Deaths Bring Hondo Teen to Court; Lawyer Denies Charges Sunday, 20 January 2008 By Rene Romo
ALAMOGORDO— As a subdued 14-year-old Cody Posey stood by, defense attorney Gary Mitchell denied charges that the teen fatally shot his father, stepmother and stepsister at the Hondo Valley ranch of ABC newsman Sam Donaldson.
Posey wore glasses, blue jeans and a T-shirt, his shoes taped up in lieu of laces, during his first appearance before Judge James Counts on charges that he committed one of the worst crimes in Lincoln County history.
”This is quite a young man,” defense attorney Gary Mitchell told reporters after the hearing. “Something happened to him.
“You have a young man who’s shattered, who needs lots of love and attention to understand everything going on in his life.”
Mitchell and 12th Judicial District Attorney Scot Key agreed to give Key 30 days to notify the court whether it will seek to prosecute Posey as an adult.
Mitchell later said he needed extra time to complete his own investigation of the case, including allegations the boy had been verbally and physically abused by his father, and to have Posey undergo psychological evaluation.
Deaths Bring Hondo Teen to Court; Lawyer Denies Charges
BSHTAGPARSER:CTPROVIDER:Albuquerque journal title: Deaths Bring Hondo Teen to Court; Lawyer Denies charges copyright:Copyright 2004 Albuquerque journal author: Rene Romo ORIGINAL PHOTO PATH = #PHOTOPATH1# BSHSTARTBODYBy Rene Romo
ALAMOGORDO— As a subdued 14-year-old Cody Posey stood by, defense attorney Gary Mitchell denied charges that the teen fatally shot his father, stepmother and stepsister at the Hondo Valley ranch of ABC newsman Sam Donaldson.
Posey wore glasses, blue jeans and a T-shirt, his shoes taped up in lieu of laces, during his first appearance before Judge James Counts on charges that he committed one of the worst crimes in Lincoln County history.
”This is quite a young man,” defense attorney Gary Mitchell told reporters after the hearing. “Something happened to him.
“You have a young man who’s shattered, who needs lots of love and attention to understand everything going on in his life.”
Mitchell and 12th Judicial District Attorney Scot Key agreed to give Key 30 days to notify the court whether it will seek to prosecute Posey as an adult.
Mitchell later said he needed extra time to complete his own investigation of the case, including allegations the boy had been verbally and physically abused by his father, and to have Posey undergo psychological evaluation.
Key said in an interview that he planned to seek a grand jury indictment against Posey to give prosecutors six months, instead of the 30 days required in children’s court, to begin the trial. And, while the case will be tried in Children’s Court, prosecutors will keep open the possibility of seeking adult sanctions against Posey, Key said.
Key said he would weigh the ”brutal” facts of the triple homicide against any mitigating facts, such as alleged parental abuse of Posey.
Several members of the Hondo community attended the hearing to support Posey, saying in interviews afterward that they believe he was abused by his father.
”We’ll look at all of the evidence before making a decision about how to go after it, and that includes mitigating and aggravating circumstances, if there are any,” Key said.
”Lest we forget, there are three victims and three victims’ families that want a thoughtful consideration of the evidence,” the prosecutor said.
If designated a “youthful offender” under New Mexico law, Posey would face juvenile penalties. The maximum penalty would be remaining in the custody of the Children, Youth and Families Department until he turns 21.
If tried and found guilty as an adult, Posey would face maximum penalties of 30 years for each count of murder and three years for each of the four counts of tampering with evidence.
Posey told investigators he shot his 44-year-old stepmother, Tryone Posey, his 34-year-old father, Delbert Paul Posey, and his 13-year-old stepsister, Mary Lee Schmid, on Monday after his father slapped him for not cleaning horse stalls fast enough, according to a court affidavit.
Cody Posey told investigators he ”was tired of being hit by his father,” who was foreman of Donaldson’s Chavez Canyon Ranch, where the Posey family lived, the affidavit says.
Posey used a backhoe to bury the bodies in a manure pile, the affidavit said. He was arrested by sheriff’s deputies at a friend’s house in the Hondo area Wednesday evening, a day after Donaldson discovered the crime scene at the Posey home.
Key said that Donaldson undoubtedly would be a witness in the case to testify about what he saw and “perhaps what he didn’t see.”
Cody Posey’s aunt told the Journal this week that the boy had complained of abuse before Delbert Paul Posey regained custody of the child in 2000. The boy saw his biological mother die in a traffic accident in Wyoming in 2000.
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Woman Acquitted In Death Of Daughter
Sunday, 20 January 2008 ROSWELL EMDASH(AP)
Jurors have cleared a woman in the death of her 3-year-old daughter in Roswell. A jury deliberated three hours before acquitting Veronica Bogey last week of three child abuse charges. State District Judge Charles Currier earlier tossed out two other child abuse charges, saying the state had not presented sufficient evidence. Authorities alleged Grace Bogey, who was born with spina bifida and was paralyzed from the waist down, died Sept. 2, 2000, from head injuries resulting from abuse. But Veronica Bogey’s attorney, Gary Mitchell, said the child died of pneumonia.
Woman Acquitted In Death Of Daughter
ROSWELL EMDASH(AP) — Jurors have cleared a woman in the death of her 3-year-old daughter in Roswell.
A jury deliberated three hours before acquitting Veronica Bogey last week of three child abuse charges. State District Judge Charles Currier earlier tossed out two other child abuse charges, saying the state had not presented sufficient evidence.
Authorities alleged Grace Bogey, who was born with spina bifida and was paralyzed from the waist down, died Sept. 2, 2000, from head injuries resulting from abuse.
But Veronica Bogey’s attorney, Gary Mitchell, said the child died of pneumonia.
The state Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque ruled the death a homicide because of injuries to her head and body.
The defense brought in four doctors to look at the autopsy report and study two sets of X-rays taken of the child at the hospital before her death and by the Office of the Medical Investigator after her death.
The OMI said the child had a broken arm; the doctors testified for the defense that neither X-ray showed a broken arm at the time of her death.
“We just spent hundreds of hours researching all of the medical records, the literature, and looking at things they had never looked at and found that she died of pneumonia,” Mitchell said.
Veronica Bogey was arrested June 24, 2002, at her North Carolina home and was extradited to Roswell a month later.
The charges had been brought by the state attorney general’s office, partly on the basis of doctors from the OMI and the University of New Mexico.
Attorney General Patricia Madrid said she was disappointed in the outcome. “These cases are very difficult to try,” she said.
