BAKERSFIELD — The adoptive dad and mom of two California boys who had been reported lacking in 2020 pleaded not responsible Thursday to killing them.
Trezell West, 35, and Jacqueline West, 32, entered pleas in a Bakersfield courtroom to 2 counts of second-degree homicide, two felony counts of willful cruelty to a toddler and a misdemeanor cost of constructing a false report of an emergency. They may face 30 years to life in jail if convicted.
They had been ordered held with out bail, with the choose calling them “a big and substantial threat to public security.”
”Simply understanding that they're handcuffed and so they aren’t leaving is a blessing,” Rosanna Willis, a cousin to the lacking boys, instructed KERO-TV. “I might lastly get some sleep now, you realize, understanding they’re not out simply operating. So it’s numerous reduction on our household.”
Jacqueline West, left, stands at her arraignment with legal professional Alekxia Torres-Stallings in Kern County Superior Court docket in Bakersfield, Calif., Thursday, March 3, 2022. Jacqueline and Trezell West, the adoptive dad and mom of two small California boys who had been reported lacking in 2020, have been charged with killing the kids, though their our bodies haven't been discovered. (Rodney Thornburg/The Bakersfield Californian through AP)
Trezell West, proper, stands subsequent to Mia Shawwa, an legal professional from the Kern County Indigent Protection Program, throughout his arraignment in Kern County Superior Court docket in Bakersfield, Calif., Thursday, March 3, 2022. Jacqueline and Trezell West, the adoptive dad and mom of two small California boys who had been reported lacking in 2020, have been charged with killing the kids, though their our bodies haven't been discovered. (Rodney Thornburg/The Bakersfield Californian through AP)
Rosanna Wills, the cousin of California Metropolis, Calif., boys Orrin and Orson West, locations a candle at a vigil Wednesday night, March 2, 2022, in entrance of the Liberty Bell outdoors Kern County Superior Court docket in downtown Bakersfield, Calif. Trezell West and Jacqueline West, the adoptive dad and mom of the 2 small boys who had been reported lacking in 2020, have been charged with killing the kids, though their our bodies haven't been discovered, authorities stated Wednesday. (Ishani Desai/The Bakersfield Californian through AP)
This picture supplied by the Kern County District Legal professional's Workplace from their Fb web page from a video information convention feed, exhibits pictures displayed of Orrin West and Orson West previous to a information convention by Kern County District Legal professional Cynthia Zimmer to debate latest developments within the case involving the 2 brothers on Wednesday, March 2, 2022 in Bakersfield, Calif. The adoptive dad and mom of the boys who had been reported lacking in 2020 have been charged with killing their kids, though their our bodies haven't been discovered, authorities stated Wednesday. (Kern County District Legal professional's Workplace through AP)
The Wests had been indicted by a grand jury and arrested Tuesday night time. Their trial is tentatively set for Could 23.
Their sons Orrin West, 4, and Orson West, 3, had been reported lacking from their household’s yard within the desert city of California Metropolis on Dec. 21, 2020. An enormous search by legislation enforcement businesses and neighborhood members failed to search out them.
In asserting their arrests, Kern County District Legal professional Cynthia Zimmer stated investigators consider the boys died three months earlier than the dad and mom reported them lacking however she declined to offer particulars till the trial.
The our bodies of the kids haven’t been discovered.
The household has 4 different kids, two of them additionally adopted, and all are in protecting custody.
The lacking boys lived with the Wests since 2018. The couple fostered them after which formally adopted them in 2019.
The household beforehand lived in Bakersfield, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) west of California Metropolis. Zimmer beforehand stated that a week after the boys had been reported lacking “essential data got here to gentle” that introduced within the involvement of police in Bakersfield.