Front Burner - Weekend Listen: Hunting the Suicide Salesman

Episode Date: June 6, 2026

Following the critically acclaimed series Hunting Warhead, Season 2: Hunting the Suicide Salesman follows host Daemon Fairless as he takes us inside another dark corner of the internet: the online world helping people take their own lives. When people around the world started killing themselves with an obscure substance a few years ago, police were unaware that something – someone – was tying many of these deaths together.It took grieving families and investigative journalists to piece together what was actually happening and to trace the source of the substance – first, to an online suicide forum and then, to a salesman in Canada: Kenneth Law. Police believe he sent more than 1200 shipments to 41 countries… and may be connected to more than 145 deaths around the world.More episodes of Hunting the Suicide Salesman are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/HTSSxFB

Let's see if Toronto advisors know their life insurance providers. Hey there, who offers term plus life insurance a flexible solution with really low premiums? Oh, uh, Beneva. Correct. Who makes it easier to protect your clients with high approval rates and several built-in benefits? Veniva. You got it. Who offers whole life insurance with a whole lot of cash value? Beneva. Am I on TV?

No, not today. Looks like people are starting to know Beneva pretty well. You're stronger with the right partner, Beneva. This is a CBC podcast. Hey everybody, Jamie here. Last week in a hearing watched around the world that Canadian man named Kenneth Law pleaded guilty to aiding in 14 suicides and admitted his role in nearly 80 other deaths. Using an online alias, law targeted vulnerable people on a suicide forum, directing them to his products and teaching them how to die. The scale of the operation was staggering.

More than 1,200 packages shipped to people in 41 countries. It is a case that my colleague Damon Fairlist has been following for years. Damon is no stranger to the darkest corners of the internet. He hosted Hunting Warhead, CBC's award-winning podcast that followed an international police investigation into one of the world's largest child abuse sites on the dark web. Now Damon is back with a long-awaited follow-up series. Hunting the suicide salesman investigates the shadowy online world where Kenneth Law operated, praying on people searching for a way to end their lives.

Like Hunting Warhead, this is a global story, one that connects victims across countries and communities through an online world few people want to confront or even report on. Here's the first episode of hunting the suicide salesman. If you get hooked like I did, there's a link in the show notes to episode two. These the evidence bags that they were in? Yeah. Are you guys comfortable?

talking about that stuff or reading them? Yep. Yeah. I'm at a cluttered dining room table in Northern England. There are papers everywhere. Stacks of file folders, empty teacups, an ashtray full of spent cigarettes.

It's not much of a dining room, not anymore. What it is now is a makeshift war room. Are these different drafts, or like each separate? Each separate. Okay. So you left three of them? Yeah.

Hello. Two to me. I'm one to all of us. That's Catherine. Catherine's showing me three handwritten letters, left by her son, Joe, each in a clear plastic bag. This was in the envelope on the sofa, along with this one and the one for the police in a second envelope. Catherine's here with Melanie, her daughter-in-law. Melanie is married to Joe's eldest brother. So there's the one that he left for us all. This has been planned for a while now and I know it's selfish of me to do this but I had no choice.

I know I'll never get better with what's going on in my head. This isn't your fault. You are all amazing and did everything you could for me. I just got tired of fighting and trying to act normal. I love you all so much. I hope you do forgive me, I really do. I'm truly sorry. I'm sorry. I'm not as strong as you all

and I'm sorry I've let you down. Give the kids a big kiss and a hug from me. I love you all so much. I mean that. I'm sorry. I love, Jim. My right. This is the story of a deadly corner of the internet. At least that's how it started.

But really, it's a series about suicide. So depending on how you're feeling, this might not be what you want to listen to right now, especially if you tend to struggle with depression or suicide. I get it. These are things I've dealt with from time to time. So have a lot of people in this series. So do a lot of people, period. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. But for all our efforts trying to destigmatize mental health issues, it's still not something we talk about. Not really. Not directly. Honestly. Unflinchingly. So why not?

One of the reasons journalists don't cover it in much detail is because we're afraid. What if we do more harm than good? That's something I've been wrestling with a lot. But not talking about suicide, really talking about it, that's risky too. It can push us towards dark places and dangerous people. Suicide is not an issue you can tackle without taking some kind of risk. And I'm going to be talking about it more openly than what's traditionally recommended. But I'm not going to warn you away.

