles, because previously we used to call them tests. They were testing new technology. And while they may still be doing that, I think what we're seeing now I would characterise more as missile demonstrations or actual missile exercising in the sense that they are practising war plans, they're practising contingency plan, military contingency plans with these new weapons. So what are they trying to achieve with this? In the past they fired these missiles as a way to get attention and to get the United States to come to the negotiating table. I don't think that's what the North Koreans are interested in right now. They are doing missile demonstrations and missile exercising to prepare themselves in case there is some sort of military contingency. I think that's the that's not even a message that they're sending. It's just the work that they're doing. We should interpret it as something more than simply firing a missile to try to get the attention of the world.

KG: And like the North Korean defence minister says that it's. Doing this because the U.S. and South Korea are escalating. We know in the past there's been, you know, war games or the war prep that the U.S. and South Korea do regularly. So it seems like it's a sort of vicious cycle that does somebody have to step off that cycle for this to stop? Is it possible or are we just kind of going to get stuck in this loop that we none of us can get out of?

VICTOR CHA: So I guess I have a couple of responses. The first is that we have to remember that while the focus has always been on or the North Koreans like to put the focus on US exercises as being provocative and justifying North Korean actions, the North Koreans carry out regular military exercises every year for the last 70 years. They carry them out on a regular basis. They are unapologetic about them. They are unannounced, mostly. And and so that's the first point. The second is that we have seen there are there are two annual major exercises that take place between the U.S. and South Korea. One of them is a major military manoeuvre, exercises, exercise with actual troops moving around. And the other is a computer simulation exercises. We have seen an increase in the tempo of these and new exercises, largely in response to all of the missile testing that North Korea has done and their rhetoric, which is talked about reserving the right to use nuclear weapons first, not just in retaliation. Things of that nature. And so we have seen an increase in the tempo of these exercises. I will say that a study that we have done that has looked at whether there is a statistically significant correlation between us, okay, Military exercises and tension in U.S. DPRK diplomacy actually finds over the past. I think we took a 15 year period. There actually is no significant correlation that North Korea says it's upset by these things and it says it's disrupting the diplomacy, but in actuality it doesn't really affect it. So if North Korea is engaged in a negotiation with the United States and the United States carries out military exercises, North Korea complains about those exercises, but it never walks away from the negotiation. Yeah. And similarly, when we're not in a negotiation with North Korea and we do exercises, they complain about those exercises, but it doesn't worsen the prospects for diplomacy. It doesn't improve the prospects for diplomacy, but it also doesn't worsen worsening. So that's I mean, that's an academic study that we've done just because there's a lot of politics around this. And that was the finding that we reached.

KG: Thank you for your insights. It's been fascinating to talk to you.

VICTOR CHA: Thanks very much. It was a pleasure.

KG: Victor Cha is the senior vice president for Asia at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. The CBC News is next. Then.

SOUNDCLIP

This was much, much more than just a baseball game. This was their sons and brothers going on to a provincial stage and doing really, really well. And the legacy of that team lives on.

KG: In six minutes, the story of the all-Black baseball team from Chatham, Ontario, that won big and claimed a piece of history. I'm Kathleen Goldhar and you're listening to The Current.

Back To Top »

Remembering a history-making all-Black baseball team

Guests: Heidi Jacobs, Don Tabron, Blake Harding

KG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway and you are listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

FERGUSON JENKINS JR: My father played baseball from 1925 to the 1940s in the Ontario Baseball League and also the Negro League. His opportunity to play professional ball was limited by history of that era. Fortunately, he outlived history and witnessed this change. His sacrifice in baseball has been my reward by my achievements.

KG: The great Ferguson Jenkins Jr. was the first Canadian ever inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. That day was July 21st, 1991.

SOUNDCLIP

FERGUSON JENKINS JR: This day belongs also to my father. He was my first teacher. He inspired me. He was a great outfielder. He was known as Hershey. It was my father who taught me to be conscientious and responsible. It was my father who instilled the love of baseball in me. So on this day, I'm not only being inducted alone, I'm being inducted with my father, Fergie Jenkins Senior, Hershey.

