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........

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