Jun 24, 2008 10:51 am US/Eastern
Jurors Take Over In Neil Entwistle Murder Trial
WOBURN (WBZ) ―
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Rachel and Lillian Entwistle
AP
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Neil Entwistle in court Monday.
WBZ
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During closing arguments, defense attorney Elliot Weinstein demonstrates how he alleges Rachel Entwistle could have committed suicide.
WBZ
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Prosecutor Michael Fabbri points the gun used to kill Rachel and Lillian Entwistle, during closing arguments.
WBZ
The fate of Neil Entwistle now rests in the hands of jurors. Deliberations began Tuesday morning after dramatic closing arguments capped off a sensational murder trial that has gained international attention. Entwistle, 29, is accused of killing his wife, Rachel, and his 9-month-old daughter, Lillian, in their Hopkinton home in January 2006, then flying to England without calling police.
Monday's closing arguments featured accusations by defense attorney Elliot Weinstein that the deaths of Rachel and Lillian were not a double murder, rather a murder-suicide.
Weinstein called no witnesses for the defense before resting his case and moving into closing arguments. During those arguments he said Neil Entwistle decided to protect his wife's honor and cover up her actions after he found Rachel and Lillian dead, with his father-in-law's gun on the bed.
"There were only two gunshots," he told the court. "First, Rachel put Lillian over where she though her heart was, and shot."
"The bullet traveled through the baby and into Rachel's left breast." Then holding his hands over his head as if clasping a gun, Weinstein continued, "Then she pointed the gun toward her head, steadied it with both hands, and fired."
Weinstein told jurors that after Neil Entwistle found the bodies, he took the gun and drove more than 50 miles from his home in Hopkinton to his father-in-law's house in Carver to return it, because he was "committed to not betraying Rachel's memory."
Weinstein claimed investigators never considered the possibility of suicide.
In the prosecution's closing argument, attorney Michael Fabbri talked to jurors while holding the alleged murder weapon. He told the jury any suggestion that Rachel Entwistle killed herself was not only illogical, but impossible, because the only place her DNA turned up on the murder weapon was on the gun's muzzle.
"The only place it (the DNA) would go when Mister Neil Entwistle pointed this gun at her head and pulled the trigger," Fabbri said, aiming the weapon at the floor in front of him.
Prosecutors claim Entwistle killed his family because he was despondent over heavy debt and dissatisfied with his sex life.
Jurors have four verdict slips to fill out, each with an option of guilty or not guilty. The four slips are for: first degree murder, second degree murder, unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition.
WBZ has news crews in Woburn as jury deliberations get underway. When a verdict is reached we will carry it on WBZ-TV and wbztv.com.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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