Preliminary Statement
This is an action against Amazon.com, Inc. (“Amazon”) and Loudwolf, Inc. (“Loudwolf”) (collectively “Defendants"), which profit by selling a deadly chemical they know is used by children to die by suicide.
Amazon is guided by the principle that it can sell anything to anybody anywhere anytime and for any reason, even when it knows it’s selling something that likely will be used to kill a child within a week from their purchase.
In our country, it is illegal to aid or assist in somebody else’s suicide.
The rare exception exists in eleven states where physicians are allowed, under exceedingly narrow, legislated medical circumstances, to carefully facilitate the death of a proven terminally ill patient. Contrary to what Amazon and Loudwolf may think, there is no exception that allows for corporate-assisted suicide.
This is a case about the most powerful, wealthy, and trusted corporation in America knowingly assisting in the deaths of healthy children by selling them suicide kits.
These kits are comprised of Sodium Nitrite—a soluble solution that when mixed with water and drunk can render a person unconscious within twenty minutes. Along with Sodium Nitrite, Amazon recommends that customers also purchase a small scale to measure the right dose, Tagamet to prevent vomiting up the liquid, and the “Amazon edition” of the Peaceful Pill Handbook which contains a chapter with instructions on how to administer these ingredients together to die.
Even after parents and regulators warned Amazon that Sodium Nitrite had no household use, Amazon continued to sell it to households, for under twenty dollars, and with two-day delivery Presently Amazon stocks three brands of 98-99% pure Sodium Nitrite.
Loudwolf is one brand of Sodium Nitrite Amazon stocked.
Amazon sold Loudwolf Sodium Nitrite to children.
Amazon has no method of age verification to set up an account and even if it did, does not hesitate to sell Sodium Nitrite to households or to children.
Amazon knows it sells Sodium Nitrite to households that have no history of purchasing potent industrial chemicals.
Amazon and Loudwolf know there are zero household uses for Sodium Nitrite.
Amazon knows that during the coronavirus pandemic there was a huge spike in teenage suicide and mental health crises, and that Sodium Nitrite became a popular, cheap, and convenient method for teens to kill themselves.
During the pandemic, Amazon’s profits soared 220% in the first year alone, capitalizing on Americans quarantining at home and positioning itself as the trusted stalwart that could be counted on deliver necessities—at times being the only reliable provider of masks, toilet paper, and hand sanitizer when everybody was scared to leave home.
Shoppers on Amazon can just as easily click to purchase Sodium Nitrite as they can batteries, pistachio nuts, or a toilet paper.
After being informed of the high incidence of Sodium Nitrite being sold to children and delivered to their homes, Amazon consciously, and with the advice of legal counsel, recommitted to continue to sell Sodium Nitrite and deliver it to the homes of children.
Plaintiffs are the families of two teenagers, unknown to one another, who during the Coronavirus pandemic separately purchased Loudwolf Sodium Nitrite from Amazon and then died excruciating deaths just over three months apart.
On September 24, 2020, 16-year-old Kristine Jónsson from Hilliard, Ohio purchased Loudwolf Sodium Nitrite from Amazon.com. It arrived two days later.
The police found her dead in her mother’s car at 8:12 am on September 30, 2020.
On January 1, 2021, 17-year-old Ethan McCarthy from Milton, West Virginia purchased Loudwolf Sodium Nitrite from Amazon.com.
On January 7, 2021, Ethan’s mother discovered him dead in his bed and he was pronounced dead at 10:56am.
Both Kristine and Ethan had purchased the Sodium Nitrite for $19.99. Amazon made a total of $2.39 from each sale.
The circumstances surrounding Amazon’s sales to both Kristine and Ethan were highly irregular. Amazon has a policy that people under the age of 18 can only use the service with the involvement of a parent or guardian. However, Kristine, at just sixteen, had created her own account to purchase the poisonous chemical and was never asked her age when she set up the account. The package delivered to Kristine’s home was addressed without a last name. It read only “Kristine.”
Seventeen-year-old Ethan used the account that belonged to his mother, Nikki, to purchase Sodium Nitrite. When Nikki received the email receipt for the purchase, she immediately called Amazon’s customer service to tell them there must have been some mistake and that nobody at her home had ordered the item. Amazon told Nikki the order was cancelled. Instead, the Sodium Nitrite was delivered to her home four days later.
Amazon consciously sold Kristine and Ethan Sodium Nitrite with the knowledge and understanding it would be used to end their lives.
In loving memory of Kristine and Ethan, their families now seek to hold Amazon and Loudwolf responsible under theories of product liability and negligence for the untimely, painful, and preventable deaths they caused.