MANDEL: 'Chef of Death' Kenneth Law to plead guilty to aiding suicide
· Toronto Sun
See more Toronto Sun on Google — save as a Preferred Source
Visit newsbetting.cv for more information.
He’s been called the Merchant of Death; the Chef of Death, and by his boast, an Angel of Death.
In a Newmarket courtroom Friday morning, with families watching, 14 murder charges are expected to be withdrawn against former Royal York cook Kenneth Law after he pleads guilty, instead, to aiding the suicide of Ontarians aged 16 to 36.
It’s a shocking plea deal that comes three years after his stunning arrest for his prolific online dispensing of toxic sodium nitrite to vulnerable buyers around the world intent on killing themselves. Police have warned that at least 1,200 packages of the lethal substance were sent to 40 countries – including 160 to Canadian addresses.
So far, Law, 60, has only faced charges in Canada. Although authorities in the U.K. are said to be considering a request for extradition and a petition has called for his prosecution in the U.S.
Law’s non-descript packages contained the fine white salt most commonly used to preserve bacon, hot dogs and other cured meats – but in larger doses, it prevents the blood from carrying oxygen and results in death.
Opened several online storefronts to peddle the poison
When COVID hit, the bankrupt and out-of-work Law reportedly opened up several online storefronts appearing as legitimate food businesses to peddle the poison – one of them called Escape Mode. And for the next three years, he frequently went to his local Shoppers to mail out the deadly, but legal, substance to desperate clientele in cities around the globe.
There was reportedly no age verification.
Law would later say he wasn’t responsible for what people did with the chemical – h e was just the seller.
His alleged victims would be traced to Toronto, Mississauga, Markham, Pickering, London, Brampton, Aurora and Thunder Bay.
The family of a girl in Aurora, 18-year-old Jeshennia Bedoya Lopez, is now suing Law and her doctors for $2 million.
One of the last to die before Law’s arrest was Ashtyn Prosser, who used the chemical to take his life in March 2023 in Thunder Bay.
His mother Kim Prosser told the Toronto Sun in an interview two years ago that when she later checked his bank account, she found her son made the alleged purchase from Law six days before he died. She said she plans to be in the courtroom in person Friday.
It was a British father grieving the suicide of his 22-year-old son who led to Law’s downfall. David Parfett contacted Times journalist James Beal who went undercover, posing as a suicidal buyer.
Started side business after his mom suffered a stroke
Beal reported that Law told him he wanted to create an “avenue of escape” and boasted some had told him he was “doing God’s work.” He claimed to be a benevolent angel of death who came up with this side business after watching his bedridden mother suffer for more than seven years after she suffered a stroke.
“People might not consider what I do as being very favourable or in fact even criminal,” the reporter quoted him saying over the phone. “But I think it is helpful for a small, very narrow group of people who really need an avenue like this, because simply the laws of our society don’t permit it.“We’re not advanced enough as a civilization to accept death openly. I hope I’m just being a little bit more enlightened.”When confronted by Beal outside the postal outlet near his Mississauga home, Law denied aiding anyone’s suicide.“I’m not assisting anything,” he told The Times. “I’m selling a product.”
A few weeks after publishing the story, Law was under arrest at last.
With murder off the table, so is the spectre of life in prison – but he could still spend more time behind bars. Aiding suicide carries a maximum penalty of 14 years.