On 12 January, the couple moved to a luxurious rented four-bedroom Colonial home in Hopkinton, a 45-minute drive away from Rachel’s family. The house had three bathrooms and an eight-person Jacuzzi. Neil Entwistle paid a two-month deposit plus a month’s rent with cheques which cleared and said that he hoped to buy the house once his offshore accounts were moved to the US. He also kitted out the house with expensive upmarket furniture and leased a white BMW, both on credit. But the money that he’d made from his get-rich-quick schemes was running out and he knew that he’d never be able to pay the bills.
Until now, he’d been something of a fantasist, always able to convince himself that his next idea would bring in serious wealth, but now he was listed on various sites that warned customers of internet scams and he’d maxed out on most of their credit cards. Rachel must also have been aware that he was letting people down, as he’d used her email account and she received hate mail from dissatisfied customers.
Four days after they moved in, Rachel used one of their credit cards but it was refused through lack of funds. It’s believed that the couple had a serious argument. Rachel went to bed early and Neil accessed a porn site, doubtless bringing himself to orgasm in order to relax. That same night, someone using his ‘ent’ username asked a search engine to list the best ways to kill someone and also typed in the search for ‘how to kill with a knife.’ The following afternoon, the same account was used to search for ‘knife in neck kill’ and ‘quick suicide method.’ In the same timeframe, Neil sent a photograph of himself, leaning back in a chair and clutching his erection, to an adult sex site.
On the 18th, Rachel questioned Neil about an interview that he was going for, and he angrily reassured her that he would get the job and make lots of money. In reality, it had fallen through and he had no other prospects. That night, he again trawled the internet for sex, looking at pornography in a bid to distract himself from thinking about his debts. How could be admit to his wife and in-laws that he wanted more than a conventional marriage could offer and that he was verging on bankruptcy? His parents-in-law had treated him like a son and believed that he was completely devoted to their beloved daughter and grandchild, that he could financially support his little family.
On the evening of Thursday 19 January, Rachel spoke to her mother briefly on the phone, telling her that she was still busy unpacking items for the new house and preparing for a forthcoming dinner party. That same day, either she or Neil took yet another photo of a beaming Lilian. But, on the Friday, Rachel failed to answer her mother’s calls as she – and baby Lilian – were dead.
THE MURDERS
When friends, whom the couple had invited around for dinner, arrived at the house on the Saturday night and couldn’t get an answer, they called the police. They investigated to find that the television was on downstairs and that the radio was playing in the baby’s bedroom. The couple’s basset hound, Sally, was in a crate without food though she had a bowl of water. The friends walked and fed the animal before returning her to the lounge. The couple’s BMW was missing from the garage but Rachel’s mobile phone was in the house, filled with messages from worried family and friends.
Police noticed linen crumpled on top of the couple’s bed but they didn’t investigate further. If they had done so, they would have found the corpses of Rachel and Lilian Rose lying beneath. Satisfied that no foul play had taken place, they locked up the house – which unusually had all of the shutters down – and left.
The following day, Rachel’s friends and family begged them to return as there was still no sign of the family and the dog was sounding increasingly distressed. This time when officers entered the house they could smell decomposition and traced it to the master bedroom. Gingerly lifting a corner of the quilt, they saw a foot.
Early reports said that the mother and baby had been beaten about the face, but no further information has emerged on this so it’s possible that decomposition had initially been mistaken for bruising. Both 27-year-old Rachel and nine-month-old Lilian appeared to have been shot whilst sleeping, one bullet going through Rachel’s forehead whilst the other entered Lilian’s stomach, causing massive internal injuries, went through her body and lodged in Rachel’s chest. Rachel had died instantly but the baby had lived for a few minutes, curled into her mother’s breast. The weapon was a Colt .22 calibre revolver. This was one of the guns which Rachel Entwistle’s stepfather owned and had taught Neil how to shoot.
