Entwistle gets delay for court hearing
A court hearing that had been scheduled for tomorrow for Neil Entwistle has been postponed until next month, because Middlesex prosecutors must present more evidence to a grand jury investigating the homicides of his wife, Rachel, and 9-month-old daughter in Hopkinton.
Michael Fabbri, the assistant district attorney prosecuting the case, asked a Framingham District Court judge yesterday to delay Entwistle's probable cause hearing until April 18, and the defendant's lawyer, Elliot M. Weinstein, did not object. Entwistle was arraigned on two murder charges in district court Feb. 16.
If the case follows the path of most murder charges in Massachusetts, however, prosecutors will obtain an indictment of Entwistle and he will go to Middlesex Superior Court in Cambridge for arraignment, skipping the probable cause hearing. That enables prosecutors to forgo having to immediately share evidence with the defense.
''We're working on the indictment right now," Kate Norton, a spokeswoman for Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley, said yesterday, when asked how much longer the grand jury is expected to hear evidence.
Joseph Flaherty, a friend of Rachel Entwistle's mother and stepfather and former commander of a State Police homicide unit, said Rachel's relatives had expected the delay. ''It takes a lot of time sometimes to put the evidence in to the grand jury," said Flaherty, a lawyer who has served as a spokesman for the family.
He declined to say whether Rachel Entwistle's mother, Priscilla Matterazzo, or stepfather, Joseph Matterazzo, has testified before the grand jury, citing the confidentiality of the proceedings.
Neil Entwistle, an unemployed 27-year-old electrical engineer, is accused of fatally shooting Rachel Entwistle, 27, and their baby daughter, Lillian, on Jan. 20, as they lay in bed in their Hopkinton home. He allegedly used a .22-caliber revolver that he took from Joseph Matterazzo's home gun collection in Carver.
The murders, which Entwistle allegedly committed while despondent over his finances and family situation, drew news coverage on both sides of the Atlantic.
Since his arraignment, Entwistle has been held without bail at the Middlesex County Jail.
Yesterday, Weinstein, the defendant's lawyer, confirmed that Entwistle has had no visitors at the jail other than the defense lawyer and his cocounsel, Stephanie Page, a senior staff lawyer at the agency involved with the state public defender's office.
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached by e-mail message at jsaltzman@globe.com.sd 