Evil Canadian lesbian couple found guilty of killing 12-year-old Indigenous boy they petitioned to adopt

Hamber and Cooney were each convicted of first-degree murder, as well as additional charges related to the boy's younger brother, whom the couple forcibly confined. The couple received the same sentence: life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

In 2017, the young brothers thought they had found their forever home, only to become victims just five years later, the judge said, explaining that the boys were pulled from school and tortured. This included being placed in zip-ties, locked in their room like prisoners, starved, and forced to perform excessive exercise, according to the Toronto Sun.

The 12-year-old boy was found dead by emergency crews after being called to the home following reports of a child without vital signs as a result of the abuse. Judge Conlan described this case as an "overwhelming case of child abuse and murder."

"I am sure that the accused intended to kill," Conlan said in his written response. "The electronic evidence is overwhelming in this regard. The accused loathed and hated their son. They resented him. They were tired of dealing with him. They relegated him to the basement and locked him up for much of the last two years or so of his life."

"They persisted with their forcible confinement of [victim], and with their isolation of him from everything and everyone, including his own little brother, and with their failure to provide him with adequate food and with required medical attention, all even though they saw what their actions and inactions were doing to the boy - causing him to waste away into nothing," the judge continued. "That persistence demonstrates an intention to kill the boy."

The couple pleaded not guilty to charges, alleging that the boy died of an eating disorder. The 12-year-old boy was found lifeless in the basement of the home, with the same body weight he had at the age of six, investigators said. "He was in an emaciated state," the judge wrote. "The first responders had trouble understanding how the small, razor-thin boy lying on the floor in the basement room was really 12 years old."

The younger brother was returned to his birth mother.