If the jury convicts Couey of capital murder, his mental capacity will become the focal point of the penalty phase and an upcoming mental retardation hearing.

Defense lawyers hinted at their strategy Tuesday afternoon by calling a forensic psychologist, who testified that Couey met the legal standard for mental retardation.

Speaking in broad terms, Dr. Robert Berland testified that Couey had an IQ of 64 and suffered from paranoid delusions and hallucinations that began early in childhood.

Berland testified that Couey's "sub-average" mental functioning made him more likely to admit to the crimes in an effort to gain the favor of his jailers.

"The mental illness, the retardation would have increased the likelihood that the circumstances in the jail would propel him to talk about crime," Berland said, referring to several alleged jailhouse statements the jury heard about Tuesday.

Corrections officer John Read testified that Couey admitted to him to abducting Jessica from her bed and raping her, and then placing her in two plastic bags and burying her alive three days later.

"He said he could not bring himself to directly kill her by his own hands," said Read, who guarded Couey in Citrus County jail while he awaited trial for Jessica's murder. "He said he did not mean to kill her, that he panicked when police came around."

"Did he indicate to you whether she was alive?" Assistant State Attorney Richard Ridgway said.

"She was alive," Read testified, as Jessica's parents glared at the defendant from across the courtroom.

The testimony came as no great revelation to court observers or parties involved in the case, who already know that Couey confessed once to abducting Jessica from her home on Feb. 23, 2005.

In 2006, Judge Howard tossed the confession, after finding that investigators illegally interrogated Couey by ignoring his request for an attorney.

In the absence of his police confession, lawyers for Couey have suggested that authorities put pressure on people like Read, who were in positions of influence over Couey, to elicit incriminating statements from him.

Howard decided to allow the statements as evidence for the jury, who were perhaps the only people in the courtroom to learn of the shocking jailhouse confession for the first time Tuesday.

Read testified that Couey said he only intended to rob the Lunsford home in Homosassa, Fla. Instead, Couey allegedly said, he lured Jessica her from her room by telling her he was bringing her to her father, and transported her to his trailer about 60 yards away.

According to Read, Couey said Jessica spent about three days in his room, either on his bed or in hiding in his closet whenever police came to his home.

"He said on the first day there, they engaged in sexual activity," Read testified, prompting one male juror to look over at the defendant. "He said she bled ... she made some joke, that she had the rag on."

Read's colleague, Nathalia Windham, testified that Couey once remarked to her about how Jessica would "play" with him sexually.

"He said for a 9-year-old girl, that she knew a lot more than she should have known," Windham testified.

Several jurors dabbed tears as Windham testified that Couey allegedly told her how he convinced Jessica to get into the garbage bags.

"He told he was going to take her home," Windham nervously testified. "He told her to get into a plastic bag because he didn't want people seeing her cross the street."

"After she was in the plastic bag, what did he do?" Ridgway asked the witness.
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"He put her in the hole," she said.

While some parts of Couey's alleged jailhouse confession were corroborated by physical evidence, even the medical examiner who performed Jessica's autopsy conceded that he could not conclusively state that she was buried alive.

Read testified that Couey said he tied Jessica's wrists and ankles and placed her in two garbage bags before putting her in a hole he dug behind his trailer.

But in testimony Tuesday morning, forensic pathologist Steven Cogswell said that he found ligatures only around Jessica's wrists when he performed her autopsy.

Cogswell also said that he could not be certain that Jessica was alive when she was buried. He said he was only sure that she was alive when she was placed in the bag, based on the fact that two of her fingers were poking through the bags.

"Certainly, we know she was alive when she was in the bag," testified Cogswell, who is the chief medical examiner for the 11th judicial circuit. "This bag was not pulled over her fingers. She was pushing her fingers out through the bag."

"Do you have an opinion as to whether she was in the ground when that occurred?" prosecutor Peter Magrino asked.

"It's not possible to say definitely whether she was in the ground when she pushed her fingers through the bag," Cogswell testified.

Cogswell said he was fairly certain that Jessica sustained vaginal trauma indicative of rape shortly before she was killed.

He also placed her time of death at approximately three weeks before the discovery of her body, which lent credibility to Couey's timeline.

Jessica's grandmother, Ruth Lunsford, testified that she tucked her granddaughter into bed after 9 p.m. on Feb 23. Her body was discovered in Couey's backyard early in the morning of March 19.

"I believe her time of death was approximately three weeks prior to her being found. I base this on her stage of decomposition within being in a trash bag in shallow grave," Cogswell testified.

"That's around the end of February, first week of March?" Magrino asked.

The witness nodded his head.

The trial is being streamed live on the Web at Court TV Extra.