Brandy Cooney stood in court, maintaining a facade of love for the two brothers she and her wife had sought to adopt. But a chilling narrative unfolded as prosecutors presented a starkly different reality – a world revealed through the raw, unfiltered honesty of her own text messages.
The messages, spanning years, painted a picture of escalating resentment and outright hatred towards the boys who entered their home in 2017. Days before Christmas in 2022, tragedy struck when one of the children, a twelve-year-old known only as L., was found lifeless, his small body emaciated and soaked in a basement bedroom.
“I literally hate this child. F—ing brat. Want to kill him,” Cooney wrote in a 2019 text to her wife, Becky Hamber. The words, stark and brutal, hung in the courtroom, a damning indictment of her claimed affection. She later attempted to explain them away as expressions of “frustration,” but the sheer volume of similar messages told a different story.
The prosecution relentlessly presented text after text, each one chipping away at Cooney’s defense. “I legit hate him. True fact. No joke,” she wrote just six days later. On Christmas morning, the sentiment hadn’t softened: “I hate him for real. Zero love. None. Nil. Nothing.”
Cooney insisted she hated not the boys themselves, but their “choices.” Yet, the texts revealed a disturbing pattern. Monica MacKenzie, the Crown attorney, pointed out the absence of any positive comments about L. within the 8,000 pages of messages. Cooney conceded she might not have written any.
The prosecution pressed further, suggesting Cooney’s animosity was fueled by the financial benefits she received from the Children’s Aid Society. “In fact, you despised L. and if it was not for the money…you would have been much happier if L. was gone, correct?” MacKenzie asked. Cooney vehemently denied it.
A particularly damning message from June 2020 read simply: “L. hate him. I want to punch him.” The words revealed a volatile anger simmering beneath the surface.
The court heard harrowing testimony from the surviving brother, detailing a life of torment. He spoke of being zip-tied into tents at night, forced to wear restrictive wetsuits and onesies, and confined within hockey helmets. These weren’t measures of care, but of control.
Cooney’s texts offered a chilling justification for the abuse. After discovering L. had damaged his sleep tent, she wrote, “I’m giving him bruises. I’m abusing him. Hate this piece-of-s—. He has no choice but need restraint, trying to bleed and break s—.”
The couple claimed the boys were destructive, causing $60,000 in damage to their home. However, when pressed for specifics, Cooney offered only a damaged freezer seal and a bent screen door. Even the judge, Clayton Conlan, expressed disbelief, noting previous evidence suggested “complete destruction” and “annihilation” inside the house.
The lack of photographic evidence supporting the claimed damage further undermined their story. When asked why no photos existed, Cooney struggled to answer, prompting the prosecutor to assert, “It’s hard to answer that question because the boys were not doing damage to your house.”
Cooney’s account of injuries sustained by Hamber also came under scrutiny. She claimed L. had fractured her arm, but couldn’t recall details about the medical treatment received. The prosecution highlighted that no other medical attention had been sought for anyone in the family as a result of the boys’ alleged “behaviours.”
Despite the mounting evidence, Cooney maintained the measures were taken to “keep them safe.” She described zip-ties, wetsuits, zip-tied sleep sacks, and surveillance cameras as protective measures. The explanation felt hollow, a desperate attempt to rationalize a pattern of abuse.
The irony was stark: Cooney possessed a college diploma in early childhood education. Her training, seemingly, had failed to instill the basic principles of care and compassion. The cross-examination continued, promising to reveal even more about the darkness that unfolded within that Burlington home.
