MURRIETA, Calif. (AP) _ For weeks, the three wives of Mansa Musa Muhummed and most of their 19 children have been telling a jury countless stories of torture and starvation that they kept to themselves for years.

Muhummed sat in a desert courthouse with a hand over his face, shaking his head in denial as family members described being beaten, strung up by their feet and forced to eat vomit and feces.

"It is the worst case we've ever heard of," prosecutor Julie Baldwin said last week.

The alleged atrocities went undetected by social service agencies, and police now have Muhummed, 55, facing up to seven life sentences if convicted of a raft of abuse charges.

Muhummed, whose given name was Richard Boddie, is on trial at Riverside County Superior Court after more than nine years of legal wrangling in which he changed lawyers four times and represented himself for more than two years.

He has pleaded not guilty to charges of torturing seven of the children, abusing 12 of them and falsely imprisoning two wives.

The trial delays may have hurt his case because his children - once reluctant to talk to authorities - are now telling strangers of extreme deprivation, physical abuse and starvation.

Standing just 4-foot-6 and weighing about 98 pounds, Sharon Boddie, 27, told jurors last week that she had grown and gained weight since her father was arrested nine years ago and the children were sent to foster or group homes.

But she still has scars from beatings and burns. She said she was taken out of school in second grade because she kept running away and teachers no longer wanted her there because she stole other children's lunches.

"I'd go like a week without eating, not even water," she said in a flat, unemotional voice. She said she would be beaten when she tried to steal food from the refrigerator.

One son caught sneaking food testified that he was forced to eat what he took until he regurgitated. Then he was forced to eat his vomit. Another daughter said she was ordered to hand feed her father while she was denied food.

Doctors said the children were extremely malnourished. A 19-year-old daughter was 4-foot-1 and weighed 56 pounds.

After moving to rural Riverside County, they lived for about three years in a van at a Muslim campground, Sharon Boddie testified. The van had no running water or gas for cooking. Baldwin said Muhummed had no known occupation.

The now-adult children have testified that Muhummed forced them to beat each other when he wasn't doing the hitting.