Kenneth Law pleads guilty in Ontario death-for-salt case, murder charges dropped

Kenneth Law pleaded guilty in a Newmarket courtroom to 14 counts of counselling or aiding suicide, and Ontario Crown prosecutors withdrew 14 first-degree murder charges in one of the province’s largest homicide prosecutions. The 60-year-old former chef from Mississauga had been held since his arrest in May 2023 and now faces sentencing later.

Prosecutors said Law’s online business shipped toxic salt to customers in 40 countries, along with other items used in suicide. Police said his websites sold a legal but potentially lethal chemical and other paraphernalia to at-risk clients around the world, while court documents linked him to 14 deaths across Ontario, including in Toronto, Thunder Bay and London. Prosecutors also said Law admitted to causing the deaths of 79 people in Britain.

The case has laid bare the limits of policing cross-border online commerce tied to self-harm. British authorities later investigated whether Law may have supplied as many as 99 people in the United Kingdom with toxic salt or other items used to die by suicide, and later reporting put the total number of deaths connected to his products at more than 150 worldwide, including more than 110 in Britain. Ontario authorities had pressed the Supreme Court of Canada to clarify the legal line between aiding suicide and murder before trial, a sign of how seriously prosecutors viewed the case.

The investigation began with a Times of London inquiry, after which police moved to track and intercept packages believed to be suicide kits before Law’s arrest. That sequence underscored how a seller operating online could reach vulnerable people across borders faster than law enforcement could shut him down. The plea deal ends the threat of a lengthy murder trial, but it also leaves unanswered how many warning signs were missed by platforms, postal systems and regulators.

Families of alleged victims, including those of Jeshennia Bedoya Lopez, Ashtyn Prosser and Stephen Mitchell Jr., have publicly criticized the deal and said they wanted the murder charges to proceed. For them, the plea reduces the chance to test the full scale of the allegations in open court, even as Law’s sentencing still lies ahead.