In closing arguments starting Monday, attorneys will be asking jurors to decide which version of 16-year-old Cody Posey's life they believe after three weeks of testimony in his murder trial.
Posey is accused of fatally shooting his father and stepmother, Paul and Tryone Posey, and his stepsister, 13-year-old Mary Lee Schmid, on July 5, 2004, and then trying to hide the killings on the southern New Mexico ranch where his father was the foreman.
On a videotape shown to the jury, he tearfully said he shot his stepmother first so she wouldn't call 911, then killed father and Mary Lee so she wouldn't tell on him.
Defense attorneys allege years of abuse led to the killings.
Dozens of witnesses have testified that the boy was hit, called names and isolated from friends by his family. And on the stand, Posey described his father burning him with a metal rod used for welding after he allegedly refused to have sex with his stepmother the night before the slayings.
But prosecutors contend the teen planned the slayings, then lied and tried to turn suspicion away from himself. Prosecution witnesses also testified they never saw a mark on Posey's body -- not a scrape, bruise or black eye.
Otero County District Attorney Scot Key said the case is simple: "He hated ranch life, he hated his parents, he's a developing psychopath, and he killed them."
Defense attorney Gary Mitchell called that description "absolutely, unequivocally a bald-faced and outright lie."
Mitchell said the boy -- 14 at the time of the killings -- had told teachers, family and friends about the alleged abuse, but the state failed to help him.
"This abuse against this child needs to end and that means the abuse by the state of New Mexico in prosecuting it, too," Mitchell said.
