Inset: Brandy Cooney and Becky Hamber (Facebook). Background: The victim”s room in a photo taken after he died and filed as a court exhibit. (Ontario Superior Court).
Attorneys have presented their closing arguments in the case of two women who allegedly abused their foster children so badly that one of them died soaking wet in a locked basement room.
Brandy Cooney, 44, and Becky Hamber, 46, have pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, confinement, assault with a weapon, and failing to provide the necessaries of life.
The case was launched after authorities found a 12-year-old boy referred to as L.L. dead in the couple’s Milton home in Ontario, Canada.
As Law&Crime previously reported, on Dec. 21, 2022, first responders arrived at the home to find L.L. unresponsive, soaking wet, and covered in vomit. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, authorities said he was so emaciated that, though he was 12 years old, he looked like he could have been 6.
L.L. was later pronounced dead — possibly from hypothermia or cardiac arrest due to severe malnourishment, a pathologist reported, though they stated they were unable to rule on an exact cause of death.
The trial began in September.
The former foster mother of L.L. and J.L. — who was L.L.’s younger brother — told the CBC it “feels like the trial that never ends.”
In their closing arguments, prosecutors alleged the women starved their foster children and kept them isolated in wet suits and helmets because they “hated” them. The prosecutors pointed to messages from the women, including a text where one of them allegedly wrote, “Shiver shiver dumb f–” and suggested using exercise as a way for the boys to stay warm.
About a month before L.L.’s death, Cooney texted Hamber, “Unfortunately my thoughts [are] he is suddenly going to die and im going to jail,” prosecutor Monica MacKenzie said, adding that this message showed the women knew the consequences of what they were doing.
However, defense attorneys argue that the children were difficult to handle and that measures such as the helmets and wet suits were to keep the kids from having bathroom accidents all over the place and to prevent them from hurting themselves. The defense has also contended that child aid workers and health professionals who checked on the boys knew about the women’s methods and never raised any concerns with them.
Since no jury is involved in the case, Superior Court Justice Clayton Conlan will decide the fates of the defendants.
