Court documents released in January 2022 included statements by Honey Sherman's sister, Mary Shechtman, who suggested the person responsible for the murders was "making a statement" and that she believed the motive for the killings may have been religion. "The Shermans were strong supporters of Israel and Honey was very vocal about being Jewish," Shechtman said. "There were a lot of people of a certain ethnicity going through the house at a certain time and Honey would use phrases that were not politically correct." Shechtman said that six months before the murders, Honey had gone to a lecture "about stopping money from getting into Muslim fundamentalists' hands." In Shechtman's statement to police, she said Honey's belief was that "if the money were to be cut off from [Muslim fundamentalists] they could bankrupt them and therefore the money could not be used for terror." Shechtman told police she believed "Barry was providing funding for this."
