ALAMOGORDO, N.M. — The father of a 13-year-old girl who was shot and killed by her stepbrother said he harbored no ill will toward his daughter's killer, and even testified in the teen's defense at his first-degree murder trial Tuesday.

"You don't hold any animus toward him?" Gary Mitchell, a defense lawyer for 16-year-old Cody Posey asked the witness.

"No, I do not," said Jake Schmid, casting a sympathetic glance toward the teen sitting at the defense table.

Cody admits killing Schmid's daughter, Marilea, her mother and Cody's father on a ranch owned by Sam Donaldson in July 2004. He claims his actions were precipitated by years of physical and mental abuse by his father, Paul Posey, and his third wife, Tryone.

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Jake Schmid testified he suspected something was amiss between Paul and Cody the times he observed them together after his divorce from Tryone.

In an odd twist, Jake Schmid remarried Paul Posey's ex-wife, Sandy, after Sandy and Paul divorced. Under such circumstances, Sandy maintained visitation rights with Cody after her split from Paul, and Jake kept up his own with his daughter, Marilea.

Jake Schmid described the fear he said he saw on Cody's face when it was time for him to return to the home of his father and stepmother after a weekend visit.

"At times he seemed very nervous and sometimes downright scared," said Jake Schmid, who is still married to Paul's second wife, Sandy. "The only way I can describe it is if you've ever seen a dog that's been whipped."

Cody's first stepmother, Sandy Schmid (nee Paul), corroborated her husband's claims and described the emotional abuse she witnessed in the five years she was married to Paul Posey.

"I was the go-between. I would protect him from Paul," Sandy testified as jurors listened closely. "Paul really didn't like Cody and I was afraid sometimes if I wasn't there what he might do."

The witness described one instance in which she came home to find 6-year-old Cody filling up a horse trough with a Dixie cup as punishment for not doing his chores on time.

"When Paul left, I told Cody to just put the hose in the trough and finish filling it up," she testified.

In a prelude to the defense's claims that Paul sexually tortured his son by forcing him to have sex with Tryone, Sandy Schmid also testified that her ex-husband frequently surfed the Internet for porn and watched it on television.

The Schmids admitted they were planning a suit against Sam Donaldson stemming from the killings, but insisted the object of the suit was not money.

"There are people who should have done something and didn't and those people, I want to be made aware," said Jake Schmid, referring to reports of abuse to authorities that apparently nowhere. "I'm trying to get things changed and that's one way to do it."

The juvenile respondent was reunited with another surrogate parent from his past Tuesday when his biological mother's husband took the stand and described the car accident that killed Cody's mother.

William Brust testified that he, Cody and his mother, Carla Brust, nee Clees, were driving to Washington to begin a new life when he fell asleep at the wheel and flipped the car over.

At Carla's funeral, Brust learned that, in spite of his intentions to adopt Cody, Paul Posey had parental rights to his son because he had printed his name instead of signing it to an agreement in which he surrendered all parental rights and custody.

Brust, who has not remarried and still carries his wife's ring, said that apart from one letter, he never heard from Cody again after he went to live with his father in the summer of 2000.

Cody Posey listened as family and friends testified Tuesday.

"To see if he was interested in keeping in touch, I sent him an actual packet of stationery, and stamps," said Brust, who met Cody's mother in the Navy. "There were no further replies afterward."

In his testimony last week, Cody claimed that his father and stepmother prevented him from keeping in touch with his mother's family after he went to live with them on the Donaldson ranch in 2001.

He also testified that they enforced the isolationist practices after they made him switch junior high schools nine weeks before the end of the 2004 school year and just a few months before the shootings.

But the teen was reunited with several classmates, teachers and a girlfriend in the Otero County courtroom Tuesday, all of whom said they last saw their friend the day he left Hondo Valley Junior High for a school in nearby Capitan.

The teen patted sweat from his brow with a tissue as his former girlfriend, Brenda Lucero, testified that she tried to call him after his departure, but Tryone told her that Cody was not allowed to speak to anyone from his past.

Her mother, Rita Lucero, also testified that Tryone confronted her at the Wal-Mart where she worked and angrily told her that Cody had moved on and that Brenda was to stop calling him.

Teachers from Hondo also testified about several confrontations in which Tryone and Paul made no secret of their contempt for their son.

Dale English testified that, during a bus ride on a class trip with Tryone, he attempted to express his fondness for Cody, whom he described as a bright and well-mannered student with untapped potential.

"She kept telling me, 'That's not how he is at home. He doesn't do his chores, he's lazy and he's really disrespectful,'" said English, shaking his head. "She said 'I'm glad Cody's mother died because I don't know how he would have been raised.'"

On cross-examination, children's court prosecutor Sandra Grisham asked the witness if she were aware of Carla Brust's alleged history of drug and alcohol abuse and stint as a stripper. English said he did not.

Science teacher Donna Crawford also told the jury about a parent-teacher conference with Paul and Tryone in which she told them she had overheard Cody tell friends that he hates his parents and his parents hate him.

"I immediately regretted bringing it up because of the way they reacted," Crawford testified. "They were screaming and hollering and carrying on at the same time. Cody began sobbing. I was in shock."

While Crawford testified that Cody once gave a reasonable explanation for a bruise on his eye, both teachers testified that they never suspected any physical abuse going on in the home and for that reason, never reported any.

The defense will continue presenting its case Wednesday. The proceedings will be broadcast live on Court TV and streamed on Court TV Extra.