ALAMOGORDO, N.M. — Cody Posey likely developed post-traumatic stress disorder after surviving a car crash five years ago that killed his mother, and his emotional problems grew until they boiled over into the violent murders of three family members, a defense psychiatrist testified Tuesday.

The trigger for the July 2004 shooting deaths of Cody's father, sister and stepmother may have been an alleged incident of abuse the night before, said psychiatrist Robert Buser, who treated Cody for five months last year.

Cody testified during the guilt phase of his trial that his father burned his arm when the boy, then 14, refused to have sex with his stepmother, Tryone.

Buser disagreed with prosecution experts who found that Cody, now 16, exhibited psychopathic traits and cannot be treated effectively if Judge James Waylon Counts decides he does not belong in prison.

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"If he had preexisting [post-traumatic stress disorder], that must have pushed him over the edge," Buser said, referring to Cody's claim about his stepmother. Buser characterized the shootings of Paul Posey, Tryone Posey and Cody's teenage sister, Marilea, as "situation specific," "driven by rage" and brought on "from the night before, if that's a true story."

Psychiatrist Robert Buser testified for the defense.

Prosecutors contend Cody concocted the story in an effort to parlay his father's strict discipline into a child-abuse defense. Cody's defense lawyers hope to convince Counts that Cody should be sentenced as a juvenile offender and sent to a secure treatment center like the one where Buser has worked with violent boys for the last 10 years.

When Cody arrived at the Sequoyah Adolescent Treatment Center last year, he did well in classes and had few problems with the other 35 boys housed at the Albuquerque facility, Buser said.

"He was a rose," Buser said.

Asked by defense attorney Gary Mitchell what that meant, Buser added, "I can't put him in the class of angels, given what he did ... but we deal with some pretty violent guys. Cody was not on my radar during my first four months of being at Sequoyah. He was doing fine."

Buser said he has little concern that Cody will kill again or commit a serious violent crime, saying there are many indications that the murders were an "isolated act" that stemmed from "domestic violence" and Cody's untreated emotional problems.

"He's very treatable," Buser said.

More abuse testimony

Counts listened to more incidents of alleged abuse against Cody on Tuesday, the second day of a sentencing hearing that brought scores of abuse victims and others to the steps of the Otero County Courthouse.

James Forrester, a longtime family friend, said he first observed abuse of Cody when the defendant was about 2 years old. Paul Posey asked Cody to stop playing near some workers several times before the rancher finally removed his belt.

James Forrester, a family friend, said he observed abuse.

"He probably hit that kid 50 to 70 times as hard as he could," Forrester said. "He threw the baby probably 10 feet and he hit the couch ... [Cody] couldn't even scream anymore. He was just grasping for breath."

Over the course of the next seven or eight years, Forrester said he observed "hundreds" of incidents of mental abuse by Paul Posey against Cody. Although incidents of physical abuse were limited to spanking and slapping, none rose to the level of the incident with the belt, Forrester said.

On one occasion, Forrester said, Paul Posey was being abusive to Cody and Forrester decided to say something.

"Hey, knock that crap off," Forrester said, according to his account.

"That's my kid. You shut up," Paul Posey responded.

Although Posey is dead, Forrester said he has no reluctance testifying about what a "horrible, brutal person" he claims he was in life.

"Paul was an awful person. He treated that kid bad from the moment he was born," Forrester said. "[Cody] has been tortured his whole life as a child, especially the last two and a half years. He was abused something awful."

Noting that Forrester once worked as a counselor, prosecutor Sandra Grisham chastised the defense witness for not reporting the abuse.

"You were a counselor? And you didn't report a child being beat with a belt 50 to 70 times?" Grisham asked.

Forrester agreed that he never notified authorities, saying the child welfare laws did not require it back then and he was satisfied that Paul's girlfriend at the time was protecting the boy sufficiently, at least from physical abuse.

Grisham then raised her voice, asking a question to remind the judge that Cody not only shot his allegedly abusive father, he pumped two bullets into the head of his sister, who would have turned 15 years old tomorrow.

"How brutal, horrible and mean was Marilea?" Grisham stammered.

"I never mentioned Marilea," Forrester protested.

"No, you didn't," she said.

Marilea's biological father, Jake Schmid, told the judge that he would have murdered Paul Posey himself if he had known then what he believes now — that Paul was having sexual relations with Marilea for more than a year before their deaths.

"If I had known it, I would have killed Paul, and I would have killed Tryone for allowing it," said Schmid, who married Paul Posey's ex-wife after divorcing Tryone. "I don't know if that makes me psychopathic or just an insanely mad father, but I can understand how a person can snap and do something like that."

Then Schmid made the court a promise.

"If you give us a chance, we can help this boy," he vowed. "I give you my word that he will get all the help that he can get, and I give you my word he will never be a threat to society."

The sentencing hearing is being broadcast by Court TV and streamed live on the Web by Court TV Extra.