The women deny criminal responsibility in the death of a 12-year-old boy found unresponsive in their home.
MILTON, Ontario — An Ontario murder trial over the death of a 12-year-old boy has entered its final stage, with a Superior Court judge now weighing whether prosecutors proved that Becky Hamber and Brandy Cooney caused the child’s death through abuse, confinement and neglect.
The stakes are unusually focused because there is no jury and no remaining witnesses. Justice Clayton Conlan alone will decide whether the evidence meets the legal standard for first-degree murder or supports lesser findings, if any, in a case that has centered on a boy who died after years in the care of two women who were trying to adopt him and his younger brother. Hamber and Cooney have pleaded not guilty to all charges, and the defense says the Crown has relied on disturbing facts without proving murderous intent or a medically certain cause of death.
That legal divide shaped the last stretch of the trial. Prosecutors argued that the women’s house rules were not rough discipline but a system of domination that involved wet suits, helmets, tents, zip ties, surveillance cameras and prolonged isolation in basement rooms. The Crown said the older boy, identified in court as L.L., was found unresponsive in December 2022 after that system had left him malnourished, cold and physically broken down. Defense lawyers responded that the boys had severe behavioral problems and that the women were trying, however imperfectly, to prevent self-harm, violence and repeated toileting accidents. The courtroom dispute was therefore not only about what happened in the home, but about how the law should classify it.
Medical uncertainty has become one of the defense’s main pressure points. A forensic pathologist told the court that the exact cause of death could not be determined, though hypothermia and cardiac arrest linked to severe malnourishment were among the possibilities discussed. The Crown has argued that uncertainty about the final physiological mechanism does not erase the larger pattern that placed the boy in danger. The defense says it matters greatly because a murder conviction requires the court to move beyond shock and moral blame and decide what can actually be proved. Testimony also put the boy’s weight at 48 pounds, a figure prosecutors used to show the scale of physical decline before his death.
The trial’s record grew over months. It began in September 2025 and included evidence from the surviving younger brother, investigators, medical specialists and a therapist who said she had concerns about restraint methods before the death. Cooney also testified and acknowledged some restraint practices while disputing the Crown’s description of them. Court heard that child welfare authorities knew about parts of the household routine, including restrictions and control measures, though the two sides sharply disagree on what those agencies understood and whether they accepted or rejected specific tactics. That dispute could matter less to the final verdict than to the broader public reading of the case, but it has hovered over nearly every day of testimony.
By closing arguments, prosecutors were pressing the court to see intent in the combination of private language and physical conditions. They pointed to messages in which the women insulted the boys, spoke of being jailers and discussed the risk that the older child might die. Defense lawyer Monte MacGregor said the messages were appalling but argued that bad language, even repeated bad language, is not the same as proof of murder. He urged the judge to resist drawing the broadest criminal conclusion from texts sent in anger, a household marked by instability and a death that experts could not assign to one exact cause. The Crown urged the opposite inference, saying the messages were windows into knowledge, motive and state of mind.
The courtroom atmosphere has reflected that tension between legal precision and emotional weight. The younger brother’s evidence gave the case its clearest human voice, especially when he described punishments, silence rules and his older brother stepping in to protect him. Prosecutors used that testimony to animate the records; defense lawyers tried to test it against memory, context and the women’s account of chaotic daily life. The judge did not have to manage a jury’s reactions, but the testimony still built a record heavy with detail about food, restraints, sleeping arrangements and the basement rooms where the boys spent much of their time.
The next public step is set for April 24, when Conlan is expected to update the court on the status of his ruling. Whether that date brings a decision or only a timetable, the case is now past argument and waiting on one judge’s reading of the evidence.
Author note: Last updated April 18, 2026.