[audience applauding]

KG: His father, Fergie Jenkins Senior, was a member of a minor league all-Black team from Chatham, Ontario that grabbed greatness one incredible season nine decades ago. The story of that team is captured in the book called 1934: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars Barrier Breaking Year. Matt Galloway spoke to the author Heidi Jacobs, and the descendants of two of the team's players. Don Tabron, whose dad, also named Don, was a pitcher and short stop for the All Stars in 1934. And Blake Harding, whose dad Boomer played first base for the team. Here is their conversation from last month.

SOUNDCLIP

MATT GALLOWAY: Good morning, everyone.

ALL GUESTS: Good morning.

MG: Blake Harding, what does it mean to hear Fergie Jenkins talk that way about his father and the team that your own father played for?

BLAKE HARDING: It's really satisfying. I grew up a couple of years behind Fergie. He played a lot of minor league ball in Sterling Park, which is right across the street from where the All-Stars played and where I grew up. And I got to know Fergie quite well. And everything he's accomplished, he deserves. But it's a recognition of a time and element that he grew up in and that our fathers and uncles and relatives, friends all contributed to greatly in setting an example and a role model for Fergie and a lot of other young men, as well as myself and my cousins and people growing up in the east end of Chatham at that time.

MG: What did you hear, and I’ll ask you both this, but Blake, what did you hear from your dad about that time in that team?

BLAKE HARDING: A lot of men of colour in the 40s didn't share any experiences that could be painful with their family members. My dad didn't talk a lot, but he talked a lot about his time with the Coloured All-Stars. I had the privilege of listening to him and he shared a lot of those stories.

MG: Don, what about for you? What did it mean for your father to be a part of that team in 1934?

DON TABRON: Well, at that time period, it meant a lot to him. He was from the United States, from the Detroit area, and travelled over to Canada and spent a few years there. And that was during a time in America that the Great Depression was going on and he was able to, you know, play the game that he loved and be able to get away from some fairly harsh time periods in the States and gained a number of, you know, great friends and a lot of camaraderie playing the game of baseball that he loved.

MG: Heidi, this is a fascinating story, in part because of the community that it takes place in. Take us back to Chatham, Ontario, in 1934. What was that town like?

HEIDI JACOBS: Chatham is an interesting town in that it's not too far from the U.S. border and it's close to Windsor and it's close to Walpole Island, and it's close to a whole range of black settlements of freedom seekers who came from the U.S. around 1850. And so it's an interesting place. The neighbourhood in which the ballpark is located is called the East End of Chatham, and it's the historically black neighbourhood in town. And it's interesting because it’s sort of hived off a little bit by the train track. So it was a very self-contained community. And in the centre of the east end of Chatham was Sterling Park. It had a ballpark, but it also had a swimming pool and playground and all sorts of things. And it really was the sort of geographic centre of the community, but also the social and cultural centre. So the baseball team playing there really was a key part of that community and it makes sense that the community rallied around this team so much then and now.

MG: You say that there are very few places in North America where this team could have formed. What was going on, and part of this is about Chatham being a home for freedom seekers, terminus of the Underground Railroad. What was going on in that community at that time that led to those conditions?

HEIDI JACOBS: I think as Donald mentioned, you know, this was also the time of the Depression. So we also had a number of men who in their records, they say we had a lot of spare time and baseball was the thing to do. And so baseball was huge at this time. It gave the community something to hope for and cheer for. And I think when you look at the team and its success, part of it was that it came out of those difficult times and it gave the community something to cheer for and be proud of and be hopeful about the future. And indeed, I think descendants and people who've known the players have really talked about how important that team was as inspiration to give them hope that there's possibility and that things could change. And I think that baseball team gave people something to cheer for and something to be really proud of. And that's one of the things that really comes through now when you talk to people about the importance of the All-Stars.

MG: What, Don, did you know about the kind of prejudice and the kind of racism that the men on this team faced as a team, as a team of black baseball players?

DON TABRON: Well, my father had many a conversation with me over the years in regards to just that. You know, he being from the Detroit area, which was very segregated at the time, was used to staunch racism, frankly, but mentioned on many occasions that while the environment in Canada was more pleasant than that in the States at the time, depending on, you know, where they travelled and the teams they played against, they would face, you know, a bit of adversity from, you know, the crowd, the umpires, you know, the opposing team. So, you know, he always talked about it probably in regards to things that they were able to overcome and used baseball and their talents to help overcome them.