That's not what this is. It's not a trigger warning. This is an invitation to a difficult conversation. And I'm hoping you'll choose to stick around. It was like that morning, Damon, it was awful. It were awful. It was like a crime scene. Can you go back to that morning?

And, you know, tell me what you remember. Tell me what you want to. You don't have to go into details if you don't feel comfortable, but tell me what you remember. It was the same kind of setup as this one at this days. Catherine's talking about the morning of April 4th, 2020. Her son, Joe, was living with her then, in a house Catherine's moved out of since.

He'd come home again after being out on his own for a few months. Catherine woke up just before 8.30. She came down the stairs, and she noticed the living room door was open slightly. She could hear music playing softly. She and Joe had been watching Grey's Anatomy on the couch until about midnight. He said he was going to stay up and watch a movie, and Catherine went to bed.

She assumed he'd fallen asleep with the TV on. I came down as I was going in to make a coffee. I shouted, Yo, you up? Nothing. I think I made a coffee. I left it in the kitchen and start going and get him. And I'd just open the day and I just remember that music. It wasn't the TV.

It was Joe's phone. He'd left a song playing on an endless loop. And I looked and there he was. My phone rang and Catherine was just screaming down the phone at me. He's dead, he's dead. Joe's dead, he's dead. And that's all she was saying. I just remember blasting the car around the corners.

And I got there and I ran up the driveway. Catherine was in the hall by the front door. Crying, screaming. I walked into a living room and I saw, Saw Joe on the sofa. His fingertips had gone blue, and the tip of his nose was blue as well. And I remember I put my hand onto his hand. And, yeah.

On the floor near Joe, there was an empty glass sitting on a sheet of paper. And on it, in big block letters, a warning. Don't touch the glass, don't touch me. Call the police. Then Melanie noticed the stack of notes on the arm of the house. a sofa. Three of them were for the family and a fourth in an envelope addressed to the police, along with the remains of a small bag of white granular powder. And with that, two police officers turned up and I led them in, and they said, right,

we need to evacuate the house. And we need to evacuate the house for. I was probably a bit shirty with them really, like, thinking why we all got to get out of the house is there's no need. because they didn't know how he had died, they had to make sure that nobody else was at harm or there was any risk to anybody else in the area. There's more police just kept coming, and then the fire brigade turned up, paramedics turned up,

and all in all, I think there were seven police cars, two fire engines, two paramedics, and this big appliance vehicle turned up about 45 minutes later. that next meet the glasses, I could see this officer carrying the glasses. Joe had actually left two glasses, the empty one on the sheet of paper with the warning, and another one, partly full of a clear liquid. I said, what are they doing with them?

We need to test them, test them for what, for what is taken. One of the vehicles that had shown up was a mobile lab. So they tested the glasses and said it's sodium nitrite. I remember thinking, what is it? What is sodium nitrite? And how does it kill somebody? Melanie's immediately on Google. And then I came across some sort of medical document.

I think it was some sort of research or something like that. It was actually had pictures on it. And it was explaining the effects of sodium nitrate toxicity. They were post-mortem photos, pictures of bodies with bluish skin. like Joes. It was just blowing my mind, working it out, thinking, what is this? And nothing was becoming clear as to what its actual intended use was. Sodium nitride's intended use is as a food preservative.

It's used in low concentrations to cure meat and prevent botulism, and more rarely is a cure for cyanide poisoning. But the stuff Melanie was seeing online was being sold at extremely high, concentrations, over 99.9% pure. I searched on the internet, how do you kill yourself with sodium nitrate? And it just kept bringing up this site. A site that came up with a simple Google search, nothing tucked away on the dark web, a simple web form like Reddit, but devoted entirely to suicide.

It was probably less than 12 hours after Joe had been found that I found it. But I think the more I went on it over the rest of that day, because I kept coming back, there was just something luring me back to it every time. I thought, no, he couldn't have. He couldn't have been on something like this. That's not Joe. And the more and more I looked on there, I found him. Melanie had inadvertently stumbled onto the path Joe had taken in his final days.

He ended up in a place a lot of people do, after searching for something they can't find in the real world. Okay, so I want to... Can you tell me about Joe? I want to know who he is as a human, who he was as a human. He was just... He was a proper comedian. He was the one.

No matter what was happening, he'd make you laugh. He... That seemed there. He had a thing for zebras. Catherine's showing me a framed photo. Joe's hamming it up. His thing for zebras included a full-size, black-and-white-striped onesie. He were kind.

