ALAMOGORDO, N.M. — A New Mexico teen said that after years of abuse, he simply lost it the morning he shot and killed his father, stepmother and stepsister on a ranch owned by Sam Donaldson.

"I more or less lost my mind," 16-year-old Cody Posey told the jury in his first-degree murder trial Friday. "I didn't know what I was thinking. I didn't know what I was doing. I was overwhelmed and I lost control of my emotions."

The teenage murder defendant's explanation for his actions concluded his second day of testimony, which included an extensive list of alleged incidents of mental and physical abuse at the hands of his father, Paul Posey, and his third wife, Tryone.

But Otero County prosecutors claim Cody killed his disciplinarian parents simply because he hated the strict lifestyle they imposed on him.

Story continues

advertisement

In her questioning of the teen, children's court prosecutor Sandra Grisham attempted to poke holes in his stories and cast doubt on his claims that he was a well-behaved child who was undeserving of his parents' seemingly cruel treatment.

Cody testified that he reached his breaking point the evening before the July 5, 2004, shootings, when his parents called him into their room and ordered him to have sex with his stepmother.

"As I stood in front of the bed, Tryone pulled down the covers and was lying there completely naked," the soft-spoken teen said. "I believe she was telling me something like that being that we were not family, it was an OK thing to do."

When he refused, he said his stepmother held his head to her breast as his father burned him with a lit butane torch.

The next morning, after a confrontation with his father over chores that ended with Paul Posey backhanding his son, Cody got his sister's .38-caliber special, went into the house and shot and killed his family.

"I was getting overwhelmed by what happened to me," Cody testified stoically as his maternal aunt, Corliss Clees, sat dabbing tears in the audience. "I remember going into the barn, putting away the tools and just thinking to myself about my emotions and why I had to be the one who was hit and why I had to be the one who had the situation the night before."

But Grisham, who said earlier in the day that "98 percent" of Cody's accounts were new to her, questioned why he never told psychologists of them.

The prosecutor also attempted to minimize Cody's credibility by suggesting he had exaggerated or misconstrued the events altogether. She also highlighted previously unmentioned disciplinary problems.

"Did you get in trouble for bringing a knife to school?" Grisham asked.

"Yes," Cody answered. "I remember the incident, but I don't remember if I had a knife or not."

He also admitted that he was caught smoking marijuana "on occasion" at school and that his father had "suspicions" about it. He refused, however, to concede that any of the alleged punishments were related to his smoking.

She also asked Cody to read a bizarre 2,000-word essay "on why I screwed up" that he said his father forced him to write.

The essay Cody wrote for his father

"In my life there were only two or three years where I was really having no problems. Those were happy years. Before my problems, I would do my work and would not backtalk to my teachers, all of which are problems now," Cody read aloud from the essay, which he guessed he wrote when he was 13 or 14.

"I guess I never understood that people would not want to be friends with a person who gets bad grades and gets in trouble."

But when his lawyer questioned him further, Cody said he didn't write the essay in his own words, but rather, at the direction of his father.

"I remember asking why I received the punishment I did and was told to write this essay," Cody said. "He wanted me to write what he wanted to hear."

Witnesses to abuse

The defense also called the first of its witnesses Friday to corroborate Cody's accounts of abuse — friends he had not seen since he was arrested in 2004.

Dressed in Wrangler jeans, a leather vest and cowboy boots, Donaldson ranch hand Isabel "Pilo" Vasquez related examples of Paul Posey's abusive behavior that were nearly identical to those Cody had described.

Isabel Vasquez testified that he saw Paul Posey beat his son for "no reason."

Testifying through a Spanish-language interpreter, Vasquez described the time he saw Posey threaten his young son with a hay hook for popping the clutch in a pick-up truck.

"He told him, 'The next time that you do that with the truck, with the same pitchfork I'm going to cut your' — excuse me, I don't know how you say this — 'balls,'" Vasquez said, through his interpreter.

Vasquez also corroborated Cody's claims that his father threw rocks at him and beat him regularly in front of others for "no reason."

Neighbor and fellow ranch hand Clint Skeen also testified to the tension that seemed to permeate Cody's life.

"When Cody was around me, I could tell he was happy, but when Paul entered the picture, I could tell he was like a whipped dog. He put his head down and you could tell he was real nervous," testified Skeen, who said he believed that Paul Posey intentionally moved Cody away from him when he realized the two teens were getting along.

He also supported Cody's claims of Tryone's alleged involvement in the abuse.

"She would scream at him like Paul would, cuss at him, call him the same names," the 18-year-old testified, sneaking the occasional glance at his friend sitting at the defense table.

The defense will continue its case Monday. The proceedings are being broadcast live on Court TV and streamed live on Court TV Extra.