Malnutrition is a leading killer of children in poverty-stricken countries but for parents to underfeed their children to death?

A dark pall seemed to have descended on this apparently happy family of six when they moved into their Sunnybank Hills home in 2007. Both parents began to withdraw from family and friends in early 2008 and that was the time the toddlers were last seen by anyone outside of the family - till their death

The couple's relationship was on the brink - the mother would spend long hours on the computer while the father, at bars. Their mother has also reportedly said on more than one occasion that she wished she had given the twins away because she couldn't cope with them. For months, the only nourishment the toddlers were getting was from baby formula - they had died not due to starvation but underfeeding. Reports confirm that their weights were not in the range of normal 18-month-olds but rather three to four-month old babies.

At trial now, the parents have pleaded to a lesser charge of manslaughter but it has been refuted by the courts. Prosecuters claim that this so-called malnourishment was a carefully planned plot to kill the babies and to get rid of them. While primarily it's the mother who fed them next to nothing, the father too was a complacent accessory - doing nothing to save the lives of his children.

There would perhaps be a total of more than about hundred witnesses from the prosecution's side - now it's a wait for justice for the departed souls.

Read more on Mothers who Kill.