Comment 5 for bug 1653351

(In reply to comment #1)
> The message is deleted but the message window stays open and its contents
> change to the next message in the mailbox. This is bad.

Try going to Tools -> Options (or Edit -> Preferences, or Eudora -> Preferences, or whatever it might be on your system) and opening the Advanced section, Reading & Display tab, and checking the box `Close message window on delete`.
Evidently the default for this pref changed in Thunderbird between Eudora 8.0b6 and 8.0b7.

I have the vague feeling that the rest of this bug* is probably a duplicate.

*This is not completely clear, by the way: where are the messages being viewed and deleted, respectively? from the preview pane and message pane? from a message window/tab and the message pane? from a message window/tab and the same window/tab?

If the message is being viewed in a window or tab, it doesn't seem to me to be helpful to do anything on deletion other than closing the window/tab, or moving to the next message.
If the message is being viewed in the preview pane, you could have an extra option to navigate the preview pane to the home page and deselect all messages, which is what it seems this bug is *probably* about.