The parents of Peter “Peter Boy” Kema Jr. pleaded not guilty in state court in Hilo on Friday to second-degree murder charges in the disappearance of their son.

Peter Kema Sr., 45, and Jaylin Kema, 46, are each charged with murder for the death of their son, who relatives told state officials has not been seen alive since as early as December 1996, when he was 5 years old.

Circuit Judge Glen Nakamura set an August trial date for Jaylin Kema and a September trial date for Peter Kema. Nakamura will preside over Peter Kema’s trial, while Circuit Judge Glenn Hara will preside over Jaylin Kema’s.

Both Kemas remain in custody unable to post bail. Peter Kema’s bail is $500,000; Jaylin Kema’s is $150,000.

They are having separate trials because they are charged in separate grand jury indictments.

The indictments charge each parent with committing murder under three different methods.

One is for causing Peter Boy’s death between April 1, 1994, and July 14, 1997. The 1994 date is when the state Child Protective Services (now known as Child Welfare Services) returned Peter Boy, a stepbrother and a stepsister to their parents. The 1997 date is when Peter Sr. said he took his son to Honolulu on a job-hunting trip and handed off the boy to a relative, Auntie Rose Makuakane. Authorities have not been able to locate or even verify the existence of Makuakane.

The second way the Kemas are charged with murder is for failing to perform their legal duty as parents to support Peter Boy by seeking necessary available medical services for him, according to the indictments.

The third is for failing to get help from law enforcement or medical personnel knowing that Peter Boy was suffering from serious physical harm as the result of assault, the indictments say. Any person, not just a parent, and even a perpetrator, who is at the scene of a crime has a duty under state law to to seek help if the person knows that the crime victim is suffering from serious physical harm.

In 2005 Lillian Koller, the then-state Department of Human Services director, publicly released 2,000 pages of documents that describe how Peter Boy suffered brutal, torturous abuse and neglect at the hands of his parents dating to when he was just 3 months old. Koller said she released the previously confidential documents in the hope of solving Peter Boy’s case and to let police and prosecutors use them in a criminal case.

The mandatory penalty for second-degree murder is life in prison with the opportunity for release on parole. However, because Peter Boy was 8 years old or younger at the time his parents are accused of killing him, if they are found guilty, the Kemas will have to spend at least 15 years behind bars before they can be eligible for parole.

Deputy Prosecutor Ricky Roy Damerville said he sought separate indictments against the Kemas in the hope of using statements each had previously made to authorities against the other.

According to legal precedent established by the U.S. Supreme Court, a statement a defendant makes outside court can be used against the defendant but not against a co-defendant.

In 2012 the state dropped a murder case against a man charged with killing one of his partners in an indoor marijuana growing operation because the man’s other partner and co-defendant refused to testify. The prosecutor used the co-defendant’s videotaped confession to police to convict the co-defendant but could not use the confession to implicate the partner because the partner did not have the opportunity to cross-examine his accuser.