If it wasn't so completely inappropriate to laugh at his story/use the laughing smileys here I would
Is Mark Geragos busy?
Entwistle told police he found his family slain
Agrees to return to Mass.
By Jonathan Saltzman and Donovan Slack, Globe Staff | February 11, 2006
Neil Entwistle told investigators he found his wife and 9-month-old daughter dead from gunshot wounds after returning home from an errand, covered them on the bed with a comforter, and grabbed a knife to kill himself but could not do it, according to a police affidavit that portrayed the accused killer as deeply in debt and unhappy with his sex life.
In a phone call three days after the slayings, Entwistle told investigators he then drove about 50 miles from his Hopkinton house to his father-in-law's house in Carver to get a gun to shoot himself, said the affidavit. But he could not get into the house, he said, so he drove to Logan International Airport and took a flight to his native England.
Entwistle agreed yesterday to return to Massachusetts to face two first-degree murder charges and could be back by the middle of next week.
Prosecutors theorize that the 27-year-old unemployed engineer was so despondent about his finances and family situation that he planned a murder-suicide.
The affidavit offers for the first time Entwistle's account of the deaths three weeks ago of his wife, Rachel, and daughter, Lillian. The affidavit also contained new details about prosecutors' evidence against Entwistle:
# Forensic tests of the .22-caliber revolver, which Entwistle allegedly took from his father-in-law's house some time before the murders and returned hours after the killings, detected Neil Entwistle's DNA on the grip and his wife's DNA on the muzzle. Criminal lawyers have said the DNA on the muzzle could have come from Rachel Entwistle's blood or tissue after she was shot in the head at close range.
# Entwistle, whose recent business ventures on the Internet apparently generated complaints but little income, was ''tens of thousands of dollars" in debt and unable to find a job.
# Entwistle had ''recently expressed a dissatisfaction with his sex life."
The court documents do not give further details.
But a source with knowledge of the investigation told the Globe that police have evidence that Entwistle tried to find escort services, although it was unclear whether he actually met with anyone from such services. Investigators gleaned that information from computer equipment seized by police, the source said.
The affidavit was filed by a Hopkinton police sergeant in support of obtaining the arrest warrant used to take Entwistle into custody at a London subway station on Thursday. It was unsealed yesterday with prosecutors' blessing.
A Framingham District Court clerk-magistrate said yesterday that on Monday the court may release hundreds of pages of other affidavits, which were filed to obtain a half-dozen search warrants. Investigators searched the Entwistles' rented house in Hopkinton and the family's BMW that was found at Logan, among other items.
A spokesman for Rachel Entwistle's mother and stepfather said the family had no comment on the documents released yesterday or the investigation. But Joseph and Priscilla Matterazzo took some solace in Entwistle's decision yesterday not to fight extradition from England, said the spokesman, Joseph Flaherty.
''Look, it doesn't bring back Rachel or Lillian," said Flaherty, a friend of the family. ''They were prepared to wait as long as they had to wait to bring someone to justice. . . . Certainly, it's going to be quicker than they thought it was going to be 24 hours ago. But at the end of the day, the tragedy's not going to be reversed because he happens to come back sooner."
Wearing sweatpants and slip-on shoes, Entwistle appeared tired but confident in a London courtroom yesterday morning, with his chin held high and his lips curled into a half-smile for most of the three-minute hearing.
The most visible sign of emotion came as he left the defendants' bay after his lawyers said he would not fight extradition. He turned to his father, who sat near the door.
''I'm OK, Dad," he said softly. ''It's OK."
Clifford Entwistle nodded silently as his son was led from the courtroom.
One of Neil Entwistle's lawyers, Judith Seddon of London, said afterward that her client believes he will get a fair trial on the ''very serious" charges against him and wanted to go to Massachusetts as soon as possible.
''He is anxious that any delay could cause his late wife's family, and his own, additional distress," Seddon told a crowd of reporters outside Bow Street Magistrates Court.
In a hearing Thursday, Entwistle, a British citizen, had said he wasn't ready to agree to extradition. But Seddon said she had advised her client to think about it. ''He was always inclined to consent," she said yesterday.
British authorities yesterday signed a surrender warrant that clears the US Marshals Service to bring Entwistle back to Massachusetts, said Paul Dunne, assistant chief deputy for the Boston marshals office.
Dunne said the marshals are unlikely to fly to England until next week because of a snowstorm expected this weekend in the Northeast. He said Entwistle will probably return to Massachusetts by mid-week.
Emily LaGrassa, a spokeswoman for Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley, said she had no information on who intends to represent Entwistle at his arraignment in Framingham.
Coakley, speaking on ABC's ''Good Morning America," said prosecutors would ask that Entwistle be held without bail pending trial, which she said would probably begin in nine to 12 months. If convicted of first-degree murder, he would face life in prison without possibility of parole.
His decision to return to Massachusetts voluntarily is the latest twist in a murder mystery that was on the cover of People magazine last week and has been nightly fodder on cable news shows.
It started on Jan. 20, a Friday. Prosecutors say Entwistle shot his wife in the head and his daughter in the chest as they lay together on the bed of the master bedroom. Hopkinton police found the bodies on Sunday evening.
The next morning, Coakley announced the slayings and immediately labeled Entwistle ''a person of interest" in the investigation.
But Entwistle told police that someone else killed his family, when authorities called him at his parents' home in Worksop, England, that same day, according to the affidavit.
He told investigators that he found the bodies at 11 a.m. on Jan. 20, two hours after he left them in the master bedroom of their rented Hopkinton house to run an errand. Entwistle said he ''did not call for emergency assistance, but instead covered them up and got a knife to kill himself, but could not go through with it," said the affidavit.
He then told investigators he drove the BMW to Carver to get a gun from his father-in-law's home collection of firearms to kill himself, said the affidavit.
Although Entwistle told investigators he could not get into the house, police found keys to his in-laws' house locked inside the BMW seized at a Logan parking garage, the affidavit said.
It also said that Entwistle took no luggage with him on the British Airways flight that left Logan on Jan. 21, the day after the killings, and left the keys to the car locked inside.
A motion to keep the affidavit sealed says that Entwistle acknowledged that before leaving the country, he did not notify authorities that his family had been killed.
Rachel Entwistle's stepfather and others were ''ruled out" as suspects, according to the source with knowledge of the investigation. Since the .22-caliber revolver that prosecutors say was the murder weapon belonged to Joseph Matterazzo, he was questioned, but investigators concluded he was at work when the killings happened, the source said.