MG: Blake, what about for you? As you say, men of your father's generation in some ways didn't talk about some of the difficult things they went through. But what did he tell you about what they were up against?

BLAKE HARDING: In a local community not too far to Chatham, they were playing one day and they won the game. And as they were leaving, there was five and six-year-old kids spitting and throwing stones at him, calling him the N-word, and their parents were standing behind them egging them on. And this is the type of thing that they had to endure. And this may have been an extreme at this one community, but it was quite prevalent through southwestern Ontario, especially when they lost, you know, there would be ridicule. If they won, people looked at him as kind of a real novelty. But he spoke to me several times about it and he always remembered. And he was doing an interview with a London reporter one time called Ernie Miller, he was quite known around southwestern Ontario, and Ernie asked him, what do you think kept him out of sport, out of professional sport? And he just rubbed his arm and said, my skin tone. He wasn't bitter, but he was a realist and he passed that on to me and my children, I think. As you see it, you accept it and you deal with it.

MG: Was it hard for you to understand that he wouldn't be bitter by something like that?

BLAKE HARDING: No, not actually, because my dad was a very quiet man and they would give what they got. They were a very proud baseball team and they were together. Don spoke of the camaraderie they had. Lots of times, like when Don's father moved down here, he stayed with the Harding family for a while until he got settled in with the team. And I don't think they were bitter. Like I said, they were a realist. And when they talked, when my dad talked to me and my uncles talked to me, I got that feeling is okay, you know, not everything's fair. Not everything's fair in a game of baseball, but you carry on with it and you keep your head. You know, they were a very proud team.

MG: Heidi, during that 1934 season, how did the local paper in Chatham cover the All-Stars?

HEIDI JACOBS: I am deeply indebted, I think, to the columnist Jack Calder, because it was documented meticulously. Calder was a brilliant sportswriter. And I think it's probably surprising for us today to see how deeply sports, not just baseball was covered in the local paper, but all sports were covered. And you really see, Calder was a white reporter. He was the same age as Boomer Harding and he captured this season really well. But there's always sort of this subtext. And in some ways, some things, when you look at them with a different lens through history, you start to see that what Blake was talking about, the team giving as good as they got. There are a couple editorials about how the All-Stars were playing too roughly, too aggressively. And when you start to think about why that might be, you start to think some of these incidents are racialized and that's what's happening. And there's an editorial from someone who signs themselves a coloured fan who really points out, you know, you're reporting on the roughness, but you're not reporting on why this is happening. And so I think history gives us that perspective, that lends to see the actions on the field were not as fully reported as they might have been, but that tension is certainly there. There's reports of, you know, some incidents in the crowd after the game and during the game. And they don't say why, But I think we can start to piece things together knowing what we do from the memories of the players and their descendants.

MG: Well, I was going to say, I mean, we heard a little bit about this in terms of abuse that some of the players faced. Broadly, what was the environment that this team played in? How welcome was this team when it was playing against white opponents, for example?

HEIDI JACOBS: It depends, as Blake said, if they were the winning team or the losing team. There's some incidents that happened. Obviously, Canada didn't have the sort of formal segregation that we associate with the U.S., but there was certainly a de facto segregation. They never knew where they could stay out of town or where they could eat. And so they had to be pretty flexible about that. There are also stories of after beating the local team, how they got chased out of town with, you know, rakes and hoes and all that kind of stuff. So that was a reality for the team. But Blake has also in one of his interviews talked about how, you know, they were sort of seen as a novelty coming to different towns. A lot of people had never seen black baseball teams or probably black people. So people came out to see them. And one of the things that happened is they earned respect by how strong they were on the field and what an impressive team they were. The team came out on the field and demanded that they be respected as athletes and competitors and as men and citizens. And I think all of these things were really wrapped up in this baseball team.

MG: There were real stars on this team, Blake. Tell us about Flatt Chase, which is a great name for a baseball player. Who was he?

