The Poison Peddler: Kenneth Law Stands Accused

You can find just about anything you need online. It’s one of the wonderful and terrifying things about the Internet. But what if what you were looking for was help, someone to talk to during your darkest moments? Could you find it online?

Sure, resources are available. But in the darker corners of the Internet, you might find more than you bargained for. There are disturbed, evil individuals online waiting and ready to take advantage of society's most vulnerable people — those suffering from mental illness. Offering them a “solution” — but it’s all for their own sick and twisted enjoyment.

This is the story of a 57-year-old Canadian man named Kenneth Law. He stands accused and charged with 14 counts of second-degree murder for his plot to sell poison through the mail to individuals contemplating taking their own life. He may be linked to as many as over 100 deaths through his death-by-mail scheme.

If he is found guilty, he will go down as one of the worst mass murderers in Canadian history, but nothing will take away the agonizing pain he has inflicted on the 100s of family members of his victims.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 700,000 people worldwide die due to suicide every year, that’s around 2,000 people every day. The numbers for those who have attempted suicide are far greater.

Sadly, many of those who died by suicide did so impulsively, while they were going through something really difficult in their life, like a death, loss of a job, or breakdown of a marriage. Most did not want to die, they wanted the pain to stop. But once they’ve taken the action to end their life, it might be too late to go back and change their mind. They’re trapped with the permanent consequences of their choices — which is why prevention is key. Knowing the warning signs, what to look for, how to help someone in a crisis and finding the gaps where support is lacking — all are important to saving lives.

But not everyone feels that way. Just like some people feel as if there is no other option than to take their own life, there are also people who support their decision to do so, and encourage it even. Since the beginning of the Internet, there have been communities solely dedicated to assisting people around the world with ending their lives. For obvious reasons, I’m not going to name any of them here — but take my word for it, they exist.

They throw up certain conditions you must agree to — like confirming that you are over 18 years old and rules like agreeing that you will not encourage other users to take their lives or promote specific suicide methods. These terms are more to protect the creators of these sites, not to create a safe space for its users — because if you look through the posts, you’ll see that it's easy to get around these rules simply by using acronyms and nicknames to say what you want to say.

One of the more popular versions of these forums boasts more than 40,000 members from around the world who self-identify as individuals struggling with suicidal ideations. It contains more than 2 million messages posted by people looking for advice, support, and someone to talk to. Amongst these messages, there are also multiple posts about a suicide kit available by mail.

The BBC did an investigation on this forum earlier this year and some of the things they uncovered are shocking. One photo posted by a child showed a package that had been delivered to their door, allegedly containing a suicide kit — poison they purchased from an online supplier they planned to use to take their own life.

The caption read:

“It arrived while I was at school. I called my mum and told her not to open it. I’m going to use it today.”

The kit had been shipped from the post office located at a Shoppers Drug Mart in Mississauga, Ontario, far away, out of sight out of mind. The sender? A 57-year-old man named Kenneth Law.

Recently, he had worked as a cook in the kitchen of the Fairmont Royal York, a prestigious hotel known worldwide for its history and luxurious stay. But he wasn’t very good at it. The running joke was that he couldn’t even make tomato sauce, and according to one former co-worker, it was a known fact that the hotel wanted to let him go once his 3-month probation was over. Unfortunately, he would put up a fuss — citing ageism as a reason the hotel was discriminating against him. Ultimately, they would keep him on staff but try to shuffle him around to different jobs that didn’t have him messing up the food for important guests. It was all working out until 2020 when COVID-19 struck and the world shut down — including the kitchen at the Royal York.

Kenneth was now out of a job and he desperately needed money. He was drowning in more than 134,000 dollars in debt and was forced to declare bankruptcy. He needed a way to bring in more money and he found it when he encountered these suicide forums online. He saw a business opportunity.

These people were looking for quick and painless ways to take their own lives — and Kenneth knew of a method that was both attainable and technically legal — a substance called sodium nitrite, which is a type of salt that is often used to preserve deli meats. Think about cured foods — they use sodium nitrite, a substance commonly found in restaurants. Perhaps that is where he got the idea, during his time working in the hotel kitchen.