He was caring. He did have attitude as well when he wanted it. He definitely had a mind of his own. It was just lovely. Just like a normal 23-year-old. He'd go out and go out and go out with his mates. He'd then tell you all about girls he'd met and we've got the full star

He'd trust me on that one Like how much? Everything First times I met him They'd only been going out with Aaron At his point about six weeks Parents Joe's older brother Melanie's husband

It was a Christmas The first Christmas I was with him That's when he got his thong And he's thonged And he modelled the thong from me And I'd literally only just Met them That was Joe

It was just, I suppose he's like me, anyway. It was just an open book. Not that I'd do anything like that. This is how Joe grew up, fun-loving, tight with his family, happy, until he was about 19. Right. Okay, so I think it's important, too, to talk about, because you guys, as your family, had, like, a hellish stretch. Yeah. In the last few years of his life, Joe was dealing with a lot.

Both of Catherine's parents had passed away after prolonged illnesses, and then his stepfather, Catherine's husband, died suddenly. Joe was close to them all. In the midst of all this, one night Joe was getting off the bus after work. He had a part-time job at a fissionship's place. A group of guys swarmed him and mugged him. One of them had a knife and stabbed Joe in the liver in one of his lungs. He recovered, but the grief and the pain started to weigh him down.

He started a course of antidepressants. He'd been studying IT security at university, but it all started to feel like too much, so he decided he needed a break. Then he met a girl. It was intense, all-consuming, and tumultuous. Joe moved in with her, and he sort of went dark and stopped communicating with his family for a bit.

And then, a few months later, it was over. When he came home, I know there was something, we know there was something not right, with him. And he just kept saying that it was because he broke up with her. But when he came back from her, I never saw my Joe again how he was. Joe's zebra-onezied thong-wearing sense of fun had evaporated. He was quiet and withdrawn.

He wasn't eating or sleeping. And then in the January, he called me. This was a week or two after Joe's breakup. And he said, He'd gone into town from work. So I said, okay, what you're doing? And he went, I'm actually on the top of a car park. I'm going to jump.

Oh, God. Catherine eventually talks him down from the roof of the car park. And I just said, let me come for you. And he said, no. So I said, I promise I'll get you the help you need. Either I come for you or get in a taxi and he got in a taxi. And he came home. after this Catherine and Melanie pull into a tight orbit around Joe

there are countless doctors appointments countless prescriptions attempts to get hidden daily therapy sessions but Joe still wants to die and Melanie and Catherine are terrified from what you're saying he's got this patchy help that he's getting from mental health workers he's on medication or should be on medication like how long does that go on before he ends his life

We weren't even for our months, was it? No. Three. January, February, March. They had to begin of April, three months. Some people live with suicidal urges for years, and some for much of their lives. But most people experience crises that are more like Joes. They're acute and relatively short-lived.

And complex. It's usually a combination of a whole bunch of things. During the three months that Joe was suicidal, he made a few attempts. He swallowed a fistful. sleeping pills with no lasting effect. Another time he wandered into a park with a noose. He had even picked the tree before Melanie found him. Joe went missing one last time.

Catherine called the police and they found Joe in the cemetery where his grandmother was buried. He had plans to die to her grave. That was the time Catherine said to me, I'm grieving for a son that I've not lost yet. And she said, I can already picture him, Dad. It was awful. We were battling with the mental health. We were always on the phone to them saying,

he needs help, he needs help. He's asking us to help him die. He'd asked me, and he'd ask Mel, different occasions. He said to me, if you loved me, you'd help me die. It's not clear exactly when Joe found the online suicide form. We'd found the posts with his username on there. Remind me how you knew was him? Yeah, he used Yo-Yo Jojo.

That's his username. And that's a little bit of Yo-Yo. And that's what, and the dates. As soon as you see the name, I just knew that it was him. At first he just lurked and read other people's posts. But six days before he died, he began posting. What did you find on those posts? The first one was how he was talking about hanging

and how to hang yourself or electrocute. How could he electrocute himself at home? He wrote about wanting to avoid pain and fear. He inquired about household items he might use. And in one post, he uploaded a photo of a rope in the knot he intended to use, hoping for feedback. And someone said, well, you don't sound quite sure about that method. So why don't you try the sodium nitrite method? Because it's easier.

