A Canadian man who sold a legal but potentially deadly chemical and other items online to dozens of people who took their own lives pleaded guilty yesterday to aiding suicide, ending the prospect of a murder trial in a case with international reach.
Kenneth Law, 60, appeared at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Newmarket, Ontario, north of Toronto.
Wearing tan pants, a white shirt and a dark suit jacket, Law showed no emotion as he stood in a prisoner’s box and pleaded guilty to aiding the suicides of 14 Ontario residents, aged 16 to 36. He will be sentenced in September.
Prosecutor Peter Westgate told Justice Michelle Fuerst that prosecutors would ask that 14 first-degree murder charges Law was also facing be withdrawn after his sentencing.
Family members of victims, some wiping their eyes with tissues, were visibly upset as prosecutor Cheryl Nadler read out the circumstances of each victim’s death.
Law also admitted that 79 people in Britain died as a result of consuming or using products he sold, according to an agreed statement of facts spanning more than 60 pages.
Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service said it had decided against seeking Law’s extradition to stand trial in the UK, concluding that doing so carried a risk of refusal on double-jeopardy grounds.
According to the statement of facts, Law operated four companies with websites through which he marketed and sold sodium nitrite and other items, including masks, hoods and regulators, that were used by the purchasers to take their own lives.
Sodium nitrite, a salt used in low concentrations as a food additive to cure processed meats, can be deadly when ingested in high concentrations.
Law sent 1,209 packages of the salt and other goods to customers in 41 countries between January 2021 and April 2023, the court heard. The shipments included 330 sent to addresses in Britain, 431 to the United States and 157 within Canada.
The statement described victims who vomited, collapsed in their parents’ arms, were found unresponsive in bed by family members or friends, or who died alone in hotel rooms and vehicles after consuming or using products shipped by Law.
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