A Haverhill man was convicted Tuesday of first-degree murder with extreme atrocity or cruelty in the 2019 killing of an 82-year-old man inside his Groveland home during a burglary, Essex County District Attorney Paul Tucker’s office announced.
Leedell Graham was also found guilty of breaking and entering with the intent to commit larceny over $1,200 following a jury trial in Salem Superior Court, Tucker’s office said. He will be sentenced on Friday.
On June 21, 2019, Graham entered Patsy “Pat” Schena’s home on Governor’s Road in Groveland, intending to burglarize it. When Schena returned home, Graham beat him to death with a lamp and stabbed him with a knife. Graham was arrested later that same month, according to Tucker’s office.
Schena worked as a building inspector in Groveland for nearly four decades.
During the trial, prosecutors presented an “array” of video evidence showing Graham near Schena’s home at the time of the murder and DNA evidence implicating him in the killing, according to the statement.
“While no one can undo this horrific murder, we hope that the verdict in this case brings Mr. Schena’s family some small measure of peace in the knowledge that justice has been served,” Tucker said in the statement.
