GLOUCESTER, Mass. — One of three men suspected of participating in a killing at a Gloucester funeral home in 1976 has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of breaking and entering and agreed cooperate with investigators against a co-defendant.
Prosecutors say 56-year-old Kevin Ireland was sentenced in Salem Superior Court to six to seven years in prison, with two years to serve.
The Gloucester Daily Times reports that because he had already served two years since his arrest in 2010, he walked free.
Ireland had been charged with murder. That charge was dropped in exchange for his cooperation against Norman Pike, one of his alleged accomplices in the slaying of Eleanor Wadsworth at the Pike Funeral Home.
A third man suspected of taking part in the killing has died.
According to the Daily Times, Ireland, who was 21 at the time of the murder, allegedly broke into the funeral home with Pike, now 54, and Richard Kennedy to steal $1,400 from the safe.
Pike is the grandson of the then-funeral home’s owner.
Police say Wadsworth walked in on the burglary and was shot three times. The crime was committed on Dec. 2, 1976.
Pike had been living in California under the name Dan Franklin before his arrest.
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