Police: Entwistle searched Internet for how to kill

June 18, 2008 12:07 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By Franci R. Ellement, Globe Staff

WOBURN -- Four days before allegedly shooting his wife and infant daughter, Neil Entwistle searched the Internet for instructions on "how to kill with a knife," clicking on one website that included a diagram of a human body that highlighted arteries and blood flow.

"So you may be thinking of going for the aorta. Why not the heart?" read the diagram's caption, according to Lawrence James, a computer specialist who testified today in Middlesex Superior Court. "If you ever get a clear shot at the torso, best to stab them in it below the rib cage."

The author noted on the website that the diagram was meant to be informative and entertaining, according to James, a Medford police detective.

Entwistle also searched that afternoon of Jan. 16, 2006, for "half-priced escorts" and he checked his account on Adult Friend Finder, a website where users search for sexual partners and arrange liaisons, James said. It was the second day of testimony from the Medford detective in the trial of Entwisle, who is accused of killing his wife, Rachel, 27, and 9-month-old daughter, Lillian Rose.

Entwistle told police that he did not kill his family on Jan. 20, 2006. He told investigators that after discovering the bodies in the master bedroom of their Hopkinton home, he was overcome with grief, did not call authorities, and flew to his native England. Their bodies were discovered two days later.

Prosecutor Michael Fabbri said the state has 16,000 documents from James' forensic examination of Entwistle's Toshiba laptop computer.

The first witness who testified this morning was Michael Fee, an attorney who represented the Entwistle's Hopkinton landlord. Fee said Entwistle told him "he had no intention of returning to the United States," and did not care about the possessions in the house. Fee testified that Entwistle did ask him to return the jewelry that had been left in the house.

Fee recounted that he helped pack three boxes with the Entwistle's possessions, which included books, televisions, luggage, journals, correspondence, and photographs. The boxes were put in storage, he said.