It's easier to get hold of. Towards the end of that message, there was a link to a 3,300 word instruction manual detailing exactly how to use it. And another user told him where he could order it for about eight pounds from, quote, a popular auction site. And he said, well, I think I've found it, can you confirm it for me? To make sure I've got the right stuff. The conversation then moved to private message.

Joe bought it from a UK supplier, and he posted about how excited he was to get his order, how happy he was that he'd soon be at a pain. One of his last posts reads, I've been a member for a few days, and I must say everyone seems so supportive and helpful, whether to decide to catch the bus or don't. Honestly, the people on here are actually amazing and so supportive to one another. Catch the bus is how users refer to suicide.

It sounds flippant, and it is kind of. But there's more to it. The idea is that the form is kind of like a bus stop, a place where people gather, where they keep one another company for a time, and then move on. A few days after Joe made that poem, A slim courier envelope landed on Catherine's doorstep. April 3, 2020.

Joe died in the early hours the next morning. So after Joe's death, you've now spent a bunch of time on this site, and you were saying like you were kind of obsessed with it, right? Morning, night, lunch, go on. Still? Still. It's normal. It's normal every day.

So what role do you think it played in Joe's death? Joe wouldn't have done it if he hadn't have found out about that method he took his life because that was a simple solution to him that wouldn't hurt him and it wouldn't take long. Do you not think you'd find that through some other means eventually? No.

No, because it wasn't anywhere else. Where else do you find it? And it wasn't very common in 2020 like in any of the coroner's reports or the paper. In the UK, any unnatural death is followed up by a coroner's inquest. And if there's an ongoing public health risk, they'll send a report to whatever authority they feel can do something about it. In Joe's case, the coroner issued reports to the police and to the government ministry in charge of health policy in the UK. The coroner was concerned about the sale of the substance.

Those supplying relatively small amounts of sodium nitrate should be made aware of the implications of their trade. But as a bigger concern was what was happening on the world. website. Websites may be actively promoting a particular method of committing suicide and hence breaking the criminal law by assisting suicide. Considerations should be given to blocking their availability in the UK. In the lead-up to the coroner's inquest, the police interviewed Catherine and Melanie, as well as Joe's two older brothers and younger sister. It gave the family a chance to ask a lingering question. What was in Joe's fourth note, the one he had addressed to the police?

a police officer that worked within the coroner's office that Aneda said at some point, can you read that note out that he left for the police? Because we never knew what it said. She did. And then she did. One for the police. And it's, this is a suicide.

Please, this isn't my family. I've struggled with mental health for a long time. You'll find nothing was touched, helped or anything by anyone. If you get my phone, you'll see a website. It has all the details and methods on suicide. and then they put the bottom, please do your best in closing that website for anyone else. You've been on this site.

You know it now fairly well. What's going through your mind when you read Joe saying, like, stop, this site has to be shut down? What's going through your mind? We see it as that was his final ask. That was his final wish. Joe found exactly what he was looking for on the site. The method he used, a sense of support,

So what was it about the site that made him think it ought to be shut down? Let's see if Toronto advisors know their life insurance providers. Hey there, who offers term plus life insurance a flexible solution with really low premiums? Oh, uh, Beneva. Correct. Who makes it easier to protect your clients with high approval rates and several built-in benefits? Beneva, you got it. Who offers whole life insurance with a whole lot of cash value?

Beneva. Am I on TV? No, not today. Looks like people are starting to know Beneva pretty well. You're stronger with the right partner, Beneva. This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on a Viking long ship with thoughtful service, destination-focused dining, and cultural enrichment, on board and on shore. With a variety of voyages and sailing dates to choose from,

now is the time to explore Europe's waterways. Learn more at viking.com. Can you remember back, like take me back to that point when you first became aware of the site and understood what this place was? Yeah, initially it was almost that sounding somewhere where you could sort of speak with blinders individuals who were also going through

some of the assault processes. Tina came to the site in the same way Joe did, searching for ways to kill herself. Tina, which isn't a real name, is in her early 50s now. She struggled with depression for most of her life. I'd say from about 16, 17. I've struggled with sorts all the way through, just Jesus area's traumas.

In her early 20s, she was prescribed meds, which she eventually tried overdosing on. And then, because she felt she couldn't really talk to anyone about how she was feeling, she spent most of the next three decades not talking about it, until she found the sight. We provide a safe space to discuss the topic of suicide without the censorship of other places, as well as a community that can understand you and let you be yourself without judging you or forcing you to do anything.

