Close-range shots in Entwistle case, witness testifies

Defense lawyer raises questions on thoroughness of blood search

WOBURN - The killer may have been only 18 inches from Rachel and Lillian Entwistle when he pulled the trigger on that Friday morning in 2006, according to a witness for the prosecution who testified yesterday in the double-murder trial of Neil Entwistle.

The metal residue from the shot "usually doesn't travel more than 18 inches from the end of the muzzle to whatever it's deposited on," said Deanna Dygan, a forensic scientist for the State Police Crime Lab that conducted tests inside the Hopkinton home on Jan. 22, when Rachel Entwistle, 27, and her 9-month-old daughter were found dead.

Dygan said she had performed gun residue analysis on several items, including the pillow case that the two were laying on. One test confirmed the presence of vaporous lead; it was conducted after she noticed traces just above a large reddish-brown stain on the pillow, she said.

The presence of the chemical, she said in court yesterday, told her it is likely that the shooter was in close proximity when the fatal shots were fired because that chemical travels only up to 18 inches from the muzzle.

Investigators have also said that Rachel Entwistle's DNA was found around the barrel and inside the .22-caliber Colt pistol, the weapon prosecutors allege her husband, Neil, stole from his father-in-law's collection of licensed weapons and returned it before he noticed it missing.

Rachel Entwistle was shot in the head and Lilly once in the upper left side of her chest sometime between 9 and 11 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 20, prosecutors say.

Dygan's fellow forensic chemist, John Soares, said Rachel Entwistle was found curled up and on her left side, her right arm draped over Lilly with her index finger pointed and the other fingers in a clutching position. Lilly was found on her back.

Neil Entwistle, now 29, told police he had discovered the bodies but had no idea who may have committed the crime. He did not call for help.

He then left their rented home and flew to his native England.

Police arrested him at a train station in February, and he was returned to the United States to face two counts of first-degree murder.

Dygan also said she tested the pink and green polka-dot sleeper that Lilly was wearing after she noticed a hole in the area of the heart. It tested positive for gun residue. The medical examiner determined she had been shot once.

Earlier in the day, defense attorney Elliot Weinstein asked Soares why he did not process the master bedroom of the house for "occult blood," blood that is not immediately apparent to the naked eye, but did scour the BMW X3 that Entwistle had left in a Logan International Airport parking garage.

"You weren't as thorough and complete as you might have been," Weinstein told Soares, who objected to the statement.

"You made a conscious decision to not search for occult blood" in the bathroom, Weinstein said. "If it had been there, you could have found it . . . and perhaps matched that to a person. But you didn't do it."

And despite Soares's repeated testing for occult blood in the BMW, Weinstein said, no blood was found.

"That's correct," Soares said.

Judge Diane Kottmyer took a number of motions filed by the defense at the start of the trial and is expected to make rulings on them by Monday afternoon.

They include striking from evidence those items that indicate Neil Entwistle was sexually dissatisfied and statements he made to US marshals upon returning to the United States.