Stepfather describes phone conversations with Entwistle after killings

June 9, 2008 01:21 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

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

WOBURN -- Neil Entwistle called his father-in-law several times from England after his wife and infant daughter were killed in 2006 in their Hopkinton home, his voice quivering and whimpering.

Neil Entwistle

Entwistle described it as a "big mess" when he discovered Rachel, 27, and their 9-month-old granddaughter, Lillian Rose, shot to death in the master bedroom, and talked about driving to the airport and flying home to England, according to the testimony of Rachel's stepfather, Joseph Matterazzo.

"He said, 'Hi, Joe, I don't know how things got like this,' " Matterazzo said. "He said he couldn't face me. He was kind of repeating himself a little bit."

Over the next few days they spoke several times. As they discussed funeral arrangements for Rachel and Lillian Rose, Entwistle made a key verbal slip, Matterazzo said.

"He asked me if Rachel and Lillian could be buried together," Matterazzo said. "He said, "That's the way I left them -- I mean that's the way I found them.' That's exactly what he said."

Matterazzo continued: "I asked him, 'Neil, did you do this, or do you know who did this?' He said, 'No, I did not.' "

Matterazzo has made few public statements in the 2 1/2 years since the killings of his stepdaughter and grandchild. Prosecutors contend that Neil Entwistle was despondent over his home life and tens of thousands of dollars in debt when he took a .22-caliber revolver from Matterazzo's gun collection and shot his wife and child on Jan. 20, 2006. Matterazzo testified today that in October and November before the killings that he took Entwistle to a gun club to target shoot, recounting that he was particularly adept with his 22-caliber revolver.

Rachel Entwistle, 27, and Lillian Rose

"I thought he did very well with it," Matterazzo said.

Prosecutors allege that Entwistle took the gun from where it had been locked in a closet in Matterazzo's bedroom. They contend that Entwistle unlocked the gun with keys that Matterazzo typically left on the kitchen counter in his home in Carver and then returned the weapon. He then fled to his native England, where he was arrested Feb. 9, 2006. Investigators have said they found Rachel Entwistle's DNA on the muzzle of the alleged murder weapon, prompting speculation that it could have come from her blood or tissue after she was shot in the head at close range.

Matterazzo also testified today about how Rachel's father died when she was young and he did his best to fill that role when he moved in with the family when she was a junior in high school. He accompanied her mother during the important moments in Rachel's life and stood in for her father when she married Neil Entwistle.

"I walked Rachel down the aisle, gave her away," Matterazzo said. "I tried to be as much of a father as I could."