The site draws tens of thousands of members, hundreds of thousands of casual visitors. Every time I feel anxious or uncomfortable, I'd think of suicide. Has anyone else experienced something similar? People from around the world, looking for information, I'm new to this form and this is my first post. I just have a question. Sharing the resolve, their methods. Here are pictures of this setup I ended up using.

I ended up in a cozy hotel with a surreal feel to it. Their pain. Everyone, I am so sorry. I tried. I've tried for years. After nine attempts, two hospital admissions, 15 hospital visits, and a whole lot of pain.

pain. I'm done with this world. There are nearly three million posts on the site's public-facing message boards. There's one devoted to recovery, one devoted to random discussions, movies, games, hobbies, that sort of thing. But the most popular one, by at least an order of magnitude, is the suicide board, where users are invited to, quote, ask the questions you can't ask anywhere else. You were there, I guess, initially, to understand more. methods about how to how to kill yourself. Can you tell me what was your experience exploring those? What was that like? Initially it was really weird to find such information so easily sound and the

detail and the level of detail rather that goes into what they give you on any different method that you want. People posting like things that you could click on a link that sort of would take to where someone's actually harmed themselves. It's someone's like to say this is how somebody hangs themselves and then they'll show a link of somebody who's done that. And some of it was just so, so gory, just so detailed, so grassy. It's things you can't unsee. It's things you can't just can't unsee them.

There's no reliable way of predicting who will try to kill themselves, not at an individual level. And there's generally no single trigger. But there are some ways of reducing the overall risk. Don't share new methods, let alone step-by-step suicide guides. Don't make it easy for people to get their hands on those methods. Don't promote them as especially painless or easy. And more generally, don't normalize the act of suicide, let alone romanticize it.

The site did all these things. And that started to make Tina feel sort of uneasy. After being there a couple of days, it was different. It was almost like an unspoken ethos really. You don't also help to people. You know someone who ought to take their lives. You just wish them well and happy travels, safe travels, and be done with it. And that's what I was witnessing, like constantly.

And I joined in with that on one occasion, just thinking, you know, this is how we've got to be. But it was a bizarre feeling in the sense of that I thought I'd found something that was, I could just chat to people. He knew what it felt like. And it turned out for me not to be that at all. Just became something different, completely different, and started changing me as a person that changed me. Okay, can you tell me about that change? What do you mean? Well, initially when I was touring and in with them sort of wishing people,

well, I knew they were dying and did nothing about it. Because, you see, did try and help anybody. People didn't like it at all, especially on what they called someone's goodbye thread. A goodbye thread is a specific kind of post. Generally, it's the last one someone makes. They're all over the site, and they're the toughest ones to read. Committing suicide is so lonely because you want to say goodbye, but you can't. So strangers on an internet forum are my alternative. Thank you for being here with me before I go.

They're basically digital suicide notes, but often they're more than that. Some users fastidiously chronicle the last days and hours of their lives. Sometimes they start posting just as they're making an attempt. I took the SN. My heart is beating fast. It feels like I've been on a run. I feel like I need to breathe really hard. And sometimes other users talk them through it.

It will be all right. Just please take it one breath at a time. See you on the other side. My head is making a slightly screeching noise. I don't feel is bad now. We are here with you. I hope you are calm. Are you sure about it?

You can still call for an ambulance. It's your choice. My finger feels numb, like I can barely move it. That was the last post this user made. Safe travels. Let's meet on the other side soon. With your report, you gave me more strength to do it the same way. Thank you.

A lot of us are in similar boats, but still to witness someone actually leaving, wondering what else they're thinking, remembering. I broke down reading their final words. It was almost traumatizing to a point, knowing exactly what people were doing and know what they were stuck in it, or at least trying. Like, it's interesting to hear this because on one hand, clearly you must have been empathetic towards people who wanted to kill themselves, right? and you'd gone to this place

because, you know, for that same reason. It sounds to me like there's an inner conflict going on. It's a complete conflict because I know sometimes I didn't try and offer help or anything either, which makes you feel would make me too horrendous, but I was just too scared to do so. I didn't want to be kicked off the site. I still wanted to stay on there. But, yeah, the other side of it is just from a humane point of view of the idea. It's just like thinking, well, what is this if the last cry had to help?

what if you could say something. Why did it feel so important for you to remain part of this site? Honestly, I don't know. It kind of was almost like an addiction for me. It became an addiction. I needed to sort of be there. I needed to read things. I needed to know there were other people like me.

