CHARLESTON, S.C. — Christopher Pittman's lawyers claim Zoloft drove him to kill his grandparents in 2001, when he was just 12 years old. But the antidepressant wasn't always the culprit, jurors learned during the second day of Christopher's double-murder trial.

Christopher, now 15, initially convinced investigators — and two hunters who found him roaming the woods alone — that a black man shot and killed Joe and Joy Pittman, burned down their home in rural Chester County, and forced Christopher to leave with him in Joe Pittman's truck.

Police even called in a helicopter and bloodhound to look for the imaginary assailant.

Investigator Lucinda McKellar testified that during her first interview with Christopher, he claimed he woke up to go to the bathroom about 11:30 p.m. on Nov. 28, 2001, and saw someone entering the house where he lived with his grandparents.

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Christopher said he snuck out of the house and heard gunfire, said McKellar, the state's eighth witnesses.

"I heard four gunshots. It didn't sound like a high-powered rifle. It sounded like a shotgun," Christopher said, according to McKellar. "He came out and walked over to me. He pointed the shotgun at me."

Investigator Lucinda McKellar testifies about Pittman's confession.

Christopher even told police that his dog, Christy, growled at the 6-foot-2 perpetrator. The fact that Christopher's dog was still with him in the woods 35 miles away led detectives to doubt his story.

Investigators also found the driver's seat in Joe Pittman's truck in a position that, they claim, didn't correlate with Christopher's account.

"The car seat was pulled up closer to the steering wheel," McKellar said. "Christopher had told us that he was kidnapped by a 6-foot-2 black man."

"Inconsistent with what he told you?" prosecutor John Meadows asked.

"Yes, sir," McKellar said.

Confession to murder

After being confronted with the inconsistencies, police read Christopher his rights and the 12-year-old waived each one of them.

McKellar said Christopher then confessed to killing his grandparents because they disciplined him, and even said, "I'm not sorry."

Christopher began his police statement by recounting a fight he had with a second-grader who was "messing with me" on the school bus the day of the killings. Joe and Joy Pittman were called to the school and learned that Christopher choked the other boy.

After choir practice that night, Christopher continued, Joe Pittman sent the boy to his room and ordered him to stay there.

"They told me they was going to lock me in my room. My grandpa said if I came out, he was going to beat me with the paddle," Christopher said in his statement, which McKellar read in court Tuesday.

When Christopher emerged from his room later to get something to eat, Joe Pittman hit him on his back with the paddle, according to the confession.

"He beat me back into my room," Christopher said.

After the Pittmans feel asleep, Christopher grabbed the .410-caliber shotgun his father had given him the previous week, a box of shells and loaded the pump-action weapon. He told McKellar that he entered his grandparents' dark bedroom and began firing.

"I went into their room. I just aimed at the bed. I shot four times," Christopher told McKellar and another investigator. "I turned the light on. I really didn't care then."

Joe Pittman, 66, was shot through his open mouth. Joy Pittman, 62, was shot in the back of the head. Investigators determined that both were dead before their bodies were burned by the fire.

According to Christopher's confession, he lit several candles around the house and then used gasoline to ignite the home. Then he fled in Joe Pittman's truck, heavily armed and carrying $33 he found in Joy Pittman's purse. He drove for 35 miles before the vehicle finally got stuck in a wooded, hunting area in Cherokee County.

"I'm not sorry. They deserved it. They beat me with my paddle. My daddy used to beat me with that paddle," Christopher said, according to the statement read in court.

Blaming drugs

On cross-examination, defense attorney Andy Vickers referred to Christopher's initial statement about a black man as a "crazy story." He suggested that certain things in Christopher's confession were the detectives' words, but he did not elaborate.

"Why didn't you audiotape or videotape this statement?" Vickery asked.

McKellar, who interviewed Christopher at a police station in another jurisdiction, said recording equipment was not available when the boy confessed.

Christopher admits to killing his grandparents and has not recanted the confession.

The defense, however, contends that all of his bizarre behavior — from the killings to the story about a black man kidnapping him — stems from the ill effects of Zoloft.

Although prosecutors have said that this trial is not about Zoloft, the defense contends there is ample evidence that Zoloft and other antidepressants engineered to chemically alter the serotonin level in patients can induce homicidal and suicidal urges.

Christopher himself volunteered that he was taking Zoloft when he was first interviewed by detectives, but said little about why he was taking it.

"I'm on Zoloft...It makes me sleepy," McKellar quoted Christopher as saying.

Moral judgment

Prosecutors also called two hunters to the stand Tuesday.

Both testified that Christopher emerged from the woods after they heard a rifle shot and announced that he was lost and was being shot at by a black man.

"Mr. Pittman came out of the woods. He was hollering and screaming and stuff like he was lost," said Roland Pennington, who was out looking for deer that morning. "He told me that this black guy had killed his grandparents and burnt the house up. He told me that the guy had shot at him."

Roland Pennington was one of the hunters who found Pittman in the woods.

Prosecutors contend that Christopher's detailed story about being a victim of a crime is proof that he knew what he had done was wrong.

To win an acquittal, the defense will have to convince jurors that Christopher is not criminally responsible for the killings because his prescribed use of Zoloft had temporarily impaired his ability to discern right from wrong.

While prosecutors portrayed Christopher as a bright, articulate preteen who understood the consequences of his actions, the defense worked to draw a different picture for the jurors.

Several witnesses were shown a cardboard cutout of an enlarged photograph of Christopher from the summer of 2001, when he was just 5-foot-2. The defense is using every opportunity to remind jurors that Christopher was just a boy, not the tall young man they see in court today.

Testimony resumes Wednesday at 9:15 a.m. ET. The trial was moved to Charleston from Chester County in north central South Carolina because of intense pretrial publicity. If convicted, Christopher faces up to life in prison.