Defense closings: Entwistle case suicide, not murder

June 23, 2008 04:30 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By Franci R. Ellement, Globe Correspondent, and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff

WOBURN -- A defense attorney told a jury today that Neil Entwistle's wife shot their daughter and then killed herself in their Hopkinton home in 2006, arguing at the conclusion of his trial that the Briton was not guilty of murder.

Attorney Elliot Weinstein said that Entwistle discovered the bodies of Rachel, 27, and 9-month-old Lillian Rose, and never told police about the .22-caliber gun he found on the bed. In order to defend his wife's honor and prevent her memory from being tarnished, Neil Entwistle then drove to Rachel's parents' home in Carver and returned the firearm to her father-in-law's gun collection. He did not want her family to know she had stolen the weapon and committed suicide, Weinstein said.

"Do not misunderstand us. No one is blaming Rachel," Weinstein said in Middlesex Superior Court. "Neil found Rachel and Lillian dead."

It was a swift conclusion to the double-murder trial in which the defense rested without calling any witnesses to rebut the 12 days of evidence and testimony presented by prosecutors. Instead, Entwistle's attorneys tried to explain his actions after the killings as those of a distraught and devastated husband. He flew back to his parents' home in England without calling 911 or notifying police of the bodies because "human emotions are unpredictable" and can cause people to act irrationally, Weinstein said.

Prosecutors rejected the defense's theory because he said it "makes no sense."

"It is unimaginable, ladies and gentlemen," said prosecutor Michael Fabbri. "You see fresh bubbles [of blood from your daughter who was shot] and you don't call 911 and call help for them? Unimaginable."

Rachel Entwistle had recently moved back to the United States with her husband so that her newborn baby could be near her family and was by all accounts happy.

"Why would Rachel commit suicide? Is there any evidence before you that suggests she had the desire or intent to commit suicide?" Fabbri asked. "She was back home. She had her car. She had her family and what she thought was a loving husband. She was happy. She had no reason to commit suicide."

To bolster its theory, the defense pointed to the fact that gunshot residue was detected on Rachel's hand. It was evidence that Weinstein said proved that she killed Lillian before she "pointed the gun toward her head, steadied it with both hands, and fired."

The defense attorney criticized investigators for not checking Rachel's wrists and sleeves for gunshot residue, saying it was part of a pattern of shoddy police work and a concerted effort to pin the killings on Neil Entwistle. Investigators were never open to the possibility that Rachel committed suicide, Weinstein said, and only gathered evidence that pointed to her husband.

"You have every right and indeed it is your duty to hold that failure of proof against the prosecution," Weinstein said.

Weinstein continued: "If Neil planned and calculated for this day, he wouldn't have been so totally unprepared. … Why did he make conflicting statements to his friends? Why didn't he have a story for [Rachel's stepfather]? … Why is there no motive for these killings?

"You know the answer to all these questions," Weinstein concluded. "Neil did not do this."

Fabbri tried to rebut the defense's theory point by point, calling the gunshot residue and other details red herrings. The prosecutor recounted the evidence that spoke to motive: Neil Entwistle was sinking in debt, pretending to look for a job, and searching the Internet for sex. To bolster his case, Fabbri paraphrased an audio recording of a two-hour telephone call that Entwistle had from England with Massachusetts State Police a few days after the slayings.

"The why sometimes does not make sense," Fabbri said. "There could be no reasons. There could be a million reasons. Was he being closed out? Or was he closing them out?"

Fabbri continued: "He got to the tipping point. His own tipping point. … For whatever reason, the defendant decided that enough was enough."

The jury will begin its deliberations Tuesday morning.