SUFFOLK COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS: A British convict is pushing for a new trial after he was sentenced 15 years ago for the murder of his wife and daughter at their Massachusetts home.
The defendant has also come forward with a pro se petition where he complained about a former holdout juror’s 2008 Dateline interview about how she changed her mind.
Neil Entwistle, 45, is serving two life sentences without parole in state prison for murdering his 27-year-old wife Rachel Entwistle and their nine-month-old baby Lillian.
On August 23, he filed several documents in the Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County, one of which was a petition for leave to appeal a denial of his motion for a new trial.
What did Neil Entwistle claim in the petition?
Entwistle claimed in that petition that an “extraneous” crime scene “reenactment experiment” during deliberations coupled with a