Background: One of the victim's rooms in a photo taken after he died and filed as a court exhibit. (Ontario Superior Court in Milton, Ontario). Inset: Brandy Cooney and Becky Hamber (Facebook).
A couple in Canada is accused of severely abusing their foster child to the point where he died emaciated and soaking wet in a locked basement room.
Authorities presented harrowing allegations against Brandy Cooney, 43, and Becky Hamber, 45, in an ongoing trial that began in mid-September. The women have pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, confinement, assault with a weapon, and failing to provide the necessaries of life.
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
It was Dec. 21, 2022, when the 12-year-old boy, referred to as L.L., was found dead in Cooney and Hamber's Milton, Ontario, home, according to courtroom reporting by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. As prosecutors tell it, L.L.'s death was a result of extended abuse by the adults tasked with caring for him.
The women "hated, abused, and neglected" L.L. and his younger brother, referred to as J.L. — the prosecution said in court, per The Independent. The boys were allegedly forced to wear wetsuits kept on them with zip ties, locked in their rooms under surveillance, forced to sleep in tents, and given pureed food, similar to the kind given to infants.
To try and further prove their case, prosecutors displayed text messages reportedly sent by the women to each other.
L.L. was a "loser" and an "idiot," the women said, according to evidence presented at the trial. In other messages, Hamber referred to herself as "Officer Hamber" and said one of the two boys in her care was "in Hamber Cooney prison." In another text message, one of the women reportedly said about one of the boys, "hope he gets an infection."
The boys were indigenous, moved from their long-term foster home to Hamber and Cooney's care in 2017. By the time of that fateful December 2022 night, the women reportedly planned to adopt them.
On Dec. 21, 2022, paramedics arrived at the women's home to find L.L. unresponsive, soaking wet, and covered in vomit. He was reportedly so emaciated that, though he was 12 years old at the time, he looked like he could have been 6.
He was brought to an area hospital, where he died.
L.L. may have died from hypothermia or cardiac arrest due to severe malnourishment, a pathologist said, but his exact cause of death was uncertain.
J.L., who is now 13 years old, testified in the trial, telling the court that Hamber and Cooney instructed him to repeat false claims that his and L.L.'s previous foster family abused them. He also said that at some point in his five-year stay with the couple, he was kept in his room 90% of the time and given only pureed food.
Cooney and Hamber's attorneys have attempted to paint the case as two foster parents simply trying to do the best they could with children with special needs. As the defense tells it, the tents could be therapeutic, the wetsuits were to prevent bathroom accidents, and they gave the kids pureed food based on a recommendation from a mental health worker.
But other witnesses' testimony suggested the women were to blame for L.L.'s death. Heather Walsh, who was a foster parent of the two boys before they were moved to Cooney and Hamber's care, said that although L.L. had his difficulties, he was "a very enthusiastic, social little guy" and had improved mightily before leaving her care.
"I think if someone else had adopted them, [L.L.] would be alive today," she said.
The trial is expected to last until at least mid-December.
