WARNING: This story contains distressing details.
Two years after losing her only child, Maria Lopez says she takes strength from her necklace with a picture of 18-year-old Jeshennia.
“She was an enchanting girl … a jokester, good student, good daughter, good advisor,” Maria recalled. Jeshennia “was everything.”
The death of Jeshennia Bedoya Lopez, a recent high school graduate from Aurora, Ont., is now at the centre of a $2-million lawsuit filed by her parents. It’s the first such civil case known to have been launched against Kenneth Law, a Toronto-area man facing criminal charges of murder and abetting suicide in connection with 14 deaths across Ontario, including Jeshennia’s.
“We’ve always been a very close family,” Jeshennia’s father Leonardo Bedoya said in an interview earlier this year. “Her loss has hit us very hard.”
Maria and Leonardo are seeking damages from Law, as well as a Newmarket, Ont., hospital and seven doctors who they say cared for their daughter before her death on Sept. 10, 2022, according to a statement of claim reviewed by CBC News. The case was filed in Newmarket Superior Court earlier this month, two years to the day after Jeshennia’s death.
The parents allege Law, 59, used an internet-based storefront to sell Jeshennia a “suicide kit,” which included a “poisonous” chemical she later ingested during a mental health crisis. “Law operated this online store with the primary intent of assisting, luring and/or enabling suicide to vulnerable individuals such as Jeshennia,” the lawsuit states.
Police made similar allegations about Law when he was arrested by officers from Peel Region, west of Toronto, in May 2023.
Jeshennia’s parents also claim a family physician and several specialists failed to provide reasonable care “to prevent [her] loss of life” after she reported poor mental health and thoughts of suicide in 2020 and again in 2022. Newmarket’s Southlake Regional Health Centre, the claim alleges, is also responsible “for the acts, errors, and omissions” of its staff.
No statement of defence has so far been filed in the civil case. The allegations have not been proven in court.
“Our thoughts and heartfelt condolences go out to the family and friends of Jeshennia Bedoya Lopez,” Derek Rowland, a spokesperson for the hospital said in an email to CBC. “While we cannot comment on specifics due to privacy concerns, patient care remains our top priority at Southlake.”
Law’s criminal defence lawyer Matthew Gourlay declined to comment on the civil case. He has said his client will be pleading not guilty to the criminal charges.
Law told CBC prior to his arrest that the allegations surrounding him — first reported by the U.K.’s Times of London — have “been very, very distressing for me.” He denied wrongdoing.
Civil case may be easier to prove
Official statements, public records and interviews with families suggest Law’s products may be linked to at least 131 deaths around the world, including in Italy, New Zealand and the U.S. The vast majority of those cases have been reported in Britain, where the National Crime Agency said it’s probing 97 deaths.
And there could be more, elsewhere. Ontario’s York Regional Police said Law mailed 1,200 packages to some 40 countries, and 160 to Canadian addresses.
Law is so far only facing criminal prosecution in Ontario. Police have laid 14 charges of first-degree murder and 14 charges of counselling or aiding suicide, in connection with deaths in Toronto, Cambridge, London and elsewhere in the province.
The families of the alleged victims of accused poison seller Kenneth Law have told CBC News they’ve been alerted that a murder trial will begin in September 2025. Law is accused of marketing to vulnerable clients, selling a legal but potentially lethal substance and other suicide paraphernalia.
Suzanne Chiodo, a professor at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School, pointed out the standard of proof is higher for establishing criminal guilt than for civil liability.
“It’s usually a good thing if there’s criminal liability found and then you can pursue it on the civil side much more easily,” Chido said in an interview. “It might not be an uphill battle establishing liability, but I think enforcing the judgment at the end of the day [would] be a big problem,” given the defendant has been in custody since last year.
Law is scheduled to appear in a Newmarket court on Friday, when a criminal trial is expected to be formally scheduled to begin in Sept. 2025.
“I hope that the person who caused all this bears the full weight of the law,” Jeshennia’s mother, Maria Lopez said earlier this year.
Jeshennia’s parents said she had dreamt of one day becoming a police officer and had just finished high school three months before her death.
“We’re not going to be able to recover,” Lopez said, “because we’re not going to be able to bring her back.”
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