Briton convicted of murdering wife, baby in Massachusetts

BOSTON (Reuters) - A Massachusetts jury found a British man guilty on Wednesday of killing his wife and infant daughter before fleeing to Britain where he was arrested and extradited to the United States.

Neil Entwistle, 29, was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder in the shooting of his American wife, Rachel, 27, and 9-month-old daughter, Lillian Rose, at their home in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, in January 2006.

Entwistle, who faces life in prison with no chance of parole, shut his eyes and shook his head slightly when the verdict was read after the jury deliberated for two days at the end of the four-week trial in Woburn, Massachusetts.

"Neil Entwistle will now live with his evil deeds for the rest of his natural life only to be judged again," said Joseph Flaherty, a spokesman for Rachel Entwistle's family.

The former Internet entrepreneur denied the double-murder charges. His court-appointed lawyer, Elliot Weinstein, said he was prepared to appeal the case to the state's highest court.

Prosecutors accused Entwistle of shooting his wife in the head and then turning the .22 caliber gun on his daughter as they lay together in bed in their Massachusetts home.

Entwistle's lawyers had argued that a depressed Rachel Entwistle killed her daughter and then herself, and that Neil Entwistle had sought to cover up the murder-suicide to protect his wife's honor and memory.

Before the trial, his lawyers and family questioned whether the case's intense media coverage would taint jurors.

"We knew Neil would not receive a fair trial," his father, Clifford Entwistle, told reporters. "We will continue to fight for our innocent son," he added.

Jurors heard that in the days before the bodies were found, Entwistle had surfed the Internet for ways to kill people.

Forensic evidence also linked Entwistle to the murder weapon -- a gun owned by Rachel Entwistle's stepfather found with Rachel's DNA on the muzzle and Neil's on the handgrip.

State prosecutors say they believe Entwistle was despondent after sinking deep in debt and took the gun from his father-in-law's collection in a suburb about 50 miles away and returned it on the day of the murders.

They said Entwistle may have intended a murder-suicide but instead boarded a flight to London the morning after the killings to return to his family's home in central England.

Prosecutors also argued that he was dissatisfied with his sex life. He performed a Google search for "half-price escorts" and "blonde beauties" along with "how to kill with a knife" days before the murders, a police computer expert testified.

When arrested in Britain, he was carrying a page torn from a London tabloid containing hundreds of ads for women escorts. On the day of the murders, he checked his account with a sex-swingers Web site, an analysis of his laptop showed.

Despite searches of the Entwistle home by family, police and neighbors, the bodies went undiscovered for two days, hidden under a comforter and bed linens in the master bedroom.

Entwistle told police in a telephone call from London he had found his family killed after returning from errands around 11 a.m. Rachel, a Massachusetts native, met Entwistle in England as a college student and married him in Massachusetts.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)