British Man Gets Life Without Parole For Murder of U.S. Woman and Baby

Buy an ad on DigitalJournal.com

They had seen to be the loving couple. Newly joined by their pretty baby daughter, they seemed to have everything, yet the persona behind the young, well dressed and groomed man lay a murderer.

Today, after a long, painful and much publicised trial, 29 year old Neil Entwistle was found guilty of the cold blooded murder of his 27 year old American wife and their 9 month old baby daughter.

Neil had lived with his wife Rachel and baby Lillian in a beautiful part of Massachusetts in the US. A seemingly wealthy computer consultant, the family seemed to be doing very well, yet behind closed doors, Entwistle was looking for an extra-marital affair and he had spent lengthy hours scouring the Internet for sex while his family slept. One night, he borrowed a revolver from his father in law, who had just the gun for game hunting, and shot dead Rachel and Lillian in their beds while they slept.

Today, as Judge Diane Kottmyer passed sentence and told him of how he had "planned the deliberate murders," Entwistle stood motionless and showed no emotion whats so ever for his crimes.

She said, as she described the nightmare the families had had to endure,

“...what is all too clear is the magnitude of the loss and the pain..."

Mrs Entwistle's mother, Priscilla Matterazzo, had spoken at the Middlesex County Superior Court in Woburn, Mass.of the horrid murders of both her daughter and granddaughter and she described them as being a “shameful and selfish act by one person".

The jury agreed that they were seeking, from the beginning, justice for the little girl, they had also described the trial as being like “having a week’s worth of hard labour packed into each day", according to one of the jurors, Richard Vantour.

Entwistle's glittering career as a professional had come to a bitter end when he was declared bankrupt. It had been a dramatic turning point in his life which was to throw him over the edge and kill his family.

Soon after the killings, he had jumped on a plane to the UK claiming that Rachel had killed the daughter and then committed suicide.

Also today, on a lighter note, the UK's Daily Telegraph published as series of the most extraordinary, compelling and enlightening pictures from news around the world. You can find them here...