A Philadelphia woman who faced charges of murder in the third degree has been given bail, after her second son died of pneumonia, Saturday.
The family is enwrapped in fight between state law and religious obedience.
Catherine Schaible-a faith-healing believing mother-was granted the right to live in her parents' house after her $250,000 bail is posted. She can only dwell on the premises if she is put under an electronic monitoring system.
Her husband Herbert was refused a bail grant and must stay in jail, according to the Associated Press.
The wife and husband are being indicted for third-degree murder for the April pneumonia-related death of their eight-month-old son Brandon-according to the court, they performed involuntary manslaughter when their other son-a two-year-old named Kent-passed away from pneumonia-related sicknesses in 2009.
They couple has seven remaining children, all of whom are currently in foster care.
The Schaible family are third-generation members of the religious sect First Century Gospel Church in the northeast region of Philadelphia.
According to Herbert Schaible's statement, read in court earlier in 2013, administering medicine is "against our religious beliefs."
In her statement, the Schaible wife said that "we pray and ask to be healed the way that Jesus did when he was on Earth."
Still, Judge Benjamin Lerner said on Friday that he was going to proceed with prosecution because of the childrens' compromised welfare.
"These children have one mother and one father, and I don't think it's necessarily a good thing that for months, they had virtually no contact with either parent," he said in court.
Mythri Jayaraman, the D.A. for the case, claimed that Schaible should not be considered as responsible as her husband, because the church guides couples to enforce female submission: the wife must be "submissive to her husband."
Assistant Pastor Ralph Myers of the First Century Gospel Church got on the stand to testify, saying that Herbert Schaible most likely called the shots on the couple's children's welfare.
"She would have a say, but he would make the decision," Clark said, according to the Associated Press.
Myers also mentioned that another Pastor, named Nelson Clark, saw the sickly child and wanted to tell Herbert Schaible's probation officer about the kid's ailment, but Schaible insisted that "if he called anyone, it would be a denial of his faith that God could heal the child."
