WARNING: This story references allegations of child abuse.

On Dec. 21, 2022, a Burlington, Ont., woman called 911 to report a 12-year-old in her care had no vital signs.

“We can’t wake him up,” Becky Hamber told the dispatcher, who instructed Hamber and her wife, Brandy Cooney, to do chest compressions on the boy.

First responders found the child in a pool of liquid on the floor of his basement bedroom. They brought him to hospital, but doctors couldn’t revive him.

The boy, L.L., was from the Ottawa area but had lived with Hamber, Cooney and his little brother J.L. since 2017. CBC is referring to the Indigenous boys using initials due to a standard publication ban on their identities.

Prospective parents charged with assault, then murder

Days after L.L.’s death, the Children’s Aid Society took J.L. from the couple. On Jan. 17, 2023, Halton police arrested the women and charged them with assaulting him. On Feb. 29, 2024, police charged the pair with killing L.L. 

Hamber, 46, and Cooney, 44, have pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder of L.L., as well as not guilty to confinement, assault with a weapon and failing to provide the necessaries of life to J.L.

Their judge-alone trial, which began in mid-September, is before Justice Clayton Conlan in Ontario Superior Court in Milton.

Over seven months, the trial has heard from dozens of witnesses, including social service workers, health professionals, educators and police. Hamber, Cooney, and J.L., now 14, also testified over multiple days. Evidence includes thousands of deleted text messages that police accessed, hours of audio recordings and hundreds of images, including from security cameras the women used to surveil the boys.

Witness testimony wrapped Jan. 23, with Conlan calling the trial “lengthy and difficult.” Closing arguments are set to begin Monday and continue March 27.

Here’s more of what we’ve heard in the proceedings so far.

L.L. weighed 48 pounds days before he died

L.L.’s physical and mental health are key focuses in the trial.

His therapist, Dr. Shelinderjit Dhaliwal, testified she urged Cooney and Hamber to take the boy to the emergency room multiple times, but they refused.

If they’d listened, “We wouldn’t be going through this and the boy would be alive,” Dhaliwal testified in October.

Notes from a doctor’s appointment for L.L. eight days before he died show he weighed 48 pounds and was about 4 feet, 5 inches tall. Dr. Emma Cory, an expert witness and pediatrician, testified he would have been smaller than more than 99.99 per cent of children his age and displayed obvious signs of malnutrition. 

Hamber and Cooney did not take L.L. to hospital then either.

According to testimony from Dr. Nora Labib, who worked in the hospital emergency department the night L.L. died, he was the size of a six-year-old, with “almost no muscle on his body, just skin and bone.”

Hamber and Cooney said they believed L.L. had an eating disorder — though he never received a formal diagnosis — and that he would vomit up food he ate. They testified they served both children healthy meals, many of which they photographed and shared on Instagram.

How the women fed the brothers has also been under scrutiny.

J.L. testified that after some time with the couple, he was fed only pureed food. The defence said the couple used pureeing and bottle feeding on the recommendation of a child and family therapist as a way to help them deal with trauma. That therapist, Terra Bovingdon, testified she never suggested that as a consistent strategy.

Co-accused say boys had violent outbursts

Cooney and Hamber testified the boys had significant behavioural issues, which included self- harm, violent outbursts and having tantrums for hours at a time.

The Crown disputed that, noting, for instance, that Hamber didn’t document injuries she described receiving from the boys. Hamber said she was too busy to seek medical attention besides one visit to an urgent-care centre.

Dr. Alan Brown, a child and adolescent psychiatrist who provided care for L.L., testified the child likely had disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), reactive attachment disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Brown said he did not see any signs of “extreme behaviour” when observing L.L. in hospital.

Wetsuits, zip-ties used to control the brothers

The prospective adoptive mothers said they loved the boys but lacked support and guidance from children’s aid and medical professionals on how to keep them safe.

The trial heard much evidence about Cooney’s and Hamber’s unconventional control methods, which included zip-tying L.L. and J.L. into wetsuits and locking them in their rooms for hours at a time. The women said they used those methods reluctantly to stop the brothers from harming themselves and damaging property. They also said children’s aid was aware of what they were doing. 

The Crown argues the couple concealed those methods, isolating the children from their community and preventing them from having private meetings with children’s aid workers and health professionals. 

Texts scrutinized for how couple spoke about the boys

Other prominent evidence raised throughout the trial were texts sent by the two women, with many under scrutiny for the way they referenced the boys.

Hamber testified her texted comments — such as “Drown em in their poo” and “Is it wrong to want my child to leave?” — came from dark humour and frustration, not hate.

Deleted text conversations recovered by police from the women’s electronic devices show Cooney and Hamber referred to L.L. and J.L. as “loser” and “it,” among other controversial terms. 

Hamber said she was “deeply, deeply” ashamed of messages she exchanged with her wife nearly every day for years.

“I hated the [boy’s] behaviours,” said Cooney, but not the brothers themselves.

Hamber, Cooney deny killing L.L. 

The Crown asserts that the night L.L. died, Cooney and Hamber were monitoring him with their security camera and noticed him shivering while locked in his bedroom. Cooney went to his room and found him confused, unsteady on his feet and showing signs of hypothermia. They turned up the heat and attempted to warm him in their outdoor hot tub, transporting the child using a toboggan that police later found on the property before bringing him inside, dripping wet.

The couple denied this, or even owning that toboggan.

When L.L. stopped breathing, Crown lawyer Kelli Frew told Hamber in January, Hamber panicked and went out to call 911 and cover the hot tub, knowing she would “have to show the outside world what you’ve done to this child.”

Both women deny doing anything to hurt or kill L.L. or witnessing each other doing so. 

After closing arguments, Conlan will likely decide Cooney’s and Hamber’s fate sometime this spring. 

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If you’re affected by this report, you can look for mental health support through resources in your province or territory . If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.