The boys in their care were locked in solitary confinement, zip-tied into wetsuits and hockey helmets and barely fed until one of them ultimately died.

Their two moms, Becky Hamber and her wife Brandy Cooney, were the only ones responsible for the torture of the brothers and the inevitable death of the 12-year-old and should be found guilty of murder, assault with a weapon, forcible confinement and failure to provide the necessaries of life.

MANDEL: Moms tortured and starved child to death, Crown alleges in closing argument Back to video

That was the bottom line in the final arguments by prosecutors Kelli Frew and Monica MacKenzie at the marathon judge-alone trial in Milton that has been held off and on since last fall.

“The Crown maintains that Ms. Hamber and Ms. Cooney did starve him essentially to death,” MacKenzie told Superior Court Justice Clayton Conlan.

Hamber, 46, and Cooney, 44, have pleaded not guilty to all charges, insisting the boy was suffering from an untreated eating disorder and his death wasn’t foreseen by any doctor or child welfare worker. In 2017, they brought the two brothers into their Burlington home with plans to adopt them. Five years later, the older brother was found unresponsive on the floor of his cold, sparse basement bedroom. He was in a soaking wetsuit in a pool of water and weighed the same as he had at the age of six.

While the pathologist couldn’t determine the cause of death, prosecutors argued it was due to severe malnourishment that made him more susceptible to hypothermia.

The mothers went to great lengths to make it seem like they were great parents, MacKenzie said, but it was all a mirage: there was delicious food posted on Instagram that the boys weren’t allowed to eat, toys and bicycles they weren’t allowed to use. “It is all performative for them.”

The Crown said text messages entered into evidence show a couple who grew to hate the two boys and became their self-described “prison guards,” locking them away in their rooms and starving them of love and care while telling everyone the children were violent and unmanageable.

Brothers isolated, court hears

By the end, court heard the brothers were isolated from each other and the world.

“His blanket, his clothing, his bed, these items of comfort, including things like his food, his free access to a toilet and his freedom, those were taken away as punishment to try and gain compliance and respect for their impossible house rules, to break him,” argued Frew about their treatment of the younger child.

“The evidence has shown that they abused, tortured and starved these boys.”

MANDEL: Moms who starved boy ‘only ones responsible’ for his death, Crown charges

MANDEL: Mom accused of murder says she never wanted ‘horrible’ boy to die

But it would be the oldest brother who bore the brunt of their discipline.

“It’s the Crown’s position that all of the credible evidence points to his state of malnourishment being caused solely and intentionally by Ms. Hammer and Ms. Cooney,” MacKenzie charged.

Video evidence shows emaciated child

She pointed to the video taken by the moms where the emaciated child was crying that it wasn’t fair, that he was hungry and wasn’t given breakfast. “He is belittled for asking for it.”

Hamber’s lawyer Monte MacGregor had earlier argued people may hate his client, but “this is not murder.”

“It may be a failure on many fronts,” he said in his closing, “but she did everything she could to get him help, medical help, for his eating disorder.”

The mothers had blamed his skeletal frame on various eating disorders — from binge eating to rumination syndrome — and insisted they were desperate for help. But the Crown argued the child was never diagnosed with any issue and when a placement was offered at an eating disorders group in October 2022, Hamber turned it down.

In fact, MacKenzie continued, when he was nine and briefly hospitalized at a child and adolescent program in Oakville, he gained 10 pounds. “Much to the chagrin of the accused,” the judge interjected.

Experts also testified a binge-eater wouldn’t lose so much weight, the Crown said, and there were many texts between the moms showing they withheld food as punishment.

Accused of not providing proper medical care

The women then failed to provide proper medical care, clothing or shelter, MacKenzie argued, leading to his hypothermia and death on Dec. 21, 2022.

And that was despite their close call a month earlier.

On Nov. 20, the moms testified the boy was shivering uncontrollably, couldn’t stand and couldn’t speak intelligible English. Instead of calling 911, it’s alleged Hamber googled hypothermia and followed its warming advice, including putting the child in warm water.

Conlan weighed in: “To suggest that the boy did not need urgent medical care on that occasion … is absurd.”

That November episode was a warning but nothing changed, MacKenzie continued.

Child forced to do stair climbs

Within a day of fearing he was going to die, court heard the women were back restraining the boy in his zip-tied wetsuit and forcing him to do stair climbs. They locked him in the cold basement bedroom and took away his blanket again.

“And what happens should be a shock to nobody, and it was not a shock to Ms. Hamber and Ms. Cooney, his malnourished state causes him to become hypothermic again,” the prosecutor said.

“They were waiting for the inevitable to happen and it did.”

On the night he died, the Crown argued the moms were trying to rewarm the boy in the hot tub outside and that’s why Hamber was outdoors when she finally called 911 — to cover their tracks and close the hot tub cover.

She alleged the moms carried the boy in on an ice fishing toboggan from the hot tub and “dumped” him on his floor. “That would also explain why there was a pool of water around him and nowhere else.”

The evidence against Hamber and Cooney is “overwhelming,” MacKenzie concluded, and urged Conlan to find them guilty on all counts.

The judge has reserved his judgment.

mmandel@postmedia.com

© Edmonton Sun