BLAKE HARDING: He was a top player. He was a hard player, but he had phenomenal skills. Like if you were going to pick one player out of that team that would have made Major League Baseball, and there was probably about four or five that could have made it, but Flat Chase stood out as a pitcher. He had an arm that was just unbelievable. My dad said he was throwing back in the 40s almost 100 mile an hour fastball, which was unheard of. And he hit a ball, folklore says he hit balls so far that they never found them. You know, he was a monster of a man on the field. And he knew he was a tough man out of that era. He knew what he had to do to survive and look after his family, which speaks of all the players. I watched him in the later years actually. I was a back boy for one of the teams that morphed from the Coloured All-Stars in the 50s, and he was still playing then hard as nails. Hard as nails.

MG: Well, I mean, you say that he could have played in the major leagues. One of the reasons, of course, or the reason that he and those other players wouldn’t have played was because of the colour barrier in Major League Baseball.

BLAKE HARDING: Definitely. You know, it wasn't even a… Don't forget this was well before Jackie Robinson. They accepted their fate. They were showmen and they put on a show. They were entertainers. But Flat Chase, he could go out there and, you know, today in major leagues, if you get five innings out of a starter, six innings, you're doing well and it's every fourth day, and he’d pitch today and he’d pitch tomorrow.

MG: Don, what happened, what did your father tell you about what happened when this team went to Penetanguishene in Ontario for the best of three playoffs? This is a fascinating story in the book.

DON TABRON: Yeah, absolutely. And I think my father's fondest memories of those games was actually after the games had been played and they returned back to Chatham. And he always spoke So finally about how the citizens of Chatham were waiting on the team to come back and they carried them through the downtown area on the shoulders, celebrating the victory. He spoke about that, the fondness and really more than anything, about one of his favourite moments at that point in his life where, you know, they faced some, you know, fairly insurmountable odds and were able to overcome them. But just how the city embraced them and celebrated the victory and made such a big deal out of it, you know, more than anything, that was his fondest memory that he shared, you know, more than anything else. But in terms of the, you know, the actual games, he mentioned to me that, you know, there was definitely some biased umpiring.

MG: I mean, the game was called in part because of darkness, right?

DON TABRON: That is, so how do I say this? So in my father's opinion, it wasn't dark enough to call the game. And he thought that was a way that the umpires kind of let the other team off the hook, so to speak, in an attempt to elongate their opportunity to try to win the ball game. If memory serves me correct, sounded like we had a bit of momentum and potentially if the game were to continue that evening, we would have a win then. So.

MG: Blake, you had a bit of a laugh in the background there. What did your dad tell you about that?

BLAKE HARDING: His quote was they called The Game on Account of Darkness, but the only darkness was the nine players on the field. And they were up at that time, you know, so that's where he put it. And it was like hitting the nail on the head. I believe Heidi in her research went back and actually checked the weather of that day, that fall day, and it was a sunny day.

MG: Heidi, what does that tell you about what this team was up against in trying to win the championship?

HEIDI JACOBS: What was interesting is, you know, in the third game, it was stopped in the top of the 11^th. And there was, you know, Penetanguishene had won at bat and the All-Stars were ahead. And it's strange to me that they would call a game for darkness in the middle of an inning, especially with just one at bat. So a bunch of things don't quite add up. And this is where oral history becomes really crucial to hear people's memories of the event and people who were there and things like that. And then, of course, the game was reverted. The Stars were ahead 3-2, and then the game when it was called, it was reverted to a 2-2 tie. But the other detail is the next day, they played and they won 13-7. So I think that's a crucial detail in all of this as well.

MG: How engaged do you think the community was, Heidi, in this championship series? How engaged were people in Chatham?

HEIDI JACOBS: I think White Chatham was excited because they thought of themselves as a baseball town, very much so. And so this victory was huge for Chatham. But I think the east end community, the Black Neighbourhood in Chatham, this was much, much more than just a baseball game. This was much more than a provincial championship. This was their sons and brothers and cousins and husbands and boyfriends going on to a provincial stage and doing really, really well. And the legacy of that team lives on. Just go to the east end and mention any of the All-Stars, and there's still huge, huge fans of this team.

MG: Blake, what did your dad tell you about that? Was it a victory that was, you know, more than baseball in some ways for some members of the community?

BLAKE HARDING: Everybody showed up. The park would be full on Sunday afternoon. And, you know, Sunday's was supposed to be a day of rest, but they showed up to support the team and it still lives. It's given kids in the east end something to shoot for all these years later, 80 some years later.

