By Steve Huff
 |
| Rachel, Lillian Rose and Neil Entwistle |
(Crime Library) — Rachel Entwistle, 27, and her daughter Lillian Rose, 9 months, were found murdered on January 22, 2006 in their Hopkinton, MA home. Since then, suspicion and innuendo have swirled around Rachel's husband, Neil Entwistle. The native of Worksop, England was found to have fled to his parents' home in the United Kingdom sometime shortly after his wife and baby were murdered on January 20.
The chorus of questions being asked by American and European media outlets swelled to a thunderous crescendo when Entwistle was arrested in a London Tube Station on February 9, 2006. In short order the unemployed computer tech decided to waive extradition proceedings and return to Massachusetts to face the murder charges now formally made against him.
Early in the investigation it became apparent that the façade Entwistle so carefully tried to erect of "the happy family," as seen on the couples' family webpage, www.rachelandneil.org, was perhaps meant to conceal uglier truths. Journalists, bloggers, and amateur cybersleuths alike combed the internet for more background on the handsome Brit in the weeks between the murders and his arrest.
One of Entwistle's eBay IDs was found especially noteworthy. S R Publications, which Entwistle apparently used to sell pirated copies of legitimate software as well as manuals and software related to various internet-based get-rich-quick schemes had been closed in early January of 2006, after numerous instances of negative, angry feedback from buyers.
Websites registered in Entwistle's name were uncovered, as were sites registered to a "Mark Smith" who somehow managed to share the same address as the already-married Neil Entwistle when some of these domains were registered. Curiously, the webpages registered in "Smith's" names were the most openly salacious, with URLs like www.deephotsex.com, and www.thebigpenismanual.com. The former page purported to sell access to online videos of "barely legal" teen girls performing sex acts, the latter website touted "methods" by which the user could increase the length and girth of an erection.
After Entwistle's arrest a flurry of new developments in the investigation into the double murder were announced. First there was the Middlesex County, MA District Attorney Martha Coakley's statement that authorities felt that Entwistle's murdering of Rachel and Lillian was intended to be the "murder" portion of a murder-suicide. There was also the revelation that Neil Entwistle was alleged to have used a .22 caliber handgun owned by his father-in-law, Joseph Matterazzo, to commit the murders.
More shocking perhaps was the release on February 13, 2006 of large portions of the affidavit filed to search the rented home where Rachel and Lillian were found at 6 Cubs Path in Hopkinton, a suburb of Boston. While the report had already been made in some papers that Neil Entwistle had admitted that there were sexual problems in his relationship with his wife, the pages of the affidavit released on the 13th revealed that Entwistle had been actively surfing a number of unusual websites in the days before his wife and daughter were murdered.
The Boston Herald delved into this angle in an article published on February 14, 2006. Laurel J. Sweet wrote:
"The outwardly doting new dad and husband, at the same time last month he was alleged to be researching how to commit murder, was shopping online for hookers and visiting an Internet sex club for swingers, police said. There, at Adult Friend Finder, married men can fly below their spouses' radar by posting lurid photographs of themselves taken from below the belt
"Entwistle, a British national, was compiling an electronic little black book of escort services on Jan. 18, including Blonde Beauties, regional Eye Candy Entertainment and Sweet Temptations in South Boston, according to the documents"
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