MARTINEZ, Calif. — Murder victim Felix Polk abused and hypnotized his children, threatened to kill his wife, and allegedly poisoned the family dogs, according to his son, Eli Polk, who returned to the stand for a third day Wednesday at his mother's first-degree murder trial.

"Do you have personal knowledge of whether he made threats?" defendant Susan Polk asked her son about her 70-year-old psychologist husband, whom she is accused of stabbing to death with a paring knife in Oct 2002 during a nasty divorce battle.

"Yes, he threatened to kill you, to destroy you, to destroy us," said the 21-year-old witness. Eli testified that his father also threatened "consequences to the dogs," if his mother divorced him.

"'I will get you for this' — did he say stuff like that?" Polk, who is serving as her own attorney, asked.

"Yes, he did," her son replied.

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"'I will come at you with everything I have' — did he ever say stuff like that?" the defendant continued.

"Yes," Eli replied.

Polk, 48, claims her husband was physically and mentally abusive during their 30-year-relationship. She believes Felix poisoned three of their dogs and tried to poison her at least twice.

She admits she stabbed him during an altercation in the poolhouse of the couple's $1.85 million Orinda, Calif., home, but says it was an act of self-defense.

Prosecutors say the killing was premeditated, and that she was distraught over learning she was soon to lose custody of their youngest son, Gabriel, the family home, and a significant portion of her spousal support.

Gabriel, 19, and his brother Adam, 23, have accused their mother of rewriting history, painting herself as the abused housewife, and their father as the bully aggressor.

They previously testified for the prosecution that their mother is delusional.

Both sons say Polk falsely believes that Adam was the victim of ritual satanic abuse at his preschool, that Eli had been molested by a babysitter, and that their father was a secret Israeli agent who was brainwashing her through hypnosis.

The "satanic stuff," Eli testified Wednesday, "it seemed like it was definitely Dad's thing."

Eli told jurors that his father pressed his mother into believing Adam had been abused. He also testified that he was, in fact, molested by a babysitter when he was a child.

"It's definitely not something I want to talk about, but it was definitely perverse," Eli said. He remarked that the sitter and her friends took him to a costume party without his parent's knowledge and enjoyed running over squirrels for sadistic fun.

His father hypnotized his mother during therapy, he testified, and he and his brothers were also hypnotized in twice weekly sessions, when they would be given tea, which he characterized as "weird."

"I remember not remembering afterward what had happened," he said.

Susan Polk is defending herself at trial, and faces 25 years to life if convicted.

A long list of martyrs

Eli is the only Polk child to stand at his mother's side since her arrest Oct 14, 2002, and she says that she believes her middle son has paid a heavy price for his devotion.

Eli is currently in jail and awaiting a May 2 trial for alleged misdemeanor battery on a girlfriend, violating a restraining order and violating probation from a 2005 misdemeanor conviction for evading a peace officer, stemming from an incident in which he led police on a high-speed chase.

Eli was also serving time in juvenile hall for a fistfight the night his father was killed.

Eli and his mother believe the courts have continually colluded against them. Eli told jurors that his father, who was once chief psychologist of Alameda County, held sway over authorities and had worked behind the scenes to keep him in juvenile detention.

He read to jurors from an April 2005 declaration to the divorce court, in which he described his father as "sick and twisted."

He also broke down in tears on the stand Wednesday when describing the night he was taken to juvenile hall and separated from his mother.

Over the next few months, Eli said, his mother sent him letters and postcards. She was traveling by car, on her way to Big Sky, Mont., where she had planned to buy a condominium near the ski slopes and start a new life away from Felix.

Eli read from her letters, sent in summer of 2002, before his father's death, to demonstrate his mother's peaceful state of mind.

In them, Polk wrote charming narratives about her impressions of the people and places she encountered. She said she would return to the family's Orinda home in October.

Eli said he believed she was returning home to pick up the rest of her belongings and finalize the divorce, not with a plan to kill his father.

In her writings, Polk compared her son to Tupac Shakur, Gandhi and Jesus Christ.

"You join a long list of special people who are unjustly martyred. Rise above this, you are not guilty," she told him.

The glowing defendant corrected her son when he stumbled over her penmanship, causing Judge Laurel Brady to warn: "Ms. Polk, you can't help him read it."

Polk seemed to have endeared the jurors earlier Wednesday after the emotionally gripping testimony of a surprise witness, a frail neighbor from her past, who arrived in a wheelchair and described the defendant as a loving wife and devoted mother. By day's end, that good will appeared to have been squandered.

Polk stood up from the defense table, shouting her objections at the court, accusing the prosecutor and judge of misconduct.

"OK, we're done for the day," the judge announced 30 minutes early, while motioning for the bailiff to escort the jury out.

"I move for a mistrial!" Polk said. A tall male bailiff approached Polk at the table, causing the senior bailiff across the room to motion him to back down, presumably, so as not to antagonize the witness, her son, who was sitting in the witness box next to the judge and quietly watching the scene play out.

"Sit down and stop talking," the judge told Polk sternly.

" ...It's goading," Polk continued, raising her voice as the jury filed out. "And you're allowing it!"

"Ms. Polk, stop!" Brady repeated. "What part of the word 'stop' do you not understand?"