A Sudbury man, who claims he beat and stabbed his friend to death because that is what he asked him to do, has pleaded guilty to murder and indignity to a human body.

Darcy Sheppard, 32, says he knew Kenneth Edwards for two weeks before he killed the 59-year-old in March 2017.

Sheppard told investigators that Edwards told him he was dying of leukemia and wanted to "go out with a bang" and have his ashes spread in a river.

The two wrote up a plan, which involved placing wood pallets on top of a wheelchair lift which was to collect the ashes after his dismembered body was burned.

As payment, Edwards promised to give Sheppard a lottery ticket, believed to be worth $10 million.

Sheppard says he stabbed Edwards multiple times in the chest with a knife and when he didn't die, he hit him in the head with a baseball bat.

In his statement, Sheppard says he then dragged the body into the bathroom of Edwards' Minnow Lake home and cut him into pieces with a circular saw, hand saw and knife.

He then burned the body in the shed, photos of which were shown in the courtroom Tuesday morning.

Sentencing hearing not yet scheduled

Sheppard showed no emotion looking at the graphic images from the prisoner's box, while Edwards' friends and family members in court sobbed.

Court heard on Tuesday that forensic investigators determined that Edwards did not have any fatal illnesses.

In his early conversations with police, Sheppard said that another man named Patrick Sweeney was involved in the murder.

Police did lay charges, but they were dropped after investigators discovered that Sheppard had only mentioned Sweeney in "an attempt to deflect his involvement."

Both the Crown and defence are suggesting that Justice Dan Cornell sentence Sheppard to life in prison with no chance of parole for 17 years.

A date for a sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.