Defense: First-degree murder does not fit Lynn killings

SALEM – Joseph Wright III told authorities he slit the throats of his mother and his grandmother then dumped their bodies in a school yard because “they were holding (him) back,” a prosecutor said Thursday.Wright’s defense attorney said his client admitted to the killings; but Wright did not kill with the elements required for first-degree murder.”He does not deny he killed his mother and grandmother on April 30,” Defense Attorney John Morris said in Salem Superior Court. “He does deny he did with premeditation and extreme atrocity and cruelty.”Joseph Wright III, 25, has been charged with first-degree murder in the 2012 deaths of Donna Breau, 54, and Melba Trahant, 83. Breau was Wright’s mother and Trahant his grandmother.Prosecutor Michael Patten opened the trial with “an overview of evidence,” beginning from April 30, 2012, when Wright is alleged to have killed his mother and grandmother at 94 Sheridan St. in Lynn, where the three were living at the time. Patten told the jury how the bodies were discovered wrapped up in tarps behind Lynnhurst Elementary School in Saugus, and how Wright fled to Canada in Trahant’s Toyota Corolla and “floored it” when asked to stop by border patrol.Then Patten described how investigators found blood on Wright’s clothes, in the car and on a knife in the kitchen of Breau’s apartment. Patten said DNA from the blood was, in some cases, matched to the dead women.Then Patten described how Wright reacted when Canadian police told him he was being charged with running from the border.”?I’ll tell you why I ran,'” Patten told the jury that Wright said. “?I killed my mother and grandmother and left their bodies by a school.'” Wright then told the officials the victims were holding him back. “I couldn’t do anything,” Wright allegedly said.But then Patten asked jurors to consider the evidence not just in connecting Wright to the killings but in showing the defendant’s “state of mind.”Patten asked jurors to consider how Wright allegedly removed the bodies from the Sheridan Street home, “hiding the bodies” in a school yard, and the graphic pictures of the evidence that would show the “extreme atrocity and cruelty” of the killings.Morris began his opening statement by telling jurors Wright admitted killing his relatives. But Morris said there were “mitigating factors” that prevented the killings from rising to first-degree murder.Morris said Breau had mental-health issues and Wright and Breau were abusing drugs and alcohol together before the killings. Morris also told jurors that the photographic evidence and testimony would be graphic. But he asked jurors to put aside emotional reactions and use “cold calculation” to determine whether drug and alcohol abuse and use influenced the killings.The witness testimony largely followed the themes as presented in opening statements: The prosecution witnesses established the relationship among the victims and Wright and then chronicled the discovery of the bodies and the police response.Morris spent little time in cross examination challenging the evidence observed and collected by authorities. Rather, Morris focused on evidence authorities either did not collect or did not deem significant.Morris asked Wright’s half-brother Donald Blaney why he didn’t talk to the defense’s investigator outside the courtroom that morning.Morris questioned Massachusetts State Sgt. Anthony Schena on whether he remembered seeing, or whether police collected, the four pill bottles in one of the crime-scene photos. Schena said he did not remember the pill bottles. Schena acknowledged the green plastic baggies shown in photographs of Trahant’s car were consistent with bags used to package street drugs. Wright also had a pint of Jim Beam and a disposable soda cup in the car. The soda cup was not tested for alcohol residue, according to testimony. Nor was Wright’s blood tested for drugs or alcohol.”Do you know what else they didn’t collect?” Morris asked. When Schena did not answer immediatel