Amary Darn lived for just five weeks before he went unconscious inside the second-story Richmond hotel room where he spent almost all of his short life and died at a hospital.

But during those five weeks, little Amary suffered more than most adults will in a lifetime, authorities say.

By the time the newborn boy’s parents took him to a hospital, Amary was covered in sores, burns and mold. He suffered broken ribs, a broken femur, a fractured wrist and a fractured skull. There was methamphetamine in his bloodstream — and nothing in his stomach or intestines. He wasn’t just malnourished; he’d been starved, an autopsy later found.

And now Amary’s parents — Ray Ray Darn, 37, and Marilyn Northington, 30 — are before a Contra Costa jury, facing charges of murder, assault on a child causing death and child abuse. At the start of their trial Wednesday, prosecutors for the first time revealed the horrific details of Amary’s brief life and agonizing February 2021 death, while both defense attorneys pointed fingers across the table at the other defendant. Each parent is expected to portray himself as a hapless figure who was unaware of the significant other’s abuse.

Amary’s death was ruled a homicide caused by abuse, blunt force trauma, neglect and pneumonia, but there are numerous potential causes of death, each of which could have stood alone.

To Darn’s attorney — who used his opening statement to paint Northington as an uncaring drug addict — Amary died of a methamphetamine overdose caused by Northington’s toxic breast milk. To Northington’s lawyer, Darn was a controlling, abusive and manipulative husband who would beat their helpless baby whenever she left the room, leaving her unaware that her baby was near death.

To Deputy District Attorney Kevin Bell, who’s prosecuting the case, both parents are to blame. His voice began to crack as he started his opening statement with a long list of injuries found on Amary after he was taken to Kaiser hospital in Richmond.

“The two people in this world who were supposed to love him, care for him and ensure his safety betrayed him,” Bell told 12 wide-eyed jurors and four alternate jurors. “They let him die.”

As if the extent of Amary’s physical injuries weren’t bad enough, there was evidence the abuse had gone on for days, or longer, Bell said. Amary’s seven broken ribs were at different stages of healing, indicating they’d happened at different times. His femur bone wasn’t just broken, it had been snapped all the way through, and swelling indicated the injury was at least days old. Mold, lesions and burn marks covered up to 10% of his body, the prosecutor said. One burn mark in particular stood out.

“It was almost like he’d been branded on his leg,” Bell said.

David Moakley, a deputy public defender who represents Darn, began his opening statement by asking the jury a rhetorical question: “How much meth can a 5-week-old baby tolerate?” Then he paused for effect.

“Zero!” Moakley shouted. “No meth. Any amount can kill a person, let alone a 5-week-old infant.”

He then laid out what he’ll argue to jurors before the trial’s end: Northington killed her son with her breast milk.

“She knew it would kill him and she did it anyway,” Moakley said. “Mr. Darn is innocent.”

Northington, seated directly behind Moakley at an L-shaped table, glared at the attorney as he said those words.

Near his statement’s end, Moakley conceded his client was a “terrible father” who would leave his family in the hotel room to use heroin, and sometimes used methamphetamine to counteract the heroin’s effects. He said when Darn brought Amary to the hospital, he was nodding off and having trouble staying awake as doctors operated on the newborn.

Evan Kuluk, an attorney with the Alternate Defender’s Office who represents Northington, told jurors an abridged version of her entire life story. She had abusive, drug-addicted parents and struggled in school until given a diagnosis of an intellectual disability. As an adult, she is “naive, passive, easily influenced” and an easy mark for the “manipulative, controlling” Darn, who isolated her from her family and made her depend fully on him, Kuluk said.

“She has always had somebody to tell her what to do,” Kuluk said, later adding “Marilyn had no idea what Ray Ray did with Amary when she was not watching … Marilyn had no idea her baby’s life was on the line.”

The countdown to Amary’s death only added to the tragedy because there was a time where things for the family appeared to be improving, attorneys said. They’d struggled to find housing, spending time in a relative’s garage or a hotel when they could afford it, but mostly slept in cars and lived on the street. In late 2020, they qualified for the Greater Richmond Interfaith Program that provided housing at the Courtyard by Marriott in Richmond for the family.

Amary was born a few days after Christmas 2020. In a medical appointment Jan. 17, the only doctor’s note was that Amary seemed a bit underweight for his age, but nothing to be very concerned about with a child born two weeks premature. The doctor recommended Northington switch to formula feeding, which she did, Kuluk said.

On Jan. 18, Northington brought Amary back to the doctor, who happily informed her Amary had gained 2 ounces since the previous day. They set another appointment for two weeks down the line, but neither Amary nor Northington showed up.

By the time Amary was taken to a Kaiser hospital, Feb. 4, 2021, it was too late.