WARNING: This story details allegations of child abuse.
The Halton police sergeant who led the investigation into Becky Hamber and Brandy Cooney testified Monday at their first-degree murder trial and described evidence police gathered in the case against the couple.
Sergeant. Julie Powers said in a Milton, Ont., courtroom that she spent weeks reviewing photographs, videos, audio recordings, messages and call logs on electronic devices that police took from Cooney and Hamber when they were charged in 2023 in connection with two children they were trying to adopt.
Early in their five years together, photos on the women’s electronic devices showed the couple and both children, the police officer said in response to questions from Crown attorney Monica MacKenzie. During the five years they were together, fewer and fewer photos showed the older boy, LL, Powers said.
Earlier this month, the youngest boy, JL, testified that he rarely saw LL before the end of his life and spent most of his time in his room.
The brothers are known as LL and JL for CBC’s coverage of this trial, as their identities are protected under a standard publication ban. LL was 12 years old when he died in the care of Hamber and Cooney on December 21, 2022.
The Burlington, Ont., women pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in LL’s death in the trial that began in mid-September in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. They have filed the same plea related to charges of confinement, assault with a weapon (bridles), and failure to provide JL with the necessities of life.
The Crown argues Hamber and Cooney abused and neglected the children.
The trial has been told that paramedics found LL unconscious, soaked and lying on the basement floor of his room, which was locked from the outside. Witnesses said he was so severely malnourished and emaciated that he appeared to be six years old, although he was twice that age. He died shortly after in the hospital.
The women’s respective lawyers argue that the couple were doing their best to care for children with high needs and significant behavioral problems, with little help from the Children’s Aid Society (CAS) and service providers.
Witnesses, including first responders, medical experts, teachers, therapists, doctors and JL, have testified in the judge-only trial, which is expected to continue until at least mid-December.
Photos from before their time with Hamber and Cooney show the children wearing regular clothes, Powers said, but around 2020, pictures show them wearing onesies. In the end, he said, all the photos showed them wearing wetsuits or wetsuits under normal clothing.
MacKenzie removed the wetsuits police seized from the couple’s home and showed them to the court. Powers said he saw photos of children wearing them and pointed out where they had holes in the necks to tie the children to. She noted that police confiscated bags containing zip ties of all sizes at Hamber-Cooney’s home.
The defense has said the children wore wetsuits because they urinated in the house, a claim JL denied when he testified.
MacKenzie also asked what the photos don’t show. He asked if there were any photos of Hamber with injuries such as a broken arm. The trial heard Hamber telling people that one of the boys broke his arm. Powers said he didn’t see any images that indicated that.
Crown counsel also asked if there were photographs of the children playing with friends. Powers said there were no photographs of the children with other children.
At the trial, images and videos of the children recorded through security cameras in their rooms and around the house were seen. On Monday, Powers said Cooney and Hamber used an app called Wyze to manage the surveillance system.
He noted that when police searched the house two months after LL’s death, they had repainted the boy’s room and removed the security cameras.
Powers said the women’s search histories show queries about deleting images from the Wyze camera and photos from the phone, as well as attempts to delete text messages on Christmas 2022, days after LL’s death.
Recording of LL repeatedly asking to leave
MacKenzie also played audio recordings Powers obtained from the women’s devices and asked the officer questions about them.
The court heard the women recorded meetings with health professionals, teachers, CAS and conversations with children.
In a nearly 18-minute file played for the court, LL can be heard repeatedly asking him to come out.
“Mom, can I go outside?” he says at the beginning of the recording. “I just asked you nicely.”
No one responded on the recording.
Powers read several messages the women sent and received about that recording, in which they described LL as rude, “a loser” and “a jerk.”
“He needs to go… very far away,” Hamber wrote, and then said, “Surprisingly, if his new meds made him unconscious.”
In a 24-minute audio recording that MacKenzie played during the trial on Monday, Cooney and Hamber can be heard arguing with LL, saying he is walking up the stairs incorrectly.
The trial heard that Hamber and Cooney told the children to go up and down stairs for exercise, and videos of the activity were seen.
Women called LL a ‘fucking moron’
“There is no excuse for climbing stairs incorrectly because you were assigned stairs as a job,” one of the women said in the recording, which Powers said took place on December 28, 2020.
“If you don’t climb the stairs correctly, there will be more stairs and burpees,” says one of the women.
Almost all of LL’s responses on the recording are inaudible or unintelligible. Cooney and Hamber can be heard saying that he is lying and doing the exercises wrong.
One repeatedly asks him if he doesn’t listen to them because they are parents, because they are adults, or because they are women.
“You don’t listen to us because you’re tired? Do you know how stupid that sounds?” she says when he answers.
After arguing for several more minutes, one of the women screams and sends LL to her room. Later in the recording, one of the women calls LL a “fucking moron” and an “idiot.”
The single-judge trial before Judge Clayton Conlan will continue Tuesday with more testimony from Powers.
So far, the Crown has called all witnesses, but the defense has said they hope to start calling witnesses later this week.
If you are affected by this report, you can seek mental health support through resources in your province or territory.
