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two women face to face charged with murder A police sergeant over the death of a 12-year-old boy in her care described her as a “loser” and “such a mess” in text messages recovered from her phone. Ontario Superior Court court on Monday.
The court also heard an audio clip recorded by the couple in which a woman tells the boy a “f**king p***k”. The messages were among thousands of photos, videos and recordings of Sgt. Julie Powers testified that she had reviewed the case as part of the investigation. burlington Couple Becky Hamber and Brandi Cooney.
Both women have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the December 2022 death of 12-year-old L.L., whose identity is protected by a publication ban.
A pathologist said the boy may have died from hypothermia or cardiac arrest associated with severe malnutrition, but his exact cause of death was uncertain.
Both women are also accused of unlawful confinement, assault with a weapon and failing to provide the necessaries of life to her younger brother JL.
Prosecutors argue the couple “hated, abused and neglected” the boys and exaggerated or fabricated behavioral concerns. The defense says the women were struggling to care for two children with special needs without any support.
In October 2017 the boys were moved from their foster home in Ottawa to live with prospective adoptive parents Cooney and Hamber in Burlington. cbc,
Powers told the court on Monday that she examined recordings made inside the house, including an 18-minute audio file in which LL repeatedly asks to go outside.
“Mom, can I go out?” The boy says in the clip. “I just asked you out of love.” No one answers.
The court heard text messages between the two women regarding the recording, as he described LL as rude, “a loser” and “such a filth”.
“His needs go so far,” Hamber wrote, “that it would be surprising if his new medications upset him.”
In another recording played on Monday, a 24-minute audio file dated December 28, 2020, the women argue with LL about how he is doing the stairs they assigned him as exercise.
One of the women says, “There is no excuse for climbing the stairs the wrong way because the stairs were assigned as your job.” “If you don’t build the stairs properly, it will result in more stairs and burps.”
The recording ends with a woman screaming and ordering LL to go to her room. Later in the clip, one of them calls him an “idiot” and an “idiot.”
Powers said early photos on the women’s phones showed the couple with both boys, but in the five years they were together, fewer and fewer photos included L.L.
Meanwhile, photographs taken in later years show both children wearing onesies and later wetsuits, some of which had holes around the neck, which police allege were used to zip-tie the suits onto the boys. Investigators seized zip-tie bags from the home.
The Crown – the prosecution – argues that the couple locked the boys in their rooms, monitored them on cameras, zip-tied their clothes and shoes, restricted food and forced them to exercise.
The defense has argued that the wetsuits were worn because the boys urinated in the house, a claim the younger brother denied when testifying earlier this month. CBC reported.
When Crown lawyer Monica McKenzie asked Powers if he had seen any photographs of Hamber’s injuries that he claimed the boys inflicted on him, including a broken arm, the officer said he could not find any such photographs. He also said that there were no photographs of the boys with friends.
According to earlier testimony, LL spent his final day, December 21, 2022, locked in his basement bedroom as Humber and Cooney monitored him on camera.
A security guard testified that the women told them that the boy had been vomiting, screaming, and kicking doors all day. He told the caseworker that he seemed calm until about 6 p.m.
When Cooney checked on her, he found her unresponsive, “vomiting everywhere,” and said he performed CPR before first responders arrived. Paramedics found the boy severely malnourished and emaciated, weighing about the same as a six-year-old child. He died soon after being taken to hospital.
The trial, which began in mid-September, is expected to continue through December.