Canadian man pleads guilty to assisting 14 suicides by selling poison online

(LifeSiteNews) — A Canadian man pleaded guilty to helping 14 people who were mentally suicidal die by their own hand after selling them a toxic substance online that they ingested. 

Kenneth Law, 60, pleaded guilty on May 29 to 14 counts of counseling or aiding suicide in a Newmarket, Ontario, courtroom. He was arrested in 2023 by Peel Regional Police. All of his Canadian victims were located in Ontario and ranged in age from 16 to 36. 

Law had allegedly sold sodium nitrate and other extremely toxic substances between 2020 and May 2023 to people in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and many other countries, including China.

It is estimated that Law’s sale of the substances has resulted in the deaths of at least 150 people worldwide. However, he is only facing charges in Canada for now. 

Police say that Law, who worked as a cook at a Toronto hotel, had sold and then shipped over 1,200 packages to people in over 40 nations through at least five companies online. Law charged about $80 US or about $110 for the packages, with total payments being over $148,000.

Approximately 160 of the packages were sold in Canada, with the highest number going to the United States (431 packages). The rest went to the U.K and other nations.

Originally, Law was to stand trial for his charges in addition to 14 counts of first-degree murder. However, his lawyer said that the murder charges would be dismissed after Law entered a guilty plea on the lesser charges. 

According to the Crown, it will withdraw the murder charges after Law has received his sentence for his aiding suicide charges. A sentencing is not expected until later this year.

Law’s victims were found dead at their homes or in their communities. In one example, a 19-year-old from Thunder Bay was found in a basement apartment of his grandparents’ house unresponsive. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Another victim, the court heard, bought the toxic substance from Law in 2021. After the man consumed it, he called 911 and could be heard saying “Please,” and “I’m going to die soon.” He later died while he was at a hospital.

The grim reality is that families of Law’s victims outside of Canada may never see justice.

According to the families of those who died in the U.K from Law’s substances, their country’s National Crime Agency and Crown Prosecution Service said that, due to lengthy extradition laws, Law would not face charges there. Records show that about 79 victims of Law’s were in the U.K. Those deaths, however, will be taken into account by the Canadian judge during sentencing.

People found guilty of helping a person commit suicide in Canada can face up to 14 years in jail per charge. 

Law’s actions in helping people die by their own hand come at the same time that fully legal assisted suicide, or “MAiD” (Medical Assistance in Dying), has become commonplace in Canada.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, a Canadian doctor was recently given only a minor reprimand after assessing a man for euthanasia outside of a Tim Hortons and then driving the man to the place where his state-sanctioned death with fatal injections took place.

Euthanasia was legalized in Canada in 2016 by the Liberal government of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Recently, a bill that places strict limits on who can get euthanasia and bans it for minors was passed by the majority of legislators in the province of Alberta.

In 2021, the federal government under Trudeau expanded euthanasia from killing “terminally ill” patients to the chronically ill after the passage of Bill C-7. Since then, the government has sought to include those suffering solely from mental illness.

In February 2024, the federal government delayed the mental illness expansion until 2027 after pushback from pro-life, medical, and mental health groups as well as most of Canada’s provinces.

The Liberal government under Trudeau and Mark Carney, however, has worked to expand euthanasia 13-fold since it was legalized in 2016. Canada now has the fastest-growing assisted suicide program in the world. Meanwhile, Health Canada released a series of studies on advanced requests for assisted suicide.