Prosecutor: Sex, debt drove man to kill wife, baby

WOBURN, Massachusetts (AP) -- A British man despondent over his sex life and his mounting debt shot his wife and baby daughter to death as they lay in bed together, covered them with a comforter and then bought a one-way ticket home to England, a prosecutor told a jury Friday.

Neil Entwistle, 29, is charged in the fatal shootings of his 27-year-old wife, Rachel, and their 9-month-old daughter, Lillian Rose, in January 2006.

His defense attorney said Entwistle was a loving husband and father who was so crazed with grief after discovering their bodies in their Hopkinton home that he flew to England to be consoled by his parents.

"Everything he said and everything he did thereafter, he did because he loved them, he did because he loved them both," Elliot Weinstein said.

The lawyers gave their opening statements Friday in Middlesex District Court after four days of jury selection.

Assistant District Attorney Michael Fabbri told jurors that Entwistle had grown increasingly unhappy after the couple moved to the United States from England, where they met in 1999. Entwistle, a computer engineer, had been unable to find a job in the U.S., had fallen into debt and began trolling the Internet for sex, Fabbri said. Watch his opening »

In the months before the killings, Entwistle visited Web sites for escort services and began exchanging e-mails with women with whom he sought to have sex.

Weinstein told the jury that both Rachel and Neil Entwistle were computer-savvy and said other people had used the computer.

"Over and over and over again during this trial, you will learn that things are not the way they first appear," he said.

Authorities believe that Neil Entwistle took his father-in-law's gun, shot his wife and daughter and then drove 40 miles back to return the weapon.

Fabbri said Entwistle's DNA was found on an ammunition container, a gun lock and the grip of the .22-caliber handgun. He said Rachel Entwistle's DNA was found in and on the muzzle of the gun.

Rachel Entwistle's mother, Priscilla Matterazzo, was called as the trial's first witness.

During cross-examination, Entwistle's attorney Stephanie Page focused her questions on Joseph Matterazzo's gun collection.

Priscilla Matterazzo said her husband kept the guns in a locked cabinet in a bedroom but left the key on a kitchen countertop. She said her husband liked to go target shooting and had taken Neil Entwistle with him at least twice.

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