CHARLESTON, S.C. — A child psychiatrist who says an antidepressant caused a 12-year-old to kill his grandparents conceded Tuesday that she did not even meet the boy until a year later.

"You have no idea what he was like on Nov. 28, 2001, did you?" asked prosecutor John Meadors, referring to the day that Christopher Pittman used a .410-gauge shotgun to kill Joe and Joy Pittman as they slept.

"Personally I didn't see him, but I did talk to family members and did review reports about what he was like," said Dr. Lanette Atkins, a defense consultant who works for the South Carolina Department of Mental Health.

Meadors used his cross-examination of Atkins to remind jurors of the violent deaths, as well as Christopher's statements to police that "they deserved it" and he was not sorry, and the fact that he burned the house down following the killings.

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Meadors reminded jurors of testimony that Christopher used racial slurs, bragged about the killings and threatened to kill people while incarcerated.

"I know he did make statements about planning it. I do know he made statements about getting away with murder," Atkins said. "Mania can last for months, particularly in children."

Atkins repeated her diagnosis that Christopher's use of the prescription drug Zoloft, an antidepressant, induced a psychotic reaction. The drug sent him into a homicidal mania, she said, and is to blame for the killings.

Meadors, however, noted that Atkins omitted significant information about Christopher's pre-Zoloft behavior from her reports. Among other things, she failed to mention that he had chased his sister with a baseball bat and golf club. Atkins said she determined that the incidents were overblown cases of sibling rivalry.

Prosecutors claim Christopher killed his grandparents because he was angry about being disciplined for a fight with a younger boy. The incident resulted in his being barred from riding the school bus. Christopher's father, who lives in Florida, regularly disciplined his son, striking him with a belt and taking away privileges, according to testimony.

"He didn't like to be disciplined, did he?" Meadors asked.

"No child really likes to be disciplined," Atkins said.

Another key point of contention continues to be how much Zoloft Christopher was actually taking. Although a family doctor testified that he prescribed 50mg per day, Atkins said she believes, based on what Christopher told her, that he was taking as much as 200mg per day.

"Even if it was that [50mg] dosage, it could cause the same type of problem," she noted.

After a lengthy debate outside the presence of the jury, a database analyst was allowed to testify about other reports of adverse reactions to Zoloft.

Citing Food and Drug Administration statistics, Keith Altman testified that between 1997 and June 2004 there were 18 reports of children ages 12 to 17 having adverse reactions to Zoloft that involved "hostility," including three that involved murder.

The judge would not allow the defense to ask the analyst how many unreported incidents there must have been.

The trial, which began Jan. 31, continues Wednesday and is being broadcast by Court TV and online by Court TV Extra.