Canada drops murder charges in suicide forum case against Kenneth Law
Canada withdrew 14 murder counts against Kenneth Law, shifting the case to aiding-suicide pleas after police tied his websites to deaths across 40 countries.
Prosecutors in Ontario dropped 14 first-degree murder charges against Kenneth Law and said he would plead guilty to 14 counts of counselling or aiding suicide, a sharp turn in a case that has tested how Canadian law handles deaths linked to online suicide forums and the sale of lethal substances.
Law, a former chef from the Toronto area, was arrested at his Mississauga home in May 2023 and has remained in custody since then. Police said he used a network of websites to market sodium nitrite, a meat-curing chemical that can be deadly if ingested, along with other suicide paraphernalia aimed at people at risk of self-harm. Investigators said at least 1,200 packages were shipped to more than 40 countries.
The case began with two counselling-or-aiding-suicide charges tied to deaths in Peel Region, then widened to 14 Ontario deaths across Toronto, London, Thunder Bay and Newmarket. Court records identified three of the victims as 18-year-old Jeshennia Bedoya Lopez, 19-year-old Ashtyn Prosser and 21-year-old Stephen Mitchell Jr. Police said the other victims ranged in age from 16 to 36.
The murder case escalated in January 2024, when prosecutors upgraded the file to 14 first-degree murder counts alongside 14 counselling-or-aiding-suicide charges. The shift reflected the difficulty of fitting digitally mediated deaths into traditional criminal categories, especially when the alleged conduct stretched beyond Ontario into a sprawling international market for self-harm material.
That broader reach has made the investigation one of the largest murder probes ever prosecuted in Ontario. Canadian police said Law’s products may have been linked to at least 124 deaths worldwide, and later reporting put the toll at 131 deaths across Canada, the United States, Britain, Italy, Ireland, New Zealand and elsewhere. Authorities in the United States, Britain, Italy, Australia and New Zealand have opened their own investigations.
The legal consequences now narrow to the suicide count, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years under Canada’s Criminal Code. For families of the alleged victims, that outcome has been hard to accept. One family filed a civil lawsuit in 2024 against Law and several doctors over the death of Jeshennia Bedoya Lopez, underscoring how the case has spilled beyond criminal court into questions about online access, medical oversight and where accountability begins when vulnerable people are drawn into digital spaces.
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