Two moms’ child murder trial hears from family therapist

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A child and family therapist tried to help two moms cope with two troubled Indigenous stepchildren who had endured years of early trauma, but her advice never included dressing them in onesie pajamas and zipping them up.

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Her strategy did not include forcing two boys to march up and down the stairs for 45 minutes, she said Friday. Of course, this didn't include locking them in hockey helmets with zippers.

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And she wouldn't recommend treating boys like babies.

Terra Bovingdon testified for the Crown in the trial, which was held alone. Becky Hamber and Brandi Cooney, who have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and refusal to meet the vital needs of the charges. The couple took in the younger brothers in 2017 and were just about to adopt the boys, whose names are protected by a publication ban, when the eldest died.

A 12-year-old child has lost weight. sacrificeOn December 21, 2022, the size of a child half his age, he was found unconscious on the floor of a basement bedroom, wet and wearing a wetsuit.

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The cause of death has not been determined.

Defense lawyers suggest the boy had serious behavioral problems

Lawyers for the mothers suggested the boy had serious behavior problems, a serious eating disorder and struggled with overeating and regurgitation of food.

Bovingdon first saw the Burlington family in June 2018 and said she helps them use “therapeutic parenting” to control children who are acting up, wetting themselves and throwing tantrums due to childhoods of neglect and trauma. She explained to Humber and Cooney that they could not use the typical time-outs and punishments that were appropriate for other children.

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It doesn't look like they got the message.

Reading notes from her session in August 2018, the therapist said Cooney had complained that the older child, who would be found dead four years later, had wet himself on purpose.

“Brandi believes this is a behavioral phenomenon and is under his control,” her note said.

Bovingdon told her it was “survival behavior” and “he doesn't do it on purpose.”

On November 1, 2018, the therapist made the alarming observation that the older boy was still being treated like a “one-year-old,” dressed in one-piece pajamas worn backwards and zipped up, given soft food and left to sit in the bedroom to “consider his choices.”

“They zipped it up,” she recalls, “so he wouldn’t take off his panties (diaper) and pee in the house.”

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She told them these were punitive measures that would disgrace the child.

“Can you recommend any of these to Miss Humber and Miss Cooney?” asked Crown prosecutor Monica McKenzie.

“No,” the therapist responded, adding that she recommended “Children’s Help.”

Bovingdon noted that Cooney again complained that the boy's behavior was intentional, and the therapist had to explain that it was survival behavior that he could not control.

At the end of November 2018, she noted that the boy was punished for losing several mittens: two weeks without books and “four ladders.”

In the next note, Bovingdon met with CAS, where there were already many red flags: “Concerns about punitive measures taken by the family. Concerns coming from the community. Also concerned that Brandi may provoke and react in escalation.”

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She said Cooney wrote to her in January 2020 that the boy was having an “epic explosion” and was hurting his mother and himself.

“Brandi described a lack of support, intentional behavior and financial difficulties,” she said.

The court heard how the boys drank from baby bottles and slept in tents on their own beds. The therapist said these were possible strategies she could suggest: bottles could provide a soothing sucking sensation, and tents could provide safety.

But, she added, only if the child wants.

“Would you recommend that they treat either boy as a baby at all times, such as using baby toys at all times, dressing like babies, going to bed at bedtime, eating purees?” – asked the prosecutor.

“No,” Bovingdon replied.

So many of her notes were read out in court that it was alarming, but one in particular was haunting.

“He says,” she wrote, “that he wants to start a forever family for Christmas.”

Instead, this poor child died four years later.

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