When a person takes sodium nitrite in large doses, it can be lethal. For many years, Euthanasia advocates have pointed to using sodium nitrite as a way to painlessly die. When taken in lethal quantities, it suffocates the person from the inside out by preventing red blood cells from delivering oxygen to the rest of the body. Whether or not taking sodium nitrite is a painless way to die is debatable because many of those who have attempted it have succeeded in their goal — but those who have survived reported experiencing severe stomach pains, nausea and heart palpitations.

During the lockdown, when people were particularly suffering with their mental health, Kenneth Law decided to set up several online storefronts to sell these suicide kits containing sodium nitrite, which in Canada is fairly easily attainable. One one of his shops, called Imtime Cuisine, he sold 50-gram packets of the powder for $59 each, a great markup when you get it from wholesalers for about $15/kilo. While the website didn’t explicitly say that these kits were to be used for suicide, because that would be illegal, these kits were marked on the forums specifically for that use. When the kits shipped to the customer, they included no specific instructions on how to use them, but the instructions could be found on the forums.

Alongside the salt kits, Kenneth sold products like hot sauce, in an attempt to hide the true intentions of his shop. On other versions of his site, Kenneth went as far as to offer personal consultations on how to use the products for $150.

For years, he would sell multiple kits a day to customers all around the world. He’d package them up from his living room in Mississauga and ship them out from his local Shopper’s Drug Mart. Meanwhile, coroners from Canada, the U.K., and several other countries were noticing an uptick in strange sudden deaths that appeared to be linked to an overdose of sodium nitrite. And they weren’t the only ones taking notice. The family members of Kenneth Law’s customer began to piece together what was happening and how their loved ones died.

One such family was the Ramirez family, who lost their transgendered daughter, Noelle, to suicide after she ordered one of Kenneth’s kits online. Noelle had struggled for years with autism, OCD, gender identity, depression and suicidal thoughts. She had tried unsuccessfully to take her life once before and her family rallied around her with love and support. Sadly, at the same time, Noelle was being encouraged to move forward with taking her life by strangers on one of these forums — and her family was powerless to stop it, completely unaware of what was happening in the background.

In March 2023, Noelle said goodnight to her family then went to her room and posted a goodbye thread on the suicide forum. She talked about how she had ordered the kit online and was preparing to take it that night. The response she received was overwhelmingly supportive of her decision to take her own life without giving it any more thought. So she did it. She consumed the salt kit and then climbed out of her bedroom window to stumble a few blocks to a park. She didn’t want her parents to find her in that condition, but she did call the police to let them know where they would locate her body. Then Noelle went unconscious and never woke up again.

Noelle is just one of hundreds of people who used one of Kenneth Law’s kits to take their own life. There would be many more all across countries like Canada, the UK, Italy and New Zealand — just to name a few. Families began calling their local police with the information they discovered after their loved ones' deaths. Kenneth Law appeared to be hiding in plain sight. His websites were easily accessible by anyone and some of them even included his full contact details. The product he was selling online, was legal. Without proof that he was encouraging people to use the product to kill themselves, there wasn’t much that could be done by the authorities.

And then — the family of one of Kenneth’s customers became truly fed up with the lack of progress and decided to take things into their own hands. 22-year-old Tom Parfett purchased and used the suicide salt kit in October of 2021, successfully taking his own life in a London hotel room. Tom’s father, David, discovered the connection between his son’s death and the kits available online. He tried putting pressure on his local government to get an investigation going, but when that didn’t pan out, he went straight to the media for help.

David worked with the editor of the Times in London, James Beal. Together, they sort of set up their sting operation. Beal called Kenneth on the phone, pretending to be a customer interested in purchasing one of his kits. It didn’t take much for Kenneth to completely spill the beans about the true intention of his online business. Without prompting, Kenneth detailed how to use the kit for suicide and encouraged Beal to go through with the purchase. This was proof that what Kenneth Law was doing was illegal — he was encouraging people to take their own lives and providing advice on the best way to do it.

