(Update) Kenneth Law pleads guilty to aiding 14 suicides in Ontario

A packed Ontario courtroom is hearing about the last moments of people who died after using deadly products purchased from Kenneth Law, after the Toronto-area man at the heart of an international investigation pleaded guilty to 14 counts of aiding suicide.

Some of the 14 Ontarians whose deaths are linked to Law were found by relatives, others by first responders. Some left notes explaining their decision. Some were in their 30s, while others — who cannot be identified because of their age — were teenagers.

One of them, a 29-year-old Toronto man, called 911 himself after ingesting a chemical he'd bought from Law, pleading for medical help, court heard.

"He repeatedly said, 'please,' and 'I am going to die soon,' and then began crying," Crown prosecutor Cindy Nadler said. By the time paramedics got there, he was unresponsive and struggling to breathe, she said. He died in hospital.

Another man, a 19-year-old from Thunder Bay, Ont., was discovered by his grandmother after she came across a journal containing his goodbyes while checking that their home was locked up for the night, court heard. She called paramedics, who tried to resuscitate him, but he was pronounced dead in hospital, Nadler said.

Law, 60, sat largely motionless as the details of his crimes were read aloud by the prosecution. In the audience, some dabbed their eyes with tissues and held each other for comfort. Several people briefly left the courtroom.

Law was scheduled to stand trial last month on these charges as well as 14 counts of first-degree murder but notice of a plea deal came from his defence lawyer, Matthew Gourlay, who said the murder charges would be withdrawn.

Court heard Friday that the Crown plans to withdraw the murder charges after Law is sentenced. A sentencing hearing is expected to take place this fall, giving friends and relatives of those who died a chance to explain how Law's actions affected them.

Under the Criminal Code of Canada, those found guilty of aiding suicide can face up to 14 years in prison.

Law ran several websites that were used to sell sodium nitrite and other items that can be used for self-harm, shipping some 1,200 packages to people in more than 40 countries, according to an agreed statement of fact read in court. Nearly 160 of those packages were sent to addresses in Canada, it said.

Nearly $290,000 in sales from his companies were deposited into his accounts by Shopify and PayPal between Jan. 1, 2020 and May 23, 2023, the statement said.

The hearing was expected to span several hours Friday as the Crown read the lengthy document.

Prosecutors also laid out details on 79 people in the United Kingdom who died because of products bought from Law.

Britain's National Crime Agency said Friday that while it initially planned to request Law's extradition, it ultimately agreed to have his offences in the U.K. included in the facts of his Canadian case so he "could be sentenced for the full extent of his offending within a single process in Canada."

"This means victims and families in the U.K. will see Law held accountable for the crimes he committed," the agency's deputy director of investigations, Craig Turner, said in a statement.

The families of people who died in the U.K., however, said the decision, combined with their government's refusal to hold a public inquiry into the matter, "leaves no forum in this country to examine how the deaths were allowed to happen."

David Parfett, whose 22-year-old son Thomas died in 2021 after consuming a substance purchased from Law, said he is angry but not surprised.

"For months, we have been told that the system is working and that existing measures are enough. They are not. If our own country will not put anyone on trial for these deaths, the very least it can do is hold a proper inquiry into how they were allowed to happen," he said in a statement.

The Canadian court case faced multiple delays as the Crown and defence awaited a Supreme Court of Canada decision in a separate matter they said would affect the case.

In the end, Canada's top court declined to "conclusively resolve" the issue in that appeal, which related to the circumstances under which murder charges can be laid against people who aid in suicides.

That made a murder prosecution "impossible" in Law's case, the Crown explained Friday, because it left the Ontario Court of Appeal ruling that sparked the appeal as the binding authority in the province.

That ruling suggests a person may only be liable for murder if they both provided a person who died by suicide with the lethal substance but also "overbore the victim's free will in choosing suicide."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 29, 2026.