The couple’s BMW was missing, but was found at Logan International Airport, Boston. Investigators found that Neil Entwistle had driven it there and boarded a plane to England at 8.15am on 21 January. Arriving in London, he rented a car and drove for 800 miles with breaks, eventually spending the night in a hotel in his home town of Worksop. On Sunday 23, he arrived at his parents’ house.
NEIL ENTWISTLE’S STORY
On Monday at 11.30am, Neil’s father, Clifford Entwistle, phoned Rachel’s stepfather, Joseph Matterazzo, and said that Neil had called him and explained that something had happened to Rachel and the baby. ‘What did he tell you?’ Joe asked guardedly.
Cliff said that Neil had gone out for 20 minutes on the morning of Friday 21 and returned to find his family murdered in the bedroom. He’d called the police then driven to Matterazzo’s house but found it empty, had become confused and taken a flight back to England. Cliff added that he didn’t know where Neil currently was.
Joe hung up on him in disgust, but moments later the phone rang again and this time Neil was on the line. He said that he’d gone out, come back and found them ‘like that’ and didn’t know what happened. Joe again hung up and phoned the state police. The following day, they declared Neil Entwistle ‘a person of interest’ to the enquiry. They had by now autopsied the bodies, and only then became aware that Rachel had been shot in the head as the bullet hole was small and hidden by her hair.
Neil now spoke on the phone to a detective, saying that he’d come back from a shopping trip to find that his family had been shot. This was of interest to investigators as the cause of death hadn’t been apparent when they found the bodies: it was only when they moved Lilian away from her mother that they saw the entry wound in Rachel’s chest, and it was only when Rachel was autopsied that they found that she’d also been shot above her hairline. Upon finding the bodies, Neil continued, he’d decided to commit suicide and had grabbed a kitchen knife then put it back, fearing that stabbing himself to death would hurt too much.
He then drove to his in-laws’, planning to shoot himself with one of his father-in-law’s guns, but the couple were out at work and he no longer had his key so left and took a plane to England to be with his parents. (Detectives knew this was a lie as they’d found keys to his in-laws’ house in his BMW.)
For the rest of the week he remained behind closed doors with his parents. By now, the double murder had become international news and reporters were camped outside the Entwistle’s immaculately-painted home. When he briefly left the house on 31 January, he was watched by Worksop police as American detectives had asked them to keep an eye on him.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts detectives continued to investigate the deaths of his wife and daughter. Remembering that he’d mentioned Joseph Matterazzo’s guns, they sent them for forensic tests and found Rachel’s DNA on the muzzle of the .22 calibre Colt, suggesting that she had been shot from 18 inches away, so close that tiny droplets of blood and brain matter had splattered onto the gun’s muzzle. Rachel had never handled the gun, but Joe had taught Neil to shoot with it.
Seven weeks after she was baptised, Lilian Rose and her mother were buried. Neil Entwistle did not return to the states to attend the double funeral, though he went back to the place where he’d met Rachel for the first time and spent the day there. ‘Never ask why God allowed this to happen,’ the priest said before telling mourners that their deity wasn’t to blame.
Though he must have known that his arrest was pending, Neil Entwistle remained obsessed with money. On 7 February, he p
honed the landlord of the murder house and asked for his deposit back. On the 8th, a US judge signed off a warrant for his arrest.
ARREST
On the 9th, Neil Entwistle, with phone numbers of escort agencies in his pocket, went to London for the day with a friend and got on the Tube. When he heard that detectives were waiting for him on the platform, he asked his friend if there was any way that he could avoid them. There wasn’t and, shortly before midday, Scotland Yard arrested him. In his pocket they found notes about his life story and how he could sell it to the highest bidding newspaper. He wrote that he had so much material that they could serialise it over an entire week. After spending a night in a British jail, he said that he did not want to fight extradition and was duly returned to Massachusetts where he was remanded in custody.