Just reading about other people's deaths and refining what they're doing and people making sure that it's going to be, you know, that it's going to work. It's just mind-growing, absolutely mind-time. By this time, it was November 2020, six months after Joe's death. Catherine and Melanie were on the warpath. They'd taken to Facebook and what was back then Twitter, trying to raise awareness about the site.

And they were feuding with some of the site supporters. And they were starting to get noticed by the British press. I'd seen a story about another young person who had taken their lives, who had been on the website, which then led to another story, which then led to me signing Catherine on Twitter. And I just reached out to her and just started talking, but she made herself available all the time to talk. And she kept in contact and told me basically that the site is bad,

which I could see for myself. I could see the damage it was doing to me or the person. With her help, I came off the site. Though she wasn't off the site for long. I started struggling again. I got really, really bad. but then I went back on the site. Not just because I wanted to learn more,

I'd already learned what I needed to learn. So I just went back on. I wanted to look his methods again, just to make sure I'd got everything I needed. Her plan was to use the same method Joe had. But it was very difficult to find that way to get it from. When someone had made a comment about where to get it, I kind of thought, oh, this would be interesting to know.

Tina posted something to that effect on the site. Shortly after that, another user sent her a direct message. The DM just came from nowhere. I'd never interacted with the person before. Never spoke to them. And he just came in and said that he can offer some help and just said they're saying on the website.

And that was from someone called Greenberg. Greenberg. Tina could see from his profile that he had been a member for a few years. Greenberg had made hundreds of posts and not just as a casual user. He was touted as a resident. expert in some of the most popular suicide methods. Someone members regularly turn to for advice. You say, I think I can help, and then just the Tom Cuisine works.

I'm Time, or Im Time Cuisine. It was an external site for a company based just west of Toronto. It sold a handful of items, all it seemed, for preparing cured meat, a couple of fancy sea salts, some liquid smoke, and 50 gram packets of 99.999% pure sodium nitrate for just under 60 bucks Canadian. So I just went to the website and saw it was herself and, oh, this was great. How easy was that to get hold of? And, yeah, I didn't purchase it immediately, but the website reminded me out of something in my shopping cart. So at that point, I was really low. and I just

When I'd purchased it I told Catherine Catherine had been so sympathetic and so understanding Tina was convinced she wouldn't actually stop her and because Tina trusted them so much Catherine and Melanie were able to

wheedled the tracking number out of her We'd got in touch with Royal Mail to try and stop the parcel from getting delivered and explained what it was what it was in it what it was going to be used for and they said that they couldn't intercept any parcels.

It says, right, even though someone's going to kill themselves with it when they receive it, yeah, we can't do anything about that. And we had to just wait. The substance isn't illegal. So the only thing Catherine and Melanie could do was to keep an eye on where the package was. Mel checked it and it still said it was in Canada. But it wasn't.

The tracking info had lagged. The package was in the UK already. It was actually in Tina's hands. And she messaged me. And she said, don't be alarmed, just want to tell you it's arrived. When she said it arrived,

we rang the police straight away. Yes. Because she wasn't in imminent danger at that point, they said, oh, yeah, we'll pop in at some point. But she has something that has got delivered to her. She is going to kill herself with it. I called her

and we were talking and I just knew how she was that she were going to do it there and then how did you know that? By her voice, by how she was talking. Catherine kept Tina talking when Melanie called the police. She told them time was running out.

She could tell that Catherine was having trouble keeping Tina on the phone. She started crying, didn't she, on the phone and said, I really love you and thank you for everything you've done and And she just said, I'll have you and put the phone down. Before Tina could do anything, there was a knock on her door. And when she opened it, she was met by a half dozen policemen.

They questioned me a bit. I wouldn't get them in the house. They did sort of straighten a little bit. If I had this stuff still, if I don't give it to, then they're going to come in the house to find it. So I had no choice but to give up the stuff. So we'd come to schedule to it from me. That was sad.

If that hadn't happened, would you have followed through with this? Were you at that point? I believe so, yes. Yeah. Once the police left, Tina called Catherine back. She said, did you ring them? And we said, yeah, and you're probably going to be really mad. But yes, we did.

And if you don't want to start to us ever again, that's fine. But at least we know you're safe. How did you feel towards Catherine at that point? Honestly, I felt quite angry. Well, not angry, but I felt the truth. because I didn't think she would do that. I don't know why I didn't think that because that's what she does. She saves people.

