Topeka ? Christy and Neil Edgar Sr., whose 9-year-old adopted son died after being bound like a mummy with duct tape, and baby sitter Chasity Boyd should continue serving their sentences for first-degree murder and child abuse, prosecutors told the Kansas Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Neil Edgar and Boyd were convicted in September 2003 of Brian Edgar’s murder and child abuse involving two of Brian’s siblings, ages 9 and 12. As the trial got under way, Christy Edgar pleaded guilty to the same charges. All three were sentenced to life imprisonment with a chance for parole in 20 years.

Johnson County Dist Atty. Paul Morrison, who prosecuted the trio, told the state’s highest court the Edgars’ actions were “a long systemic pattern of child abuse” and that Christy Edgar “was the architect of the abuse of these kids.”

“Getting taped up and bound up was a regular routine for these kids,” Morrison said. “The scope of the child abuse was massive.”

The Edgars operated the storefront God’s Creation Outreach Ministry in Kansas City, Kan. Boyd was a member of the ministry and worked as their baby sister in their Overland Park home.

At trial, Neil Edgar, 50, testified that on the night of Dec. 29, 2002, he saw Brian with tape around his ankles and arms but didn’t question it. After his wife woke him the next morning and said Brian wasn’t breathing, Neil Edgar rushed the boy to the University of Kansas Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Prosecutors said Christy Edgar, 48, and Boyd, 22, punished Brian for stealing food by binding him from head to toe in duct tape, leaving him overnight with only his nose uncovered. He suffocated on his own vomit.

When questioned by the justices, attorney Steve Chapman agreed Neil Edgar took his wife to a store to get more duct tape to bind Brian, but wasn’t involved in the actual taping.

“He witnessed him being taped up to his arms,” Chapman said.

Chapman said the trial “turned into a real reach” to prove his client guilty of murder. Rather, he said, his client should have been charged with a lesser crime. Morrison said Neil Edgar aided in the crime and therefore was just as guilty.

In her appeal, Christy Edgar claims she should have been allowed to withdraw her guilty pleas because she didn’t know at the time that she was waiving her right to appeal the trial court’s refusal to grant her a separate trial.

Her attorney, Jessica Kunen, said her client didn’t realize she would serve 32 months for child abuse after completing her murder sentence, instead of serving the sentences concurrently.

Morrison said the idea that Christy Edgar didn’t understand she couldn’t appeal is “frankly ridiculous.”

In her appeal, Boyd said she shouldn’t have been tried with Neil Edgar. Her attorney, Rick Kittel, noted that the two siblings testified from another room on a closed circuit television in the courtroom.

Kittel said his client, who didn’t testify, had a constitutional right to confront her accusers face to face.