The boy’s family described years of loss before the mandatory sentence was imposed.
MILTON, Ontario — Two Burlington women were sentenced Friday to life in prison for the first-degree murder of a 12-year-old Indigenous boy who died while in their care as they sought to adopt him.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Clayton Conlan imposed the mandatory sentence on Becky Hamber and Brandy Cooney, who were found guilty in May. They will have no chance of parole for 25 years. The women were also convicted of crimes involving the boy’s younger brother, who survived and later testified about years of abuse.
The boys, whose names are protected by a publication ban, were taken in by Hamber and Cooney in the fall of 2017. Five years later, the older boy died in the basement of the couple’s Burlington home. Court heard he was so thin that first responders questioned his age. His younger brother was removed by child welfare officials after the death and became a key witness at trial.
At Friday’s hearing, the boys’ mother said her son’s death split the family’s life into before and after. “There is an empty place in our family that can never be filled,” she told the court. She said every birthday, holiday and ordinary day now carries the absence of a child she described as resilient, intelligent and full of light.
The surviving brother also addressed the court. He said he has anxious nights and was hurt by seeing recordings of what happened during the trial. “I won’t be able to see him, and I won’t be able to talk to him again,” he said. “Living with Becky and Brandy, I did not like it, and it should have never happened.”
Trial evidence showed the boys were locked in rooms for long periods, denied food and forced into painful restraints. The younger brother testified that he and his brother were made to wear wetsuits fastened with zip ties that cut into their feet. Conlan wrote that the women hated and resented the children because they had not turned out as expected.
Hamber and Cooney denied they meant to harm the boys. Their lawyers argued at trial that the children had serious behavioural issues and that the women were overwhelmed. On Friday, the women maintained they had been good foster mothers and said they were wrongfully convicted. Conlan rejected that view, saying their blameworthiness was as high as could be imagined.
Before the women were led away in handcuffs, the judge said the case was over in court but the murdered boy would not be forgotten. His mother asked that he be remembered for how he lived, not only for how he died.
Author note: Last updated July 5, 2026.