I don't know why I thought that. Yeah, I just so betrayed and so hurt. Yeah, it just really hurt that she had done that. Catherine and Melanie have actually done this a few times. Prevented active suicide attempts. You feel that you have the right to interfere with someone's plans to kill themselves. clearly because you did so why?

Because she didn't need to today, it was a temporary crisis she was in. Every person we've spoken with that we've intervened the reasons were not valid to take your life.

According to you guys. And according to them after. They've all said it is a temporary crisis and with a bit of time. you can get there. And I can't sit and know that somebody's doing it if I know where they are.

I'm not trying. The vast majority of people who survive a suicide attempt or who are prevented from killing themselves are grateful. One of the defining characteristics of suicidal thinking is that it distorts our decision making. It makes the most destructive choice you can make seem in the moment like the only choice.

Which is why one of the most effective ways of preventing suicide is simply to convince someone to wait it out, like bad weather. Where are you coping after this immediately? I wasn't doing great, but I was on the side was Catherine a lot at that point, even though I felt betrayed it. I trust her. What prevented you from trying to kill yourself again at that point? I had no access, but then I did get to a point of, okay, no, this is, this is not what I want

to do. How have you been since? I've had my moments. I've had very darn times that I did actually reach out for help again. And this time long I've actually been heard and have been given the help. Presumably people listening to this series, you know, some of those folks are going to be struggling with some of the thoughts that you've had, some of the feelings you've had.

Do you want to give anyone who's listening a direct message? The only thing I can say is just keep looking for help, keep asking, just keep asking, especially if they just want to paint it end, because it does come. The help does come. A few weeks after police came to Tina's door, they were back. But this time, it was more than a wellness check. They needed Tina's help in an investigation. Police around the world had connected more than 100 deaths,

and what was starting to look like an entirely unprecedented crime. I detectors come to my door as well and then I gave a statement to the police and any evidence that I had. And did they ask for evidence about Greenberg? Yeah, they did. Yeah. As Tina answered their questions,

the same scene was playing out with hundreds of other people across the world. I'm in Western Canada and got a 1 a.m. wellness check. I had the police come over to take it away from me. I live in Finland. I live in Japan and the police came today. Got a visit in the UK.

I'm afraid they'll be back. It seems like this investigation is really big. One officer told me that Canada might contact me and ask me questions. As a police knocked on doors, they weren't sure if the people who had ordered the substance would still be alive. And in a lot of cases, they weren't. This is the story of people desperate to end their own suffering. people who are precariously close to the edge. And it's the hunt for those helping them,

perhaps pushing them, to take that final leap. I'm Damon Fairless. This is hunting the suicide salesman. In my opinion, he's one of the worst mass murderers we've ever seen. Just because you're using the internet, doesn't mean you get away with murder. They're false, right? But that's all I can say.

I just want to incriminate myself. This name just keeps coming up. Greenberg, Greenberg, Greenberg. It's like, who is Greenberg? If you press this button this time, you will die. We just press the button straight away. We would just like wake up in the middle of the night and send their opposing counsel an email being like,

why the fuck are you still selling it? We lost the humanity in it. You're over there and I'm over here and you're the crazy one. As opposed to just like, oh, you're a person's suffering. He gave somebody a product, but they still get a choice. choice to use it. Why are we choosing it? Why are all of these people going to seek this guy? If you're feeling suicidal or going through a hard time, there are resources that can help, including some that are meant to help if you're in the midst of a suicidal crisis.

You can find them at cbc.ca forward slash hunting. You've been listening to Hunting the Suicide Salesman from CBC. The show is written and produced by Elena Gosch and me, Damon Fairless. Original music and sound design by Julia Whitman. Emily Cannell is our coordinating producer. Our contributing producer is Michelle Shepard. Additional reporting and audio from Tonnes Stegler with CBC News. Executive producers are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. Tanya Springer is the senior manager,

and RF Narani is the director of CBC podcasts. If you're looking for more series like this one, and you haven't listened already, check out the first season of this series, Hunting Warhead. I take you into some of the darkest corners of the internet, following an international team working to rescue child abuse victims from their anonymous abusers. All right, that was the first episode of Hunting the Suicide Salesman.

Episode two is waiting for you now and takes you even deeper into the investigation. Find and follow Hunting the Suicide Salesman to keep listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.