As Peabody Trial Gets Underway, Defense Admits To Murders

PEABODY, MA — Wes Doughty was high and upset about a tangled web of relationships in a "crack house" on Farm Avenue in Peabody when he killed Mark Greenlaw and Jennifer O'Connor in February 2017, his lawyers said in opening statements of his trial Monday. The attorneys conceded their client killed the couple but will try to get the charges reduced to manslaughter. Prosecutors, meanwhile, said Doughty and Michael Hebb feared Greenlaw would pose competition for their crack-dealing business, and Hebb was upset that Greenlaw had had an affair with his girlfriend.

Prosecutors signaled that the girlfriend, Tina Cummiskey, will be a key witness in the trial, according to the Salem News. Both sides portrayed the trouble pasts of the parties involved in the case Monday and described the house at 19 Farm Avenue as a place where people came to buy and do drugs.