By Emanuella Grinberg Court TV
ALAMOGORDO, N.M. From "sunbathing daughter" to "free incest stories," a range of Internet search terms and Web sites allegedly revealed a shooting victim's taste for "incestuous porn" in the first-degree murder trial of his son Wednesday. Lawyers for 16-year-old Cody Posey presented the evidence, taken from the computer hard drive that was located in his father's office, to corroborate allegations of sexual torture that he says led him to shoot and kill Paul Posey, his stepmother, Tryone and stepsister Marilea on July 5, 2004. Cody's claims are among a litany of abuse allegations that the teen is claiming in his defense for the killings, which occurred in the family's home on a ranch owned by ABC newsman Sam Donaldson. In his own testimony last week, the teen, who was 14 when he gunned down his family, claimed that he reached his breaking point the evening before the shootings, when his parents attempted to force him to have intercourse with his stepmother.
The evidence did not include pornographic images, but instead included a far more sterile list of URLs and keywords entered into AOL and Google, among them "father daughter incest" and "my sexy wife photo album." When the panel retires to deliberate, however, they will receive thick binders containing recovered images of child pornography, lists of search queries including "swingers," and Web site snapshots with headings such as, "It's just you and me tonight pumpkin." Jurors listened intently and took notes during the testimony of computer analyst Joe Burchett, who testified that he was hired two weeks ago to analyze records that the state had gathered from the hard drive. The computer store owner, dressed in a short-sleeved shirt with a row of pens in his breast pocket, also admitted that it was his first time testifying in a trial and that he had no forensic training. The panel heard the computer evidence against strenuous objections from Otero County Children's Court attorney Janice Schryer, who characterized the evidence as an irrelevant attempt to assassinate the victim's character. In a hearing Wednesday morning on the admissibility of the evidence, Schreyer emphasized the fact that the majority of the 5000 Web pages did not carry a time or date stamp, and that even if they did, there was no way for Burchett to say exactly who used the computer. Burchett admitted there was no way for him to say who was responsible for the searches, but claimed that he pinpointed four instances in which he was able to exclude Cody from the list of potential users. "Were there several incestuous pornographic searches in the time Cody Posey should have been in school?" defense lawyer Timothy Rose asked Burchett. "Of actual searches, I count at least four," Burchett said. The searches occurred between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., he said. Though the jury did not hear it, a forensic computer analyst for the district attorney's office testified during a motion on the admissibility of the evidence that he was wary of the evidence based on the hours of the alleged Web surfing. "A vast majority of the searches were generated between 7 and 8 a.m., then again at about noon, then the next time is around 3 and 4 [p.m.]," forensic analyst Jack Henderson testified. "The pattern of Internet use is inconsistent with anything I've ever seen in case of someone searching for pornography." The defense did not elicit those statements from Henderson when he returned to testify in front of the jury, but the state is expected to recall him when they present their rebuttal case. The proceedings will be broadcast live on Court TV and streamed on Court TV Extra. |