In jail, awaiting trial, he lost weight but told guards that he’d needed to lose a few pounds in the first place. He was given access to the prison psychologist but soon said that he didn’t want further psychological help. In a letter to his parents, he appeared to be suicidal, saying that this might be the last missive he ever wrote to them and that he had nothing to look forward to. He added that his last wish was to be cremated and have his ashes sprinkled on Rachel and Lilian’s grave.
He was moved to the medical unit for his own protection where, ironically, he was attacked by a paranoid schizophrenic. Though kicked and bruised, he sustained no lasting injuries. After three weeks, the staff declared that he wasn’t suicidal and he was returned to his lonely prison cell.
TRIAL
On 6 June 2008, his trial began in Woburn, outside Boston. He was charged with the double murder plus illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition. Despite the evidence, he pleaded not guilty. In court, he would not meet his in-laws gaze, though he smiled at his parents and brother who sat in the front row of the public gallery. Clifford and Yvonne Entwistle wept as they heard of the pornographic websites which he’d contacted and they also wept when they saw photographs of the baby’s blood-stained clothing. Neil Entwistle also wept briefly at this point.
The prosecution said that, faced with mounting debts and an unsatisfactory sex life, he had killed his wife and baby with his father-in-law’s Colt .22, returned the gun to his in-laws house whilst they were at work then fled to England, driving around aimlessly for hours – perhaps trying to concoct a plan – before arriving at his parents’ house.
The defence countered that Rachel, whilst suffering from post-natal depression, had shot Lilian, the bullet going on to enter her own body. She had then shot herself in the head. Allegedly making the grim discovery after returning from a four-hour shopping trip, Neil had returned the gun to her stepfather’s house in order to hide the truth and preserve her honour. (Their religion had persuaded them that suicide was morally wrong.) Gunshot residue had been found on both of Rachel’s hands and on a pillow, but not on things which Neil had been known to touch.
She, rather than he, said the defence, could have been the person doing searches online using words like ‘euthanasia’ and ‘suicide.’ But they couldn’t reasonably explain why Neil Entwistle had immediately left the country after discovering the deaths.
Neil said that he’d gone into a trance after finding the bodies, but computer records showed that he’d gone online an hour and a half after Rachel and Lilian were believed to have been killed. The defence said that it was to check his email, whilst the prosecution alleged that it was to look at internet porn.
By now Entwistle had changed the part of his story which said that his in-laws were out and he was unable to gain access to their house to leave them a note about what had happened. He now said, through his lawyer, that he had entered the house and returned the gun to avoid Rachel’s memory being tarnished with the supposed stigma of suicide.
A fortnight later, the jury went out to deliberate their verdict. They decided that Neil’s interest in internet swinging sites wasn’t a motive for the murders, believing them to be mostly fantasy. But they took the possibility of Rachel’s suicide seriously and a juror of the same height held her right arm at different lengths and simulated shooting herself at her hairline. She, and the other jurors, agreed that, for Rachel to shoot herself in the head, she’d have gun burn marks all over her face. (She’d also presumably be finding it hard to concentrate, having inadvertently shot herself in the torso whilst shooting Lilian.)
On 25 June, after two days of deliberation, they found the 29-year-old guilty of both murders. Entwistle closed his eyes momentarily when he heard the verdict but was otherwise emotionless.
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
After the verdict was handed down, true crime fans posted on various blogs, questioning why gunshot residues had been found on Rachel’s hands but not on things which Neil had touched within hours of the shooting, such as his BMW’s steering wheel and his father-in-law’s keys. To understand more about this aspect of the case, I interviewed Paul Millen, who has over 30 years’ experience in the scientific investigation of crime. He runs the forensic firm Paul Millen Associates (www.paulmillen.co.uk) and has authored the book Crime Scene Investigator.
Paul told me: ‘Gunshot residues are very delicate. When we examine a suspect we usually tape (with sticky tabs) hands (upper folds and creases), the face and comb the hair (any facial and head).
