The Cult Queen of Canada from Uncover

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 w...

To get ahead in the generic drug industry you need to be focused, hard-nosed and fearless. Especially because half the battle is taking on one of the richest, most powerful industries in the world — Big Pharma. Barry Sherman was the perfect generic drug lord — more litigator than innovator — but did his ability to win in court, and slough off the losses, end up getting him killed? For transcripts...

It is no secret that some family members wanted Barry Sherman dead. And no one had a bigger grudge against Barry than his first cousins, Kerry Winter and his brothers. The Winter cousins were close to Barry — especially Kerry. They were father/son close. And the Winter boys lived well off Barry's money. But that good blood turned bad after a 10-year court battle that pitted cousin against cousin,...

If Honey Sherman showed up unannounced at her favourite hair salon and someone was in her chair — that person got moved pretty darn quickly. Honey wasn't the one who made the billions, but she certainly spent them. So much is known about her husband, but very little about Honey Sherman. A child of Holocaust survivors, family and community meant everything to Honey. And as for her friends? They are...

The lack of justice, or any resolution, has left a void in this story that has been filled by online sleuths, investigative reporters, nosey neighbours, and conspiracy theorists. From Covid to the Clintons. From family to the Mafia. With more than a dozen theories on the table, and little information from the police, is it any wonder this case remains constant fodder for the darkest corners of the...

After a notorious 2018 interview on CBC television, Kerry Winter became a familiar figure in the tale of the Shermans’ deaths. “The Cousin Did It” wasn’t just a snappy headline on the cover of The National Enquirer, it also became a favourite theory. Yet Kerry is not a suspect. And all these years later the humiliation, anger, and deep sadness Kerry feels towards his cousin Barry are still right o...

After our year-long investigation, in this final episode we revisit the murder/suicide theory. That misstep set the whole investigation off on the wrong foot, and might have derailed any chance of finding out who killed the Shermans. To the Sherman's children, it's one of the biggest police screw-ups in recent history – a botched job that muddled the truth and stained the family. But the theory ha...

In the No Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman, journalist Kathleen Goldhar looks into the lives and deaths of one of Canada's richest couples. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔎 You heard Uncover: The Cult Queen of Canada. 📁 [ Here's what's NOT in the episode .] 🧩 Evidence photos.   🗺️ Unreleased maps.   📼 Interview outtakes.   📄 Witness statem...

It’s the crack era. The most violent time in New York City history. The NYPD is fighting a losing battle and instead of protecting the city from drug dealers, some police officers have become them. This is the never-before told, first-person documentary of the biggest police corruption scandal in NYPD history and the investigation that uncovered it all. From Audacy Originals and Zak Levitt, the Em...

To those that remember, it’s known simply as the bombing of West Philly. In the spring of 1985, the City of Philadelphia became the first in U.S. history to drop a bomb on a family of American citizens. The attack killed 11 people, including five children, and the ensuing fire set a neighborhood to ruins. The targets that day? A family of Black radicals known collectively as MOVE, who found themse...

In the early hours of May 13, 1985, police direct residents of Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia to leave their homes, and not return for 24 hours. It’s Mother’s Day, and authorities have come to resolve a years-long conflict with a family of local revolutionaries — the Africas, collectively known as MOVE. There are 13 people in the Africa home that morning. Six of them are children. By the end of...

A quiet and reclusive young man is conscripted to war in Korea and returns having been made anew. Vincent Leaphart becomes the enigmatic John Africa, whose revolutionary vision will prove irresistible to followers seeking a new way of living. But what begins as a movement concerned with the protection of all life, will gradually turn to nonviolent direct action and large-scale civil disobedience i...

By the 1970s, both local and federal law enforcement have perfected a system to subvert and neutralize Black liberation movements across the United States. The civil rights movement has been uprooted, and Black Power is now here. In Philadelphia, the most famous police officer in America is elected mayor. Frank Rizzo’s objective is to turn the city into centre stage in the nationwide fight against...

Complaints from neighbours about MOVE’s lifestyle lead to increasingly violent clashes with police. One confrontation turns deadly, and by 1978, relations between MOVE and city authorities have reached a crisis point. The MOVE home in residential Powelton Village becomes the scene of a two-months-long starvation blockade, and the site of a stand-off with police that will end in blood, gunfire, and...

The MOVE 9 are catapulted into the international spotlight, facing more than 900 years between them for the death of Officer James Ramp — a crime for which they maintain their innocence. Central to the case is a former Black Panther and Vietnam vet named Delbert Africa, who will become a symbol of police brutality in Philadelphia. As all of this is happening, MOVE’s mysterious leader John Africa i...

In 1983, the City of Philadelphia elects its first Black mayor as successor to Frank Rizzo. Woodrow Wilson Goode inherits Rizzo’s fight against MOVE, but he also represents a moment of hope for Black Philadelphians who believe his election could be a harbinger of progress for a city beset with racial strife. Instead, Mayor Goode’s administration unleashes a torrent of violence never before seen in...

After a commission finds that city officials and police were negligent in their actions on May 13, 1985, a reeling city looks to heal, and surviving members of the Africa family redouble efforts to free the MOVE 9. Two senior members are released from prison having served more than 40 years. They now have reservations about the MOVE organization. A rift in the family opens up. By the end of 2020,...

In this live discussion from the Hot Docs festival, Africas VS. America host Matthew Amha joins Falen Johnson on stage to speak about the stories journalists choose to tell — and how they tell them. He reflects on the personal cost of infusing his own experiences into his journalism, and how he navigated the MOVE organization’s historically fraught relationship with the media. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━...

It’s 1971 and Ruth Dakin is going through a messy divorce and fears for the future of her young children, Pauline and Ted. She meets Stan Sears, a United Church Minister, a man who offered comfort and safe harbour. But the encounter would change her life – and the lives of her children – forever. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/run-hide-repeat-tra...

Now a teenager living in Saint John, the secrecy and unexplained moves wear Pauline down. Eventually she graduates and starts a career in journalism thinking she can start to live a normal life. That changes in February 1988 when her mother Ruth says she’s finally ready to tell Pauline everything. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/run-hide-repeat-tr...

Based on her mother and Stan’s stunning revelations, Pauline and her brother Ted start sifting through their childhood memories and matching them to the once unexplained events. Stan and Ruth, now openly a couple, are going deep undercover — and they want Pauline to join them. Pauline must choose between joining her mother in the unknown and leaving behind everyone else she loves in the world she...

Pauline is struggling with doubts — the details of her family’s secret seem outrageous. But why would Stan and her mother lie to her? Pauline sets up a sting to find out once and for all if Stan and Ruth are telling the truth. And what she discovers changes her relationship with Ruth forever. Pauline, desperate to reconcile what Ruth has done to her, turns to understanding her mom’s troubled past....

Pauline sets out to understand Stan’s mind and motives. She meets up with his son, John, who has some very strange stories of his own. And Pauline finally comes across a potential answer – something that could explain all of Stan's actions. But will it be enough to forgive him? For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/run-hide-repeat-transcripts-listen-1.6...

Police intercept two homegrown – and very peculiar – extremists intent on murder and mayhem at a national holiday festival. Pressure cooker bombs. Just like the Boston Marathon. But something about the official version of the story doesn’t add up. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/pressure-cooker-transcripts-listen-1.6563380 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━...

Meet the misfit suspects behind the foiled attack. Learn how they fell down a rabbit hole of conspiracy, hate and terror. And how they crossed paths with a mysterious financier who pledged to fund their diabolical plot. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/pressure-cooker-transcripts-listen-1.6563380 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔎 You heard Unc...