James Beal from the Times handed over his evidence to the local police organization where Kenneth Law lived, the Peel Regional Police in Mississauga, Ontario. They already had an active investigation going into Kenneth’s activities after receiving multiple complaints from family members who had lost their loved ones to suicide linked to the salt kits. There had been grieving families from all over the world come forward with their own stories linking back to Kenneth Law’s website.

But all of these stories helped to finally shut Kenneth Law down three years after he began his online suicide kit business.

On May 2nd, 2023, he was arrested at his home, standing accused of sending at least 1,200 packages to people in more than 40 countries. Initially, he was charged with 14 counts of counselling or aiding suicide. As the investigation progressed and more police agencies across the world became involved, it became apparent that this was much more than simply aiding suicide. Recently, those charges were upgraded to 14 counts of second-degree murder, related to the deaths of Canadian individuals ranging in age from 16–36. Police have said that there is more than 1 victim under the age of 18.

These charges do not include all of Kenneth Law’s alleged international victims. In Britain, it is believed that at least 272 people purchased products from his various websites and at least 88 of them died. That number is expected to grow as the investigation continues.

Kenneth Law has so far disputed these charges. His story is that he was doing something good, taking away people’s pain. In an interview with the media, he pointed to his upbringing as his reason for building these online businesses. He said that when he was younger, his mother had a stroke and was bedridden. She couldn’t speak or eat and had a very low quality of life. He claimed his religious father refused to take her off of life support, even though she was not likely to ever get any better. According to Kenneth, he launched the websites because he wanted to help people end their suffering.

For those not living in Canada or not aware, medically assisted dying is available in Canada through the MAID law. But of course, if you are someone who is looking to use this kind of service, there are hoops you must jump through first to ensure that you are mentally capable of making such a big decision and sure of it.

Anyone who is looking to use medical assistance to die has to meet certain requirements: Applicants have to be over 18, have a grievous and irremediable medical condition, undergo two independent evaluations, and be able to give informed consent. These steps are important to ensure that the person wants to go through with it and isn’t making an impulsive decision. One cannot simply take it upon themselves to offer this kind of service, no matter what kind of holier than though motive they claim to have behind it.

Still — according to Kenneth’s lawyer, he plans to plead not guilty to the charges, saying the charges are based on a “novel interpretation of the law.

Today he remains in police custody awaiting trial. If he is found guilty of the second-degree murder charges, he faces spending life in prison, which in Canada is 25 years before they are eligible for parole. Once he faces his charges in Canada, he may be extradited to other jurisdictions to face even more murder charges. It is believed his poison kits have killed hundreds of people worldwide. For now, we wait until the end of January for his case to return to the courts.

Many people think that more needs to be done to stop these kinds of businesses from flourishing. There not only needs to be a crackdown on websites that sell these homemade suicide kits, but the forums themselves need to be taken down. These are not resources for people who are suffering from mental illness and need someone to speak with. They are oftentimes filled with people who want nothing more than to see others suffer.

The problem is, that in many countries like Canada, there is a serious lack of resources dedicated to mental health. When someone finally has the strength to reach out, it can be difficult to get them the appropriate kind of help. Often we’re prescribed anti-depressants and sent on our way, with very little follow-up care. So — we self sooth. Like we do when we need to help ourselves with other things, we turn to the Internet.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen something like this happen in Canada. It reminds me of a local story from 2008 that I remember well because there was a huge search effort in my city.

Nadia Kajouji was an 18-year-old University student who had been struggling with really difficult life events, including a big breakup and a recent miscarriage. She would throw herself into the river as part of a suicide pact that she made with someone online, who she believed to be a nurse from Minneapolis named Cami D and a friend. But Cami D was a married father of two named who had no intention of taking his own life. He simply thrived on the adrenaline of encouraging someone else to do it.

He would serve only 178 days in jail for his role in Nadia’s death, as well as his role in assisting the suicide of a 32-year-old from Britain. And it’s wild to me that we give criminals like that such a light sentence when they were so instrumental in the events that led to these people's deaths. They could have been a light at the end of the tunnel, but instead, they were a monster lurking in the dark. These individuals need to be named and shamed and have it made clear that they can no longer hide behind a screen name and keyboard.

There are real consequences for their actions — just as real as the consequences the families of their victims must live with forever.