OREGON CITY, Ore. -- An Oregon City couple accused of using prayer instead of medical care to try to cure their mortally ill daughter pleaded not guilty Monday in Clackamas County to charges of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment.

Authorities say Carl Worthington, 28, and Raylene Worthington, 25, may be the first parents prosecuted in the nine years since Oregon cracked down on faith-healing deaths. They could spend more than six years in prison.

Clackamas County Sheriff

Carl Worthington

The Worthingons are members of the “Followers of Christ Church” in Oregon City.  It's a church with a long history of child deaths., a history that led lawmakers to eliminate legal protections for parents who practice to faith healing.

Since the new laws took effect in 1999, said child abuse Detective Jeff Green of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office, "We haven't seen any cases of significant medical neglect ... until now."

Before the law changed, church members who got in traffic accidents would take injured children home, rather than to the hospital, leaving police frustrated but powerless to intervene, Green said.

In the two years after the law passed, detectives responded to two cases of sick or injured Followers of Christ children, Green said.

One child had Crohn's disease and the other had a broken arm, which church members had tried to set themselves. In both cases, parents complied without protest when police insisted that they take their children to licensed physicians.

In court Monday, the Worthingtons were charged with manslaughter and criminal mistreatment. A grand jury concluded that the faith healing couple's refusal to get medical treatment for their sick toddler caused the child's death.

Fifteen-month-old Ava Worthington died at her Oregon City home on March 2nd of pneumonia and a blood infection. Ava Worthington's parents lost a baby boy in August 2001, but the death investigation was closed after family members told police the child was stillborn.

Several other Followers of Christ children have also been stillborn or died during home births in recent years, but none of the investigated deaths resulted in criminal charges.

Clackamas County Sheriff

Raylene Worthington

 More: Parents arrested after baby dies Until this month, it had been many years since the “Followers of Christ Church” had lost a child to sickness. Sunday, parishioners declined to discuss their faith healing practices and religious beliefs with KGW.

Here's what the medical examiner told KGW reporter Pat Dooris back in 1998: "It's an awful way to die, little Bo Phillips is not the only one. We've had 3 cases in the past 9 months out here. Some have been lingering, horrible, painful deaths, all of them unnecessary deaths", said Larry Lewman, a former state medical examiner.

Clackamas County prosecutors never did charge those parents because state law allowed religious exemptions from state child abuse and homicide laws.

The controversy led Oregon senator Peter Courtney and others to get rid of those religious exemptions.

Carl and Raylene Worthingon are the first to be charged under the new state laws since they were passed 9 years ago.

The couple turned themselves in to the Clackamas County Sheriff's office after a grand jury indicted them on Friday.

They were released early Saturday and are scheduled to appear in court Monday.  Detectives said that, before the new laws, “Followers of Christ” members who got into traffic accidents would take injured children home rather than to the hospital.

However, they also said most church members changed those practices the day the law changed 9 years ago.

The couple faces sentences of more than six years on the manslaughter charges and up to a year on the mistreatment charges, said Greg Horner, chief deputy district attorney for the county. They are free on $250,000 bail.

The Oregon City church, which is not associated with a mainstream denomination, traces its origins to the faith-healing Pentecostal movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s.