The family of Barry and Honey Sherman were right to doubt that their parents would’ve taken their lives in what police initially suspected to be a murder-suicide, because a bombshell report from a team of private investigators published on Saturday concluded that the couple were both murdered, and then their bodies were arranged to make it look like a suicide. Multiple killers likely participated in the killings, the New York Post reported…

Multiple killers played a role in the deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman – contrary to the widely-circulated murder-suicide theory initially leaked by law enforcement, sources told CBC News, citing a parallel probe by a team of investigators hired by the couple’s family.

A real estate agent who was selling the $5.4 million home had discovered pharmaceutical mogul Barry, 75, and Honey, 70, dead on Dec. 15.

There was no evidence of forced entry into the home, which the couple was trying to sell.

Both husband and wife were hanging from a railing alongside the basement lap pool; initial autopsy results revealed both had died from “ligature neck compression.”

The private investigators are former Toronto homicide detectives who are now painting a more complete picture of the death scene: and it points to a double murder after an extended struggle, likely two days before the bodies were discovered, CBC said.

When their bodies were discovered, both Barry and Honey had leather belts around their necks that were also knotted around the pool’s handrail, the CBC said a source intimate with the private eyes’ investigation revealed. But both bodies were in an upright, seated position on the floor near the pool.

The detectives found evidence that Honey struggled before dying, bleeding out on the floor before being moved to the position where she was found. There was also evidence to suggest that the couple was, at one point shortly before their deaths, bound together.

Honey likely struggled before her death.

“She had cuts on her lip and nose, and was sitting in a pool of her own blood when she was discovered,” the CBC wrote.

“However, there was comparatively little blood apparent on her upper-body clothing, suggesting that she had been face-down on the tile, bleeding, for some time before being bound to the handrail in an upright position,” the CBC wrote.

Tellingly, the wrists of both Honey and Barry showed marks indicating they had at one point been bound together, according to the CBC’s source.

Whoever the killers were – and the private eyes believe it would have taken more than one – they took whatever was used to bind the couple’s wrists with them when they left the house, the source told CBC.

“Their bodies were otherwise limp and their arms unbound when they were discovered.”

The motivation for the murder remains murky. The billionaire philanthropists faced some financial woes in the months before their deaths. Barry, the husband, was also fighting dozens of lawsuits associated with the family fortune and his former pharmaceutical company, Apotex.

Family members said the couple was delighted in the recent birth of a grandchild, and was excited about traveling to a Miami condo.