Despite Suicide Theory, Entwistle Guilty in Murder of Wife & Baby
Updated: The defense contended that 27-year-old Rachel Entwistle shot her 9-month-old baby daughter to death and then committed suicide.
But Massachusetts jurors didn’t buy that story, and convicted her husband, Neil, today of two counts of first-degree murder, according to the Boston Globe. The high-profile crime, in January 2006, had put the seemingly happy family on the cover of People magazine, which asked, in a headline, “Who killed Rachel and her baby?”
Counsel for Neil Entwistle, 29, told the jury the unemployed computer engineer had panicked after finding the dead bodies of his wife and daughter, fleeing in a distraught state to his native England, where he was arrested in February 2006, according to the newspaper. But first he returned the .22 with which they apparently had been shot to his father-in-law’s home in Carver, attorney Elliott Weinstein said.
“Neil saw the .22 and knew instantly what had happened, and in those moments he knew what he had to do and what he couldn’t do. He had to get the .22 back to Carver, and he couldn’t call the police because he couldn’t tell them what Rachel did. He wouldn’t tell them because he wouldn’t tarnish Rachel’s memory,” he told the jury.
Circumstantial evidence, however, told a different story, prosecutor Michael Fabbri contended in closed arguments. “Why would Rachel commit suicide?” he asked the jury. “Is there any evidence before you that suggests she had the desire or intent to commit suicide?”
Neil Entwistle will be sentenced tomorrow and is expected to get a mandatory life term with no possibility of parole.
The defense version of the crime was apparently persuasive to at least two trial-goers: his parents, Yvonne and Clifford Entwistle, according to the Boston Herald.
“We know that our son Neil is innocent and we are devastated to learn that the evidence points to Rachel murdering our grandchild and then [committing] suicide,” Yvonne Entwistle said soon after the guilty verdict, adding that she knew her daughter-in-law was depressed.
“Our son,” she continued, “will now go to jail for loving, honoring and protecting his wife’s memory.”
Since this post was originally written, Entwistle has been sentenced, as discussed in a subsequent ABAJournal.com post.
Updated at 2 p.m., central time, on June 26, 2008, to include link to sentencing information.
