ALAMOGORDO, N.M. — Prosecutors trying a New Mexico teen for killing his family attempted to portray a softer side of the victims Friday, after one week and 40 witnesses of testimony casting Paul and Tryone Posey as cruel parents who hated their son.

Paul Posey's brother, Verlin Posey, testified that through the good times and the bad, his brother only wanted the best for his son Cody, who ultimately shot him, his wife and his stepdaughter to death on a ranch owned by Sam Donaldson in July 2004.

A forensic psychologist testified earlier Friday that Cody killed his parents because he felt he had no other recourse to escape their alleged abuse. But Verlin Posey insisted that on his occasional visits with his brother and his family, he never detected any of the signs of abuse that Cody claims he lived with on a daily basis.

He also testified that he never heard his brother curse at or berate his son, contrary to the testimony of several friends, relatives and ranch hands who worked on the Donaldson ranch with the Posey family.

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Dressed in Wrangler jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, Verlin Posey recalled an instance in which his younger brother called him just to dote upon his son.

"He called me one night just excited about how Cody did dragging the calves," the lifelong rancher and cowboy testified. "I mean, if somebody does it right, it's almost an art form. If somebody asks you to drag calves, it's kind of like a glory job."

Verlin Posey

Verlin Posey also addressed Cody's claims that his parents made him switch schools nine weeks before the end of the semester to isolate him from his Hondo Valley Junior High classmates, which he called his "family" in interviews with psychologists.

"It seemed Cody lost interest in wanting to do anything," Verlin Posey testified as his nephew looked on, emotionless. "Paul set him down and asked, 'What do you want to do? Whatever you want to do, let me know and we'll learn how to do it.'"

When Cody told his father his only interest was in hanging out with his friends, "getting high," Paul Posey decided to pull him out of school, his brother said.

But a forensic psychologist testified that the school switch was yet another traumatic event that pushed Cody closer to the edge.

From the death of his mother to the loss of his friends at Hondo, clinical psychologist Susan Cave testified that a series of tragic events and recurrent abuse in the teen's short life finally came to a breaking point the evening before Cody gunned down his parents.

In his own testimony and in a police interview, Cody claimed that his father called him into his room and ordered his son to have sex with his third wife, who was lying naked in bed.

"Cody had endured this kind of physical and emotional abuse, the name-calling, the put-downs, and I think he had decided he would just try to tough it out," Cave testified as the clean-cut teen bowed his head at the defense table.

"I think it was the attempted sex assault that created very intense emotions and an upwelling of fear — the feeling he couldn't tolerate it any more," she said.

Her testimony echoed that of another defense psychologist who testified yesterday that Cody had reached his "point of despair" before deciding to kill his family.

"I think if he had any other avenue of exit available to him, he might have taken it," Cave told jurors.

But both psychologists agreed with Otero County children's court attorney Sandra Grisham that Cody was cognizant of what he was doing and formed the specific intent to kill before doing so.

Cave agreed that Cody's decision to shoot his stepmother and stepsister twice in the head showed he intended to kill them, just as his decision to bury them in a pile of manure and throw the gun in the river demonstrated a cover-up attempt.

But just as her predecessor on the stand insisted that Cody's reasoning was impaired at the time, Cave also insisted that his intense emotional state "overwhelmed" his ability to exercise proper judgment.

"I think his motivations were very complex," Cave said under cross-examination. "He showed some poor judgment, but I think if he was really thinking, he would have done a better job."

The defense rested its weeklong case Friday by reminding the jury of some of the abuse allegations that Cody claims precipitated the abuse.

Lawyers read aloud a deposition given by Private Steven Chavez of the U.S. Marine Corps, who was unable to appear in court because of his service obligations.

Chavez testified that he was working for Paul Posey as ranch hand on Donaldson's ranch when he observed several incidents "of concern" between Cody and his parents.

"He was always cutting down on Cody," defense investigator Vera Ockenfels read from Chavez's deposition. "Tryone was the same."

Chavez described watching Paul Posey stand atop a haystack and drop 40-pound bales on his son as he stood 10 feet below loading the hay onto a trailer.

He also testified that he once saw Paul Posey grab his son's finger and squeeze it with a pair of pliers for slamming the door on a truck.

"He was cursing at him and squeezing Cody's finger so hard Cody was, you know, crying," Chavez said in the deposition.

The private, currently stationed at Camp Pendleton in California, also related an incident in which Tryone had the two boys pick up rocks with a coffee can from a pen and pile them nearby.

"Cody said, 'How about we use a wheelbarrow?' and as soon as he said that, she just slapped him with everything she had and left a huge mark on his face and knocked the hat off his head," Chavez said. "Cody just looked at her and picked up his hat and went back to work."

The state will continue its rebuttal case Monday. The trial is being streamed live on Court TV Extra.