EDMONTON -- An Edmonton couple charged with starving and abusing their young twins are facing murder charges.

Paramedics were called last May to a home where they found the two-year-old girls suffering from injuries and severe malnourishment.

One of the girls, known in court documents as M, spent the next three months in a coma virtually brain dead.

She died shortly after the Supreme Court of Canada refused to interfere with an earlier court ruling allowing doctors to remove her from a ventilator.

Her sister and an older brother were placed in foster care.

The parents are to appear in court Friday on the new charges: second-degree murder and criminal negligence causing death.

They still face original charges of aggravated assault, criminal negligence causing bodily harm and failing to provide the necessities of life.