Becky Hamber, 46, and Brandy Cooney, 44, have pleaded not guilty to murder of boy in their care

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As if on cue, Becky Hamber began to cry when asked about the soaking wet, emaciated boy found unresponsive on the floor of his sparse basement bedroom.

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That would be the same 12-year-old boy that court heard she told a friend was a “horrible, horrible, disgusting child who appears to never want to change.”

That would be the same boy she and her wife Brandy Cooney were planning to adopt along with his younger brother, court heard, and who she’s admitted was locked most of the time in his room, restrained in a zip-tied wet suit, often forced to wear a hockey helmet or a rain jacket tied as a straightjacket to deal with his “behaviours.”

The same child about whom Cooney had said in a text revealed in court and deleted after his death four days before Christmas 2022: “Kill them if they break it” and Hamber had replied “drown ’em in their poo” — using “them” pronouns because, she said, the older boy had come out as non-binary.

The couple had taken in the brothers in 2017 with plans to adopt them and have their Burlington bungalow become their........

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