WARNING: This story details allegations of child abuse and includes graphic content.
Two days before a boy in their care died, someone in Becky Hamber and Brandy Cooney’s home used an iPad to Google “I hate my child,” the women’s first-degree murder trial was told Thursday.
In the weeks after he died, searches on devices belonging to the couple included how to define homicide, how to delete footage from a Wyze security camera system and how to clean up a crime scene.
Sgt. Julie Powers, the Halton police officer who investigated Cooney and Hamber, has testified all week about evidence police found on their electronic devices — including photos, surveillance video, audio recordings and text messages from 2019 through 2022. The sergeant said many text messages were deleted on Dec. 25, 2022, but were recovered.
The Milton, Ont., courtroom listened to recordings of the women berating the boy who died and his brother, and was read numerous messages in which Hamber and Cooney discussed restraining the children while calling them vulgar and demeaning names.
The women, from Burlington, Ont., have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the boy’s death and entered the same plea on charges of confinement, assault with a weapon — zip ties — and failing to provide the necessaries of life related to his younger brother. Their trial in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice began in mid-September.
The brothers are referred to as L.L. and J.L. in CBC News’ coverage of the trial since their identities are protected under a standard publication ban. L.L. was 12 when he died in Hamber and Cooney’s care on Dec. 21, 2022. His brother, J.L., is now 13 and testified at the trial.
The trial has been told that paramedics found L.L. unresponsive, soaking wet and lying on the basement floor of his bedroom, which was locked from the outside. Witnesses said he was so severely malnourished and emaciated that he looked as if he could be six years old, even though he was twice that age. He died shortly after in hospital.
The Crown argues Hamber and Cooney abused and neglected the Indigenous children, whom they were trying to adopt. The women’s respective lawyers say the couple did their best to care for boys with high needs and significant behavioural problems, with little help from the Children’s Aid Society and service providers.
Powers also took the court through weeks of search and web history records on the electronic devices seized by police.
Justice Clayton Conlan said several records were of particular interest to him:
Powers also outlined searches related to aspiration, how to delete photos from an iPhone, financial assistance when a child dies, culpable homicide and second-degree murder.
The women were first arrested on Jan. 17, 2023, on the charges related to J.L., then arrested again on Feb. 29, 2024, for L.L.’s alleged murder.
On Wednesday, Powers read messages sent by Hamber, Cooney and her father, who lived with them, on Nov. 20, 2022.
The adults discussed L.L. seeming drunk, falling over and shivering. Powers said there were no records they called for help or took him to a hospital.
On Thursday, the officer read excerpts of texts between Cooney and her father in the weeks after the Nov. 20 health scare. They followed a pattern of her asking him to “pee” the boys, send them to bed or tell them to climb the stairs.
“Can u wake the loser please,” she texted her father on Nov. 28. Later in the day, she wrote, “Can u sent the dumb brat upstairs please.” After that, she asked, “Can u put the dickbag on the stairs please.”
On Nov. 30, Cooney’s father told Hamber that he thought there was either blood or vomit on L.L.’s bed and asked if she wanted to look and determine which it was. “I don’t care,” Hamber responded. “It doesn’t matter.”
The two then discussed making L.L. clean the mess using one Lysol wipe.
Conlan asked Powers about Cooney’s father, Ed. The trial has heard he has Parkinson’s disease and that the women would prepare meals for him. Powers said she talked to Ed’s son to find out if he could testify and was told the son was looking to get Ed into a long-term care or retirement home due to his declining health.
The trial previously heard that two weeks before L.L. died, he was weighed during a doctor’s appointment and found to weigh less than he did at age six.
When the physician, Dr. Stephen Duncan, testified on Oct. 27 and 28, he said he didn’t call an ambulance or recommend that Hamber and Cooney take L.L. to the emergency department.
J.L. “has 20 f–kin pounds on this ass,” Cooney texted Hamber, referring to L.L.
She said she had a conversation with the boys in which they told her they wanted to be healthy. Hamber responded she didn’t think they really wanted to be.
Assistant Crown attorney Monica MacKenzie played the court a one-hour, 18-minute video of the statement Hamber gave to Halton police following her 2023 arrest.
Wearing a black “Be the change” T-shirt, she sat across from a detective and told him she and Cooney never zip-tied J.L.
She said he was a “good kid” but dishonest and that the detective shouldn’t believe him.
When asked, Hamber denied feeding J.L. pureed food and said she didn’t think the security cameras in her home saved video.
She said it had been “true hell,” since the CAS took J.L. from her and Cooney on Dec. 26, 2022, and if he were in the room, “I would give him a big hug and tell him that I love him.”
The judge-alone trial is scheduled to continue on Friday with the Crown completing its questioning of Powers, who MacKenzie said is the prosecution’s last witness. The trial is expected to run until at least mid-January.
