Mother and Child Executed In Massachusetts and the Blogosphere is There

By Steve Huff

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The Crime Library — On January 22, 2006, Rachel Entwistle, 27, and her daughter Lillian, 9 months, were discovered shot to death in their rental home in suburban Hopkinton, MA. Immediately police identified Rachel's husband Neil Entwistle, also 27, as a person of interest. Entwistle was missing at the time and thought to be traveling. The mainstream press and bloggers both quickly discovered that the Entwistle family had their own website, www.rachelandneil.org. Between January 23^rd and the 25^th the guestbook at the Entwistle's website began to fill with emotional and sometimes angry messages from people the world over as they learned of the death of the young mother and her infant daughter. Entwistle, a British citizen, eventually contacted Massachusetts authorities, and investigators are now said to be on their way to the British Isles to speak with him. Due to research spearheaded by bloggers and amateur cybersleuths, it was also discovered that Entwistle may have been running a variety of "scam" websites as well as an account at the online auction site, eBay.com. Investigations are still in their early stages, so little else is clear, and Neil Entwistle is only a person of interest in the murders, not a suspect.

Social networking profiles, weblogs, and web pages have added a deeply personal element to some crimes that make news. Now, instead of just hearing the tragic story of Rachel and Lillian Entwistle in passing, one can find their website quickly with a search engine and see photos of Lillian as she grows from birth to what apparently were her final weeks of life around Christmas, 2005.

Instead of reading excerpts from Joseph Edward Duncan's writings in a true-crime book years from now, something the alleged serial killer wrote last week can be found online.

Instead of seeing the sad dignity of Taylor Behl's mother, Janet Pelasara, in an interview on the news and wondering at what she lost, we can read Taylor's journal and get some small idea for ourselves.

The Internet, web, blogosphere also allow us to sometimes express reactions to these crimes publicly in a way that is often moving. A sense of the true weight some events possess can be found in so much 'casual' writing online.

In a Livejournal kept under the screen name "desolationrow9," on January 23^rd, 2006, a Richmond-area blogger named Emily wrote:

"Ben Fawley has been indicted. It was strange seeing his face pressed against the scratched, yellow plastic of a rusty blue metal paper stand on the very streets where [Taylor] was taken. And everyone, myself included, just walked by with their own lives. We're all connected, though. I guess it never fails to surprise me how life goes on. Horrendous things happen, people die, people have their hearts broken, and then they wipe their eyes and take a test and eat dinner and go to work and go to bed and wake up and do it again. Life goes on despite of loss. It stops for no one, and it always takes me aback..."

Emily was eloquent, but not entirely correct. For the Internet as a medium has begun to change how we view "horrendous things." We may, as she wrote, go on and take tests and eat dinner, go to work and to bed. However, for many, a window is there on the desktop. In a way, the ability anyone has now to publish what they want on the web has created easy access to the real heart of a story that might otherwise be acknowledged, frowned over, and forgotten. The way victims of crime like Taylor Behl, Judy Cajuste, or Rachel Entwistle come to life in photos, in words, on computer screens across the globe adds new depth to the tragedy inherent in such a loss. It is almost as if the dead flicker to life. If the words are written by an allegedly disturbed mind like Joseph Duncan's, or Ben Fawley's there is a sense of a cold shadow having passed over you.

The vast, anonymous Internet shrinks to a point for a moment, and becomes strangely intimate.

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Steve Huff can be reached via his web site http://www.HuffCrimeBlog.com/.

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