Kenneth Law appears in court in Brampton, Ont., on May 3, in an artist's sketch. Law, accused of selling a lethal substance to people at risk of self-harm, has had his bail hearing put over until next week.Alexandra Newbould/The Canadian Press
Update: Kenneth Law charged with 14 counts of second degree murder
Mississauga man Kenneth Law was charged with an additional 14 counts of second degree murder on Dec. 11
The man charged with abetting two people’s suicides while running an international mail-order business dispensing a legal – yet lethal – preservative was once an engineer and later became a chef who was forced to declare bankruptcy shortly after the pandemic touched down in Toronto.
But corporate registry documents show Kenneth Law, who was working as a chef at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in 2020, soon switched careers, establishing businesses selling a variety of products that can be used by those intent on ending their lives.
Mr. Law, 57, of Mississauga was arrested and charged Tuesday with aiding suicide in the deaths of two Canadians earlier this year. He admitted to The Globe and Mail last week that he sold sodium nitrite, a salt derivative used for curing meat, online, but denied he targeted buyers intent on killing themselves. His sales have also been linked to deaths in Britain and the United States.
Wearing khaki pants and a dark zipped jacket, Mr. Law appeared briefly in court Wednesday via video-link. After his lawyer secured a ban on any details of the proceedings being published, he was ordered to remain in jail until his bail hearing resumes next Tuesday.
On his personal website, Mr. Law states he received his engineering degree from the University of Toronto in 1989 and then pursued an MBA at York University seven years later. According to Professional Engineers Ontario, Mr. Law was accredited in 1992, but in 2012 he entered a fee remission program at the professional association.
Duff McCutcheon, a spokesperson for the PEO, said engineers who don’t pay their full fees, such as Mr. Law, “must not practise professional engineering but they can self-identify as licence holders and continue to use the title associated with their licence.”
By 2020, Mr. Law was working in the kitchen at the historic hotel in the heart of downtown Toronto, according to a former colleague. The Globe is not naming the colleague because the man feared personal and professional repercussions. (Fairmont Hotels did not immediately return a request to confirm his employment Wednesday afternoon.)
Mr. Law had amassed $134,000 in debts and listed a 20-year-old Lincoln Town Car, some tools and furniture among his few possessions. He declared bankruptcy in April 2020, public records show.
Four months later, in August, Mr. Law’s life started to change: He registered a website called ImtimeCuisine.com, its corporate logo highlighting the S and N in cuisine, a venture that sold sodium nitrite around the world for $59 for a 50-gram package. In an interview with The Globe last week, Mr. Law said he discovered the food preservative through his work in restaurants.
“The issue was because of the pandemic: I need a source of income – I hope you can understand that – I need to feed myself,” he said.
Peel police said Tuesday Mr. Law was also operating four other websites, including escMode, AmbuCA, Academic and ICemac. The sites of those businesses have been taken down in the past two weeks, but archived images of testimonials posted to escMode’s site showed clients appreciated his attentive customer service, with a “Kev, USA” referencing his phone consultation being a great help.
Escape Mode, or escMode, traded in masks, hoods, gauges and other apparatuses to assist people who wanted to breathe in nitrogen gas.
Customers appeared to find his businesses on an online forum for people seeking help killing themselves. Initials of several of his businesses were frequently mentioned by users and screengrabs posted by various users showed his full name.
Police in Canada say they are concentrating their probe only on the sales of sodium nitrite at this time.
“If you notice payments or transactions related to any one of these companies, please contact us,” Peel Deputy Chief Marc Andrews told a news conference Tuesday, adding Mr. Law allegedly shipped more than 1,200 packages of unknown substances to 40 countries in recent years.
While sodium nitrite is a curing salt for meats, this commercial product can be lethal if consumed in undiluted form. Canada’s Criminal Code says anyone who counsels or aids a person to die by suicide can face up to a 14-year prison term.
A Canadian mother whose son died in his mid-30s recently implored politicians to place restrictions on the trade in this preservative.
“There has to be someone controlling it,” she said Wednesday. The Globe and Mail is not naming her to protect her family’s privacy. She said she didn’t want to speak to details that could jeopardize the police investigation against Mr. Law. But she added that Canadians should reflect on how police have said that they are investigating hundreds of shipments.
“It’s bigger than we thought,” she said.
David Parfett is still livid that his 22-year-old son Tom was able to purchase the preservative so easily before killing himself in Britain in October, 2021. Mr. Parfett provided The Globe with a copy of the document from a police suicide investigator who found the packaging on the sodium nitrite his son bought included the name ImtimeCuisine.com. Mr. Parfett wants Canada and other countries to restrict access to these compounds to their legitimate industrial or commercial uses.
“There are many people who could still be here if it isn’t so easy to access this poison,” said Mr. Parfett, who added that a handful of parents had reached out to him this week to say their children also killed themselves using these salts.
When contacted by The Globe and Mail last week, Mr. Law denied he was targeting buyers who wanted to kill themselves with sodium nitrite. “I’m selling a legal product, okay. And what the person does with it? I have no control,” he said.
With research from Stephanie Chambers
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly said Kenneth Law was accredited in 1992 by the Professional Engineers Ontario, but in 2012 he stopped paying the annual certification fee. This version has been corrected.