Teen who killed his family tells jury he just lost control

Slimdust

By Emanuella Grinberg
Source:Court TV.com

ALAMOGORDO, N.M. — A New Mexico teen said that after years of abuse, he simply lost it the morning he shot and killed his father, stepmother and stepsister on a ranch owned by Sam Donaldson.
"I more or less lost my mind," 16-year-old Cody Posey told the jury in his first-degree murder trial Friday. "I didn't know what I was thinking. I didn't know what I was doing. I was overwhelmed and I lost control of my emotions."
The teenage murder defendant's explanation for his actions concluded his second day of testimony, which included an extensive list of alleged incidents of mental and physical abuse at the hands of his father, Paul Posey, and his third wife, Tryone. But Otero County prosecutors claim Cody killed his disciplinarian parents simply because he hated the strict lifestyle they imposed on him.

In her questioning of the teen, children's court prosecutor Sandra Grisham attempted to poke holes in his stories and cast doubt on his claims that he was a well-behaved child who was undeserving of his parents' seemingly cruel treatment.
Cody testified that he reached his breaking point the evening before the July 5, 2004, shootings, when his parents called him into their room and ordered him to have sex with his stepmother.
"As I stood in front of the bed, Tryone pulled down the covers and was lying there completely naked," the soft-spoken teen said. "I believe she was telling me something like that being that we were not family, it was an OK thing to do."
When he refused, he said his stepmother held his head to her breast as his father burned him with a lit butane torch.
The next morning, after a confrontation with his father over chores that ended with Paul Posey backhanding his son, Cody got his sister's .38-caliber special, went into the house and shot and killed his family.
"I was getting overwhelmed by what happened to me," Cody testified stoically as his maternal aunt, Corliss Clees, sat dabbing tears in the audience. "I remember going into the barn, putting away the tools and just thinking to myself about my emotions and why I had to be the one who was hit and why I had to be the one who had the situation the night before."
But Grisham, who said earlier in the day that "98 percent" of Cody's accounts were new to her, questioned why he never told psychologists of them.
The prosecutor also attempted to minimize Cody's credibility by suggesting he had exaggerated or misconstrued the events altogether. She also highlighted previously unmentioned disciplinary problems.
"Did you get in trouble for bringing a knife to school?" Grisham asked.
"Yes," Cody answered. "I remember the incident, but I don't remember if I had a knife or not."
He also admitted that he was caught smoking marijuana "on occasion" at school and that his father had "suspicions" about it. He refused, however, to concede that any of the alleged punishments were related to his smoking.
She also asked Cody to read a bizarre 2,000-word essay "on why I screwed up" that he said his father forced him to write.

"In my life there were only two or three years where I was really having no problems. Those were happy years. Before my problems, I would do my work and would not backtalk to my teachers, all of which are problems now," Cody read aloud from the essay, which he guessed he wrote when he was 13 or 14.
"I guess I never understood that people would not want to be friends with a person who gets bad grades and gets in trouble."
But when his lawyer questioned him further, Cody said he didn't write the essay in his own words, but rather, at the direction of his father.
"I remember asking why I received the punishment I did and was told to write this essay," Cody said. "He wanted me to write what he wanted to hear."
Witnesses to abuse
The defense also called the first of its witnesses Friday to corroborate Cody's accounts of abuse — friends he had not seen since he was arrested in 2004.
Dressed in Wrangler jeans, a leather vest and cowboy boots, Donaldson ranch hand Isabel "Pilo" Vasquez related examples of Paul Posey's abusive behavior that were nearly identical to those Cody had described.

Testifying through a Spanish-language interpreter, Vasquez described the time he saw Posey threaten his young son with a hay hook for popping the clutch in a pick-up truck.
"He told him, 'The next time that you do that with the truck, with the same pitchfork I'm going to cut your' — excuse me, I don't know how you say this — 'balls,'" Vasquez said, through his interpreter.
Vasquez also corroborated Cody's claims that his father threw rocks at him and beat him regularly in front of others for "no reason."
Neighbor and fellow ranch hand Clint Skeen also testified to the tension that seemed to permeate Cody's life.
"When Cody was around me, I could tell he was happy, but when Paul entered the picture, I could tell he was like a whipped dog. He put his head down and you could tell he was real nervous," testified Skeen, who said he believed that Paul Posey intentionally moved Cody away from him when he realized the two teens were getting along.
He also supported Cody's claims of Tryone's alleged involvement in the abuse.
"She would scream at him like Paul would, cuss at him, call him the same names," the 18-year-old testified, sneaking the occasional glance at his friend sitting at the defense table.

Slimdust

Reading, and watching the trial, I feel for this kid. He was abused and he just lost it. I hope he just gets help and gets no jail time.

Randy Orton

WC's Resident Alchoholic

Sounds like he should go in the nut house. but they will probably send him to jail.

Twisted Nerve

nah he needs help, i agree with slim .

Necro

I say they shoot him in the head

Mr. Kennedy

I hate when people try and say people shouldn't be punished for commiting a crime by saying the person was insane or suffered abuse. While I do feel sorry for him if he was abused, he still murdered human beings and at the very least should spend the rest of his life in prison.

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Necro

I agree I know a lot of people that were mentally and physically beaten they aren't going around taken out people and shit

Slimdust

But he was 14 when he killed them. Im a christian, im not saying killing is the right thing to do, he ws just abused everyday, they starved him, tortured him, and they even tried to make him have sex with his stepmom. The kid just lost it one day, just because of that, i dont think he should spend the rest of his life in jail.

Necro

14?

shit I could see if the dude was like 8, but 14?

come on now thats old enough to realize you cant just shoot someone cause you are in a sucky situation.

Slimdust

Yes of course, Im just saying he snapped. And considering what was happening to him, I feel bad. It is never righ to kill someone, the kid just snapped one day. I dont think he should spen the rest of his life in jail.