Police sergeant testifies about discovery of Entwistle bodies
By Franci R. Ellement and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff
The second time Sergeant Michael Sutton entered Neil and Rachel Entwistle's home in Hopkinton to look for the missing family, he detected an odor.
 Rachel Entwistle, 27, and Lillian Rose |
Sutton testified this morning that he found nothing when he quickly searched the home the night before, but that the next morning in January 2006 he noticed a faint smell in the basement and followed it upstairs to the master bedroom. The sergeant said he lifted the corner of a fluffy white down comforter 6 inches at the bottom of the bed and saw a foot. Walking to the top of the bed, Sutton testified that he lifted another corner of the comforter.
"I first observed a small baby's face," Sutton said in Middlesex Superior Court. "I was looking down at the top of the forehead -- eyes, nose … I looked to the right of the baby's face and saw a woman's face."
Sutton had found the bodies of Rachel Entwistle, 27, and her 9-month-old daughter, Lillian Rose, who had been missing for two days. His testimony came on direct examination by the prosecution this morning in the trial of Neil Entwistle, who is accused of killing his wife and daughter Jan. 20, 2006, and fleeing to his native England.
State Police crime scene investigators testified that Rachel Entwistle was wearing pajamas, lying on her left side, her feet curled up toward her body. Her right arm was across Lillian's chest and she faced her baby, who was flat on her back. Lillian's face had been covered by a pillow and her sleeper sack had been burned slightly by the gunshot in her upper left chest. Blood stained her onesie.
On cross-examination, defense attorney Elliot Weinstein grilled Sutton about how he originally gained access to the home after the Entwistle family had been reported missing. The sergeant and another officer had used a plastic Blockbuster Video card to pick the lock when they made their initial search the night of Jan. 21, 2006.
Weinstein asked Sutton whether he had permission that night to bypass the lock and enter the home, or if he broke in.
Sutton replied that he did not have the Entwistles' permission to go into the home.
"So you broke in," Weinstein said. "Well, that's what it means -- entering a residence without the owner's permission - breaking in."
Weinstein asserted that Sutton's purpose that night was to "do a thorough search."
"No it wasn't," Sutton said.
Weinstein said Sutton was in the house trying to "see if anyone was home. You were trying to see if anyone in the house needed assistance. You were trying to see if anyone in the house might need the assistance of someone with medical training."
Weinstein pressed: "So your intent was not to do a thorough search."
Sutton agreed.
"And you didn't," Weinstein said in a vague reference to the bodies that were discovered the next day. "You know it is clear you didn't do a thorough job."
On Tuesday, Joanna Gately told the jury how she had stood by Rachel Entwistle during the many milestones of the new mother's life since they became close as college students at Holy Cross.
Gately traveled to England when Lilly was born. She stayed at her friend's family home in Carver for two weeks after Rachel moved back to the United States. She even accompanied the Entwistles as they signed the lease on their first house in Hopkinton.
 Neil Entwistle |
And so Gately instinctively knew something was terribly wrong that Saturday night in January 2006, when she found no one home to meet her and her sister, Maureen, as they arrived for dinner.
The two kept vigil in the car during the cold night, spent hours driving up and down Route 9 looking for her friend's BMW, and spent several more hours in the living room of the Hopkinton house, waiting for Rachel.
What Gately did not know was that as she sat downstairs, Rachel Entwistle lay with her baby upstairs in the second-floor bedroom, shot to death.
"The situation was very unlike Rachel; I was concerned," Gately testified Tuesday, referring to the night of Jan. 21.
Witnesses said Tuesday that after the slayings, Neil Entwistle bought a one-way ticket minutes before he boarded a British Airways flight and headed to his homeland of England. He was arrested in February 2007, and his trial in the United States has attracted worldwide attention.
Despite a house check by police on the Saturday night Gately was there and a search by the Gately sisters the following morning, the bodies of Rachel and Lillian were not found until Sunday afternoon during a second police search.
Gately said a neighbor let the sisters into the Entwistle home Sunday morning using the keypad code she learned from the owners. The Gately sisters saw that the television was left on in the living room, noticed the phone missing from the kitchen, the toilet in the master bedroom suite used, and heard music coming from Lilly's room.
"There were many things unusual that night," Gately said.
Hopkinton police Officer Aaron O'Neil also testified Tuesday. On cross-examination, Weinstein questioned the officer about using the Blockbuster card to enter the home for the initial search.
"Blockbuster - the item of choice for law enforcement to get past the lock because it is softer and more pliable," Weinstein mocked.
Then Weinstein berated O'Neil for failing to find the bodies.
"Your purpose for going inside was to look around the place, to see if you could find anyone," Weinstein said. "You looked. You looked carefully because you weren't going to be careless. Did you find anybody?"
O'Neil acknowledged that neither he nor Sutton found anyone. But he said he searched the lower level of the home while Sutton searched upstairs.
Gately testified that her friend never divulged that she was having financial or marital problems.
"It was a very loving relationship, a new family with a new baby," Gately said. "They seemed very happy and excited."
Another witness who testified Tuesday, Pamela Jackson of Hopkinton, said she, too, was struck by the couple's love and Neil Entwistle's devotion to Lilly.
"They were very happy," she said. "They told me how they met and showed me graduation pictures [of Rachel]. Every time the baby would coo or make a sound . . . he would actually avert his eyes and just concentrate on the baby. He beamed."
Jackson, the town's 'welcome lady,' said that during a 50-minute visit, Entwistle asked her about the local schools, groups for mothers, and the Hopkinton Country Club. He also told her that he was a computer engineer, was involved in the insurance industry, and had plenty of money, she said.
The night before his flight home to England, Entwistle made seven attempts to withdraw large sums of money from the joint account he shared with Rachel, but was denied all but $800, witnesses said Tuesday. His account was overdrawn, but covered by a line of credit that amounted to $2,375.50, witnesses said.
After Jackson testified - and during testimony from a Massachusetts Port Authority employee - Entwistle's mother, Yvonne, became emotionally overwhelmed and was escorted, red-faced and teary-eyed, by her husband, Clifford, from the courtroom.
