Briton speaks to U.S. police over double murder

LONDON - Neil Entwistle, a Briton whose American wife and baby were found shot dead at their home in suburban Boston home, went voluntarily to the U.S. Embassy in London on Friday to talk to officials about their deaths, British police said.

“Mr. Entwistle was driven to the U.S. Embassy by police officers, but he is not under arrest and is not being treated as a suspect in the murder of his wife and baby,” a Nottinghamshire police spokeswoman said.

She said he was regarded as a potential witness to the double murder.

The killings drew intense media interest both in Massachusetts, where the family lived, and Britain. There has also been much media speculation about what events could have led to the murders.

“He is clearly a person of interest, as any husband in a case like this would be,” Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley said.

Ticket bought before deaths
Entwistle’s car was found at Logan International Airport near Boston and flight records show he bought a plane ticket to London 48 hours before the bodies of his wife, Rachel, and 9-month-old daughter, Lillian, were discovered on Sunday.

Autopsy results showed both the mother and daughter had been shot to death with a small-caliber gun. The bodies were found under layers of blankets in a bed in their home in Hopkinton, about 30 miles west of Boston.

The autopsy and a phone call Rachel Entwistle made to relatives on Thursday placed the time of their deaths between late Thursday and Saturday.

The couple met while Rachel was studying abroad in England, and they had been married for three years. Neil Entwistle was looking for a job in the technology field; his wife was an unemployed teacher.

Entwistle and his family had lived in the United States for about 4 or 5 months and began renting their home on Jan. 12.

Relatives told investigators that the couple did not have a history of marital problems.

An Entwistle family Web page that once focused just on the couple and their baby — www.rachelandneil.org — has been transformed with its guestbook now a page of mourning.

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