Entwistle jury will announce verdict shortly

June 25, 2008 02:32 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

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

WOBURN - Jurors have reached a verdict in the case of Neil Entwistle, the British man accused of murdering his wife and infant daughter. The verdict will be announced shortly in Middlesex Superior Court.

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for a little more than 11 hours before notifying a judge that they had reached a decision. They began their deliberations on Tuesday at 9:15 a.m.

On Tuesday afternoon, the jury requested one exhibit detailing Entwistle's computer activity on the day of the killings.

At about 3:30 p.m., jurors sent a note to Judge Diane Kottmyer asking for 14 pages of an exhibit from the 12-day trial that would show the websites Entwistle visited using his laptop on Jan. 20, 2006, the day Rachel Entwistle, 27, and their 9-month-old daughter, Lillian Rose, were shot to death.

Defense lawyer Elliot Weinstein said the document shows Entwistle had used his computer that day to check sites and e-mails that were related only to his job search.

The "login activity showed that computer user, Neil, accessed his job user information and e-mails related to jobs . . . and that's all," Weinstein said.

Entwistle, 29, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if the jury finds him guilty of first-degree murder.

Police found Rachel Entwistle and her daughter in the couple's queen-sized bed, underneath a white comforter, on Jan. 22, a day after Entwistle had flown to England.

During the trial, Weinstein said Entwistle had found his wife and baby dead in a murder-suicide upon returning from errands on Jan. 20.

Entwistle never called 911 or his in-laws for help because he did not want to mar his wife's honor, Weinstein said.

Prosecutors have said that Entwistle executed his family after he became mired in financial problems and was sexually unsatisfied in his marriage.

Prosecutors presented a computer specialist who testified that Entwistle routinely searched the Internet for escort services and enrolled on a swinger's website looking for a discreet relationship.

Before sending the jurors home for the day, Kottmyer instructed them to refrain from discussing or reading media reports of the high-profile case and asked them not to read any crime-related articles or watch similar stories on the television news.