MG: Heidi, after the team wins the championship, you say virtually overnight, it transformed men who had been invisible to white Chatham into men who are claimed, honoured and celebrated. What happened to the team in the wake of that victory?

HEIDI JACOBS: Well, the interesting thing to me is, I mean, the title of the book is the Barrier Breaking Year. And indeed, the team did break some barriers. But as I also say in the book, a barrier broken isn't a barrier dismantled. And so when the team came back in 1935, they were definitely the team to beat on a range of levels, but they still encountered some of the racist incidents that plagued them in the first year, and they didn't ever really go away. So I think when we talk about the 1934 victory, we also have to think about what happened after, what happened in 35, which was again, some pretty horrific racist incidents that are documented in the papers. And then in 1939, they also ran into a lot of disrespect, some unequal expectations about travel. And the All-Stars ended up walking away from a potential victory in 1939 as well, partially just because of the disrespect that was shown to them. So it's a complex history. It's easy to sort of celebrate the 1934 legacy because it's sort of that nice narrative arc of success and triumph, but that victory didn't mean that the issues that they faced in 1934 or before went away. And I think that's an important thing to remember.

MG: The manager of the team, Happy Joe Parker, gives this speech when he is collecting the cup and says, “when a coloured man commits a crime, the whole race is condemned for it. So now that the Chatham All-Stars have done so great a thing in winning, what white teams for years have been striving for, please give us a chance.” Do you think, Blake, that your father got a chance, he got the chance that he deserved after that win?

BLAKE HARDING: I think it developed over a period of time. It didn't happen that day. There were some very prominent businessman in Chatham, and he selected almost like Jackie Robinson, I think, you know, he wasn't the best baseball player to come out of people of colour, but he was the one that could tolerate and fit in to the professional organization and, you know, bear the weight. Well, my uncles, my father and some other gentlemen in Chatham got jobs that were quite significant. My dad was the first black letter carrier. My uncle Andy, his brother was the first police officer, black police officer in Chatham. All these men wanted was recognition of being men. And every one of them on that team were men. There was no boys on that team. And I think the team brought that to public light. And there were some breaks made. Unfortunately, not everybody got a break.

MG: Don, that's quite a statement. All these men really wanted was to be recognized as men, not boys.

DON TABRON: No, that's absolutely correct. My father was one of the younger men on the team, probably aged 17 or 18. And, you know, he always talked about the experience of being around, you know, older gentlemen playing baseball. He spent a lot of time, you know, living with the Harding family, you know, around the Jenkins family, and always spoke fondly of them. And, you know, I can remember even as a very young man, you know, us taking trips back to Chatham, you know, looking to see if we could find the Harding family. You know, driving around Chatham and, you know, kind of pulling over randomly asking people, hey, do you know where the Hardings live? You know, so forth and so on. And it made a big difference in, you know, his life from an experiential perspective. He absolutely loved the time that he spent in Chatham.

MG: When you think of his legacy, what stands out to you? What do you see as your father's mark on history?

DON TABRON: You know, a very interesting question. I often asked and spoke with my dad about that while he was alive. And he was very taken aback by, you know, some of the things at that time that were happening. He was able to throw out the first pitch for the Detroit Tigers at one of their Negro League days and, you know, also for the Blue Jays, of course. And he was really amazed. He was like, wow, I never knew that people would make such a big deal about, you know, I was just loving to play baseball. I loved to play the game. You know, he never really thought about it from that perspective while he was playing that it would materialize into, you know, any of what it has at this point. And, you know, as they began to, you know, make a bit of a deal out of it, as he got older, he was taken by it. And it was very emotional for him because at the time, they were just doing what they loved.

MG: What about for your dad, Blake? Did he see himself, did he see what he had done as being part of history?

BLAKE HARDING: I think he would be in amazement today we're having this interview. They just wanted to be recognized. Now they're recognized around the world. I think my dad would be… I get emotional about it, you know, so I think he would be as well.

MG: Yeah. It's really quite a story. I'm really glad to talk to you both about this and the accomplishments of your fathers and how those accomplishments live through you and through your own children. Thank you very much.

DON TABRON: Thank you.

BLAKE HARDING: You're most welcome.