‘Gunshot Residues (GSRs) also known as Firearm Discharge Residues (FDRs) are in fact primer residues from the percussion cap of the ammunition. This is the chemical which goes ‘bang’ and forces the bullet or shot out of the weapon. They form a cloud which falls on items in the immediate proximity.
‘The residue consists of spherical (molten) particles containing a mixture of Lead, Barium and Antimony. They are only found in this combination in FDRs. They are delicate and will fall off exposed skin within three or four hours. They remain longer on hair as it acts as a kind of net.
He continued: ‘FDRs are found in very small amounts only. They are found usually using a scanning electron microscope, and a scientist will report that they have found them even if they find only a few (or in some cases even one particle) such is the rarity of the elements. Finding more indicate a great probability of close contact and quick sampling.
‘The particles remain longer on hair and clothing. Washing the skin or hair and washing clothes will remove most if not all traces. So sampling or recovering clothing early and before washing is essential.
‘Looking for blood or tissue in the muzzle of a weapon is an important search to indicate the weapons close proximity to the victim, along with powder burns (concentration of residues) on the victim’s skin.’
This put the conspiracy theories to rest: Entwistle had simply showered away the gunshot residues before leaving the house.
A LIFE SENTENCE
The day after being found guilty, Neil Entwistle was sentenced. The jury rejected the option offered by the judge of a 15-year sentence followed by the possibility of parole. Instead, he was given two life sentences for the murders plus an additional 10 years for firearms offences as he didn’t have a licence to fire a gun. The judge also decreed that he must never be allowed to profit from writing a book about the case. Entwistle looked surprised at the judge’s decree.
He will spend the rest of his life within the bleak walls of Cedar Junction prison, near Boston. A maximum-security jail which houses some of America’s most feared inmates, it has a suicide rate that is three times the national average.
KENNETH SEGUIN
Sadly, the same area of Massachusetts was the scene of a similar familicide 14 years earlier, when a supposedly perfect father murdered his wife and both of his children before trying to blame the killings on two men.
Kenneth Seguin was raised in Hopkington, near Boston, where Neil and Rachel Entwistle would eventually rent their luxurious Colonial home. He would later allege that he was sexually abused twice during his childhood by one of his uncles, a Roman Catholic priest.
Kenneth, who was good-looking, married the equally
attractive Mary Ann (known to her friends as Polly) in 1981. By the mid-1980s they had two equally beautiful children, a son, Daniel, followed two years later by a daughter, Amy. They lived in Holliston, near his childhood town of Hopkington.
The computer executive appeared devoted to his family, often enjoying time at a holiday cottage with them at Cape Cod and coaching Daniel’s soccer league. Neighbours referred to them as looking like characters out of a Norman Rockwell painting. (Rockwell, a 20th century American artist, illustrated boy scouts calendars and the Country Gentleman magazine in his early career, producing sketches of loving couples and doting parents.) Mary Ann enjoyed her aerobics classes and Kenneth raised money for a Roman Catholic mission. But, in a bid to enjoy an upscale suburban lifestyle, he spent way beyond his means.
By 1990, serious cracks were appearing in his marriage, and the couple argued constantly over work and money – but only their closest friends knew of this and they still presented a united front to the community. Mary Ann threatened to leave Kenneth, and he contemplated suicide.
The following year, his attempts at building a dream home for the family fell through, leaving him with even more debt. In the same timeframe, he faced mounting pressures at work and was prescribed Prozac, though he only took a few tablets before storing it away in the medicine chest. He also saw a stress management councillor at work.
In the autumn of 1991, his father-in-law died and this contributed to his increasingly low mood. The couple’s arguments escalated over the next few months until he again felt suicidal. If Mary Ann left him and took the children with her, everyone would know that their perfect family life had been a mirage…
Parents Who Kill--Shocking True Stories of the World's Most Evil Parents Page 18
