Sex Addiction as a Motive? Notes from the Murder Trial of Neil Entwistle

by Michele McPhee

Woburn, MA – The trial of Neil Entwistle will be "sordid, gruesome and graphic,'' his defense attorney warned jurors who heard opening arguments in the case of the Englishman accused of borrowing a .22 caliber handgun from his in-law's gun cabinet and using it to pump a bullet into his baby's stomach and his wife's head as the mother and child lay sleeping alongside each other in bed.

Entwistle, 29, was arrested in England in February 2006, weeks after the bodies of his 9-month-old daughter and wife Rachel, 27, were discovered in the master bedroom of their Hopkinton home. Entwistle (pictured right) told investigators that he found them like that after running errands on a Saturday morning.

In court Friday, prosecutor Michael Fabbri recalled the scene for jurors, recounting a phone conversation between a Massachusetts state trooper and Entwistle, who called from England. "After I came home and found them in the bed, I covered them up,'' Entwistle said.

"It was like I was closing them off. It was all trace-like and ordered after that. My first thought was to go downstairs and get a knife from the kitchen to hurt myself, but I knew that would hurt,'' Entwistle told the state trooper.

Entwistle's parents, Yvonne and Clifford, along with his younger brother Russell, attended the court proceedings this week and told reporters that Neil was "one-hundred percent innocent."

Yesterday, as defense attorneys described Neil as a devoted dad who loved his wife and baby (pictured left), his mother wept behind him as her husband patted her leg. She has spent much of the week blowing kisses to the accused killer as he sits in a dark suit with a seemingly smug smile on his face.

When Entwistle was arrested he was carrying a note to himself about selling the story of his murdered family "to the highest bidder!" He also had list of hookers and the scrawled phone number of an ex-girlfriend he tried to look up in England.

We hear a lot about booze and drugs as an excuse for murder. The more I learn about Neil Entwistle, the more I am convinced that he is a sex addict. And his insatiable lust drove him to kill.

The trial continues tomorrow in Middlesex Superior Court. Lawyers plan to argue over a photograph that shows Neil Entwistle naked and aroused on a lawn chair at his in-laws' backyard. Prosecutors want the photo, which was submitted to adult friend finder, admitted as evidence. Clearly, defense attorneys want it tossed. Should be an interesting court battle.

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