MG: And Heidi, this is a story that I think a lot of Canadians don't know about and should know about. And so thank you for bringing it to light and for telling us why it matters. Thank you very much.

HEIDI JACOBS: Thank you for having us.

KG: Heidi Jacobs is the author of 1934: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars Barrier Breaking Year. Donald Tabron and Blake Harding are sons of two players on that champion All-Stars team. Matt Galloway spoke to them in June. Coming up after your regional update, part two of the podcast The No Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman. Exploring one of the biggest and perhaps most mysterious homicide investigations in Canadian history. I'm Kathleen Goldhar and you're listening to The Current.

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The deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman – Ep. 2

Guest:

KG: I'm Kathleen Goldhar and you're listening to The Current. Throughout the summer, we're showcasing some of CBC's best podcasts. This week my podcast exploring the mystery and myth surrounding the deaths of a high-profile Toronto couple. This is the second installment of The No Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman.

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SAUL RUBINEK (READING FOR BARRY SHERMAN): My legal given names are 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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: This is from Barry Sherman's memoir, Read to US by actor Saul Rubinek.

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SAUL RUBINEK (READING FOR BARRY SHERMAN): I was born in Toronto on February 25th, 1942, to Herbert Sherman and Sarah Winter Sherman.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Berry 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.

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SAUL RUBINEK (READING FOR BARRY SHERMAN): My parents had both also been born in Toronto. My father in 1906 and my mother in 1910.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: A lot of it is quite straightforward. Just a census of his early life.

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SAUL RUBINEK (READING FOR BARRY SHERMAN): 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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: But there are some insights and small reveals. 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. 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 we're 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 cantor 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.

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JACK K: 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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Standing alone at the lectern, Jack K. looked sad and small.

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JACK K: For 35 years. I was incredibly privileged to work side by side, day by day with Barry.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: 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.

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JACK K: 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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: 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.

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JACK K: 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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: 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 Talk, 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.

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MURRAY RUBIN: Barry was and still is, the most brilliant guy I ever met.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Producer Michelle Shephard and I met Murray Rubin and his wife Rhoda at their midtown Toronto condo. One beautiful May afternoon. Located on the fourth floor, their home has a Western wall of windows that opens onto a sea of old trees.

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KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Oh, sure. Well, thank you so much. Oh tulips.

RHODA RUBIN: It's Mother's Day.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Oh, that's nice.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: 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.

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MURRAY RUBIN: I can say without exaggeration, I think of Barry, if not once a week, once every two weeks. How could this have happened?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Murray's friendship with Barry reaches back decades to the mid 1960s, when Barry and his uncle were working together.

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MURRAY RUBIN: Barry didn't come from a wealthy family. But he was lucky enough that he had an Uncle Lew Winter, who started.

SAUL RUBINEK (READING FOR BARRY SHERMAN): Uncle Lew, who's 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.

MURRAY RUBIN: I went on a Saturday to Empire Laboratories to pick up some drugs, and Lew 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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: 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.

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RHODA RUBIN: We did get together with them occasionally when their kids were bar and bat mitzvahs. We were invited. We were invited to a wedding of theirs. They were invited to 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, And it will be that kind of a thing. But if you went to, let's say, a fund raiser 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 in that way.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Did you find him to be a funny friend?

MURRAY RUBIN: Oh, yeah. I can say he was the smartest guy I knew. And you could have a joke with him.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Could he laugh at himself?

MURRAY RUBIN: Yeah, of course. Yeah. He laughed at himself.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: When young Barry wasn't working for his Uncle Lew, he was collecting degrees. This just might be when he started to think of himself as the smartest guy in the room.

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SAUL RUBINEK (READING FOR BARRY SHERMAN): 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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Barry's academic accolades just kept piling up. He studied at MIT and was one of only two Canadian students selected for a Nassau summer program.

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SAUL RUBINEK (READING FOR BARRY SHERMAN): 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, his Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and was awarded a fellowship which covered both tuition and living costs. I set out for Boston and MIT in September 1964. I had expected that graduate work at M.I.T. would be much more challenging than undergraduate studies at UofT, and that competition would be much tougher. I was surprised to find otherwise.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: He got his master's and then became a doctor of philosophy in systems engineering. He got both of those in just three years.

