BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) — The adoptive parents of two California boys they reported missing in 2020 have pleaded not guilty to killing them.
Trezell West and Jacqueline West entered pleas Thursday in Bakersfield to second-degree murder, willful child cruelty and making a false report of an emergency.
The judge called them a public safety risk and ordered them held without bail.
The couple reported in December 2020 that 4-year-old Orrin West and his 3-year-old brother, Orson West, had vanished from their backyard in the desert town of California City.
They've never been found.
Prosecutors have said they believe the boys died three months before the parents reported them missing.
