Hondo, N.M. — The 14-year-old son of the manager of ABC newsman Sam Donaldson's New Mexico ranch was arrested Wednesday on charges of murdering his father, stepmother and stepsister, authorities said.
Cody Posey was arrested at a friend's home in the Hondo area around 5 p.m., Sheriff Tom Sullivan said.
The bodies were found at the ranch after Mr. Donaldson went to the manger's house on Tuesday and discovered an “obvious crime scene,” Sheriff Sullivan said earlier. Deputies searched the area and found three bodies in a shallow grave.
The dead were identified as Delbert Paul Posey, the teen's father; his stepsister, Mary Lee Schmie, 14; and his stepmother, whose name was withheld because her relatives had not been notified, Sheriff Sullivan said.
“My wife Jan and I are shocked by the apparent triple homicide that took place on our ranch some time over the Fourth of July weekend while we were away in Santa Fe,” Mr. Donaldson said in a statement before the arrest.
The Lincoln County ranch is in rolling pastureland about 200 kilometres northeast of Las Cruces.
Mr. Donaldson, a journalist with ABC since 1967, owns three ranches in south-central New Mexico and has extensive ties to the state. He grew up on a cotton farm in New Mexico and graduated from New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell.
