ALAMOGORDO, N.M. — A New Mexico jury began deliberating three counts of first-degree murder and four counts of evidence tampering Monday afternoon against a teenager who claims a lifetime of abuse drove him to shoot his parents and stepsister and bury them on a ranch owned by Sam Donaldson.

The seven women and five men deliberated for just under four hours Monday before going home. They have the option of finding 16-year-old Cody Posey guilty of first-degree or second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter.

If they find he acted in order to defend himself from the abuse, as the defense claims, they must acquit him in the deaths of Cody's father Paul Posey, stepmother Tryone and 13-year-old stepsister, Marilea.

Outside court Monday, Paul Posey's brother said he hoped his nephew, who testified to a litany of abuse on the stand in his first-degree murder trial, received the maximum penalty for his actions.

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"Before this trial, I could find some love in my heart for him, but not anymore," Verlin Posey told Courttv.com. "As my father used to say, if you're going to dance, you have to pay the fiddler."

In their closing arguments Monday, prosecutors said Cody killed his family, buried them in a pile of manure and fabricated abuse claims to escape ranch life and the high expectations of his parents.

"Cody Posey and his defense team have tried to create tales of abuse to pile more and more manure on top of Paul, Tryone and Marilea and to negate any responsibility he might have had to take for his own actions," Otero County Children's Court attorney Janice Schryer said in her closing.

"Cody Posey, on that day, made sure he was the only person left to know about the day-to-day lives of the Posey family — the only person left to tell the tale," said Schryer as the clean-cut teen bowed his head from the defense table.

Defense lawyer Gary Mitchell bristled at Schryer's suggestions that Cody and 37 other defense witnesses exaggerated an estimated 53 instances of physical, verbal and sexual abuse on the stand, and urged jurors to put themselves in his client's shoes.

"How much do we ask of a 14-year-old child when none of us would have tolerated a tenth of that?" asked Mitchell as a female juror dabbed tears from her eyes during the emotional closing argument. "We wouldn't be here if it weren't about abuse."

Mitchell produced a hay hook as he recalled an instance in which Cody claims his father threatened to "cut off his balls" for stalling a pickup truck when he was learning to drive a stick-shift.

"Do you think there is a single male in this courthouse who would tolerate me coming up to him and putting this next to his testicles?" asked Mitchell, jabbing the hay hook at the jury box.

In addressing the law, Mitchell labeled the implements used in the abuse as deadly weapons which created a lingering fear in the young man that never left.

Mitchell said the abuse aroused intense emotions in his client which reached their breaking point the night before the shootings, when his parents attempted to force him to have sexual intercourse with his father's third wife by burning him with a blow torch.

"We go to a whole different world when we get to that conduct," said Mitchell, who periodically returned to the defense table to touch Cody on the shoulder or pat him on the back.

Toward the end of his argument, the defense attorney's emotional investment in his young client became apparent as he fought back tears.

"For almost two years he's been mine to protect," choked Mitchell, evoking tears from Cody's relatives and girlfriend in the audience. "In this courtroom, he's turned over to a jury."

Senior trial attorney Sandra Grisham used her turn in front of the jury to ridicule Cody's "abuse excuse" and cast the killings as a premeditated act of selfishness instead of a rash impulse caused by fear of immediate danger of death or bodily harm.

"How much can we ask from a child?" asked Grisham, mimicking the defense summation. "How about one simple thing? Thou shalt not kill."

As she has throughout the trial, the former judge-turned-prosecutor mocked the alleged sexual abuse incident, particularly the suggestion that Paul Posey would threaten his son's erection by using a blow torch on him.

"You're going to cause it by extreme physical pain? That's nonsense," said Grisham, compelling Cody's aunt and guardian, Corliss Clees, to storm out of the courtroom.

Cody Posey (left) and his defense attorney Gary Mitchell (right) listen to closing arguments.

With pictures of Paul, Tryone and Marilea projected on the wall above the teen's head, Grisham went though the elements of the crime and the attempted cover-up as proof that he formed the deliberate intent necessary for first-degree murder.

"Your job is to judge the facts and then apply the law. The reason your job is not nearly as difficult is because Cody Posey gave you the facts," said Grisham, referring to Cody's videotaped statement to police. "Who had the gun that morning? Who was armed? Who was lying in wait?"

In the video, which Grisham played for the jurors before they retired to deliberate, Cody admits to killing his family after because he thought his world would be "better off" without them.

After an initial period in which he denies involvement, Cody eventually confesses to shooting Tryone first, so she could not call police. He then admits to waiting for his father and stepsister behind a refrigerator and shooting Marilea twice in the head to eliminate a witness to the crime.

After he admits to hauling the bodies of his family out to a manure pile in a backhoe and buries them, he then tosses the .38-caliber weapon into a river, but not the box of bullets, because they would float in the river.

And finally, he leaves a note for police saying, "Sorry coppers, I needed the kid to do the job," before driving his father's truck into town to buy a can of Sprite.

"Every single act he took proves to you this was not some unconsidered, rash decision. He thought about it and he thought about what he had to do to get away with it," Grisham said. "He was caught, but that doesn't mean he was not thinking."

An alternate juror who was dismissed from the panel said she found Cody's abuse claims credible and indicated that without the benefit of deliberations, her gut reaction was to vote for three counts of manslaughter.

"I can almost see why he felt he had to do it to his parents, but I have a hard time understanding Marilea," said engineer Crystol Williams. "I think that's going to be one hanging point for the jury."