The father and step-mother of a 10-year-old Gwinnett County girl who died of starvation enter pleas of not guilty in the case.

Both Emon and Tiffany Moss face the death penalty for the murder of little Emani Moss.

Police says the two starved the girl to death and then placed her body in a trashcan and tried to set it on fire.

The paternal grandmother of the child, Robin Moss, sat in the courtroom as the pleas were entered and says she’s torn by emotion.  She raised her granddaughter until she was age 7 when Emon and his then new wife Tiffany took custody away.

“I’m not OK with what they have done, but that’s still my son and I love my son,” she tells WSB’s Sandra Parrish.

She says she has written to Emon Moss in jail and says her heart is open to forgive them both.

More than 100 motions are expected to be filed by defense attorneys in the case.  The actual trial could begin next spring.

Meantime, a parental termination hearing is set to begin late next week in Gwinnett County Juvenile Court for Emani’s younger half-siblings.

Both grandmothers have been told by a judge that neither will get custody, but Robin Moss is hopeful some of her other family members will.

“Even if… someone in my family gets them, I can still get to see them and get to love on them a little bit,” she says.