Husband is called the only 'person of interest' in slayings
 Neil Entwistle (inset) took refuge at his parents' home in England in the days after his wife and baby were found slain in Hopkinton. Investigators say he has "relevant information" on the case. (Globe Staff Photo / Bill Greene) |
Correction: Because of a reporting error, this story misstated the status of Neil Entwistle in the investigation. He is the only ''person of interest" who has been named by the Middlesex district attorney's office, but the district attorney says he is not necessarily the only one.
Eleven days after Hopkinton police found Rachel Entwistle and her 9-month-old daughter, Lillian, dead of gunshot wounds, a spokeswoman for the Middlesex district attorney said yesterday that Neil Entwistle, the husband and father of the victims, remains the only ''person of interest" in the case.
Emily LaGrassa, spokeswoman for District Attorney Martha Coakley, said the 27-year-old Entwistle, who flew to his native England the weekend of the slayings, is a person of interest, someone ''we think has relevant information into the matter we're investigating" and should be questioned.
She emphasized that Coakley, who held a press conference Jan. 23 to disclose the slayings, has never called Entwistle a suspect. ''We never identify suspects," said LaGrassa, who has worked in the office nearly five years. ''That's our policy."
Entwistle, acting on the advice of a lawyer, declined to talk last week to Massachusetts investigators who flew to England to interview him, a source with direct knowledge of the investigation has told the Globe. Entwistle's lawyer has never been identified. The investigators returned home Sunday.
LaGrassa also said that investigators from the State Police and Hopkinton police are making progress in the investigation, but that ''it's important that we take our time."
Meanwhile, the results of toxicology tests that were part of the autopsies are not expected for several weeks, she said, even though the head of the state Executive Office of Public Safety recently told state lawmakers that the average turnaround was two weeks.
Investigators, she said, have no plans to return to England in an effort to question Neil Entwistle, an electrical engineer with online businesses who did not return to the United States to attend the wake and funeral of his wife and daughter earlier this week.
She declined to say whether police have searched Entwistle's BMW, which was seized at Logan International Airport and brought to the Hopkinton Police Department Tuesday.
In other developments yesterday, Joe Flaherty -- a spokesman for Rachel Entwistle's mother, stepfather, and brother -- said that the family was confident that authorities will bring the killer to justice. Appearing last night on CNN with Larry King, and with Emily Rooney on WGBH television, Flaherty, a lawyer and former commander of the State Police homicide unit, declined to share the family's reaction to Neil Entwistle's absence from the wake and funeral. ''It's a very private family, and their feelings they would just as soon keep to themselves right now," he said.
Also yesterday, St. Augustine's Catholic High School in Redditch, England, held a memorial service for Rachel Entwistle, who taught drama and English there from 2002 to 2005. She met Neil Entwistle while studying at York University in England.
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com. 
