NOTE: The following article contains disturbing material that could offend some readers.
A man who helped a woman try to kill herself was sentenced on Tuesday in Abbotsford provincial court to two years and three months in prison.
Kenneth William Carr, 55, received two years’ credit for time already served, leaving three months on his sentence. This will be followed by three years of probation.
Carr pleaded guilty last October to aiding/abetting a person to commit suicide.
Carr was charged in September 2012 after a 48-year-old woman showed up at the Abbotsford Police Department with ligature marks around her neck.
The woman had met Carr not long before the incident, and was urged to go to police by a family member who noticed the marks on her neck.
“Information to obtain (ITO) a search warrant” documents later filed in Abbotsford provincial court indicated that the woman suffered from depression and anxiety order, and Carr offered to help her commit suicide after she said she was sick of being a burden to her family.
He told her he knew a lot about suicide and could assist her using a rope, which would not show fingerprints, the documents stated.
According to the ITO, Carr had the woman prepare a suicide note and then gave her white pills, rigged a rope from the rafters in his home, placed it over her head, and had her stand on a chair so he could push her off.
The victim later told police that she awoke the next day, and Carr told her he had stopped the hanging when she asked him to. He then drove her home.
The ITO indicated that, in the basement suite where Carr lived, investigators found a room with ropes suspended from a ceiling.
The documents also stated that images of a naked man and a woman hanging and appearing lifeless were found on a cellphone in Carr’s home, launching an investigation into a possible murder.
Carr told police that the people in the cellphone images were still alive and had been made to look like they were dead in the photos.
Police investigated the photos in more detail, and no murder charges were laid.
Carr previously served time for manslaughter in relation to the 1997 death of Port Coquitlam teen Kathryn Kaminski. The teen was found lying face down with a rope around her neck between two sets of train tracks in New Westminster.
The ITO stated that during the investigation into Kaminski’s death, a police search of Carr’s work locker turned up 28 photos of women – some naked and some partially dressed – in various poses.
Two of the photos depicted women hanging with a noose around their necks.
Carr has been in custody since his arrest in September 2012.