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SAUL RUBINEK (READING FOR BARRY SHERMAN): My grade point average on leaving MIT was a perfect 5.0. My thesis was entitled Precision Gravity Gradient Satellite Altitude Control.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I have no idea what that means.

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SAUL RUBINEK (READING FOR BARRY SHERMAN): 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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So, yeah, the smartest guy in the room.

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MATTHEW CAMPBELL: There's a line in the memoir. And the memoir, by the way, is written in a style that is just so this just so humorless. It's just very, very serious.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: This is Bloomberg reporter Matthew Campbell. Matthew not only covered the killings, but he knew the Shermans only son, Jonathan from school.

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MATTHEW CAMPBELL: 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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Matthew's right. It does read a little bit like an extended resume, sprinkled with some very philosophy and self-help tips.

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MATTHEW CAMPBELL: 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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: 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.

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SAUL RUBINEK (READING FOR BARRY SHERMAN): In the first week of November 1965, during my second year, and 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's then 41 years of age, had died.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Lou died suddenly of a brain aneurysm.

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SAUL RUBINEK (READING FOR BARRY SHERMAN): 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 from his funeral and I visited Beverly at Saint Joseph's Hospital. Three weeks later, I had to return to Toronto again for Beverly's funeral.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Lew and Beverly Winter left behind four young sons and Empire Labs.

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SAUL RUBINEK (READING FOR BARRY SHERMAN): By the time I obtained my Ph.D. in January 1967. I decided that I did not want to seek employment as an astronautical engineer. I was interested in both science and business. Obvious target was Empire Laboratories.

MURRAY RUBIN: 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.

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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Joel Ulster 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.

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JOEL ULSTER: And in 1962, we incorporated as Sherman and Hollister 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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: 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.

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JOEL ULSTER: 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.

SAUL RUBINEK (READING FOR BARRY SHERMAN): During these empire years, in August 1970, I met Honey Rike on July 2nd, 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 Kaitlyn. Born April 22nd, 1986, and November 17, 1990, respectively.

JONATHAN SHERMAN: Before we begin. I would like to take a moment. A moment to breathe and reflect.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: This is the Sherman's only son, Jonathan.

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JONATHAN SHERMAN: 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.

CANTOR: (SINGING).

JONATHAN SHERMAN: These last few days have been really fucked up for my family.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Standing behind Jonathan are his sisters, Lauren, Alex, and Kaitlyn. They look tired, strained.

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JONATHAN SHERMAN: 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. 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 were 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. Kaitlyn, you are the youngest child and the sweetest individual I know. I know you've 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.

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KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: 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 their accomplishments were who they were.

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JONATHAN SHERMAN: 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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: 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.

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SAUL RUBINEK (READING FOR BARRY SHERMAN): The fact that I make little mention of my wife and children should not be taken as suggesting that they are 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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: There was no direct mention in Jonathan's eulogy about the crime.

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JONATHAN SHERMAN: 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 would be fine. We've taken control of the situation. These last few days have been a shocking adjustment to our reality.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: 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.

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JONATHAN SHERMAN: 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 Phenix 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. 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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: 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 there's 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 Barry was always open, especially for his kids.

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JONATHAN SHERMAN: You were also my business partner.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Jonathan even made mention of it at the funeral.

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JONATHAN SHERMAN: 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 any time. 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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: 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.

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MURRAY RUBIN: Barry did what he did not to make money. Money was his way of keeping score.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: That's Barry's friend, Murray Rubin again.

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MURRAY RUBIN: Barry had a lot of money. Everybody knew he had a lot of money and many people would come to him for him to subsidize, to give them the money. Barry was a gambler, 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.

JACK K: 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.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: The funeral ended and the family left to hold a private burial in Shiva. But the pursuit for those who killed honey and bury that was only beginning.

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SAUL RUBINEK (READING FOR BARRY SHERMAN): It is clear that numerous questions can be asked for, which we have no answers and may never have answers. The time has 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.

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KG: That was part two of my CBC podcast The No Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman. We'll continue the series tomorrow. And the whole series is available on the CBC Listen App or wherever you get your podcasts. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for q. I'm Kathleen Goldhar. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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Tuesday July 25, 2023 Episode Transcript

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