MANDEL: Kenneth Law confronted by his UK victims – and the few who survived his mail-order suicide kits
· Toronto Sun
She wasn’t looking for someone to help her die, she says. But Kenneth Law was there to pave the way.
She’s one of the few lucky survivors.
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After the almost unfathomable procession of grief and anger caused by Law and his mail-order suicide kits came to an end as 70 of his victims’ loved ones detailed their ongoing suffering over two days, his sentencing hearing heard the voices of a few who narrowly escaped the merchant of death.
As the Mississauga cook happily dispatched his packages of sodium nitrite to customers around the world via Canada Post, Law cast himself as an angel of mercy offering a much-needed escape. But so many times over the past two days we heard of those who bought and ingested his poison only to regret their decision – but it was too late.
In the United Kingdom, Faith George had intercepted his first package mailed to her 22-year-old daughter Faith Ike-Elechi but didn’t know she’d received a second. Her oldest son heard a loud cry and found his sister lying helpless on the floor with a white substance around her mouth. “I’m sorry I drank it,” she said over and over.
“As a mother there is no greater heartbreak than watching your child take her last breath in your arms,” she wrote in her statement read aloud by a crown attorney struggling to control his emotion. “In her eyes was pain, fear and profound regret … In her final moments, I believe she desperately wished she could undo what happened.”
Pleaded guilty to 14 counts of aiding the suicide of Ontarians
Originally charged with first-degree murder, Law pleaded guilty instead to 14 counts of aiding the suicide of 14 Ontarians – one just 16 years old – and admitted his poison contributed to the deaths of 79 people in the U.K.
She would have been the 80th.
She’d put the package of sodium nitrite in her online basket and a few days later, Law’s website sent her an email reminder that it was still waiting – so she checked out.
“That was it; it was done,” she wrote in her victim impact statement. “I’d paid about 80 pounds to end my life.”
The package of poison arrived a couple of weeks later.
“The finality in that moment hit me all at once. I remember thinking that in a matter of hours I would probably be dead. It was terrifying. Yet getting to that point had been so unbelievably easy.”
She planned to use it that night. But later that same day, there was a knock on her door and six police officers told her they knew what she’d received and instructed her to hand over the package.
Welfare checks conducted on recipients of deadly packages
After Law’s arrest in May 2023, Canadian authorities had urgently advised their global partners to do welfare checks on people listed as recipients of his deadly packages.
“At that time, I saw the police arriving as the worst moment of my life. It took me a while and some recovery to realize that it was actually the day my life was given back to me. Had those police officers arrived only hours later, I would almost certainly not be here today,” she said.
“He simply made dying very accessible. When I was suicidal, I was not in any way thinking rationally. I did not need someone to hand me a quick path to death. I needed barriers to give me time for my suicide crisis to pass, no matter how long it took. He turned what was a thought into a very easy, achievable action.”
In the midst of her depression, she thought the pain would never end and tomorrow could never be different.
“I know now that it can be different. I needed time. I needed comfort, compassion, understanding, and hope. Instead, I got SN (sodium nitrite), and a website link.”
Luckily, the police rescued her just in time. If only Law’s other victims had been as fortunate.
Law returns to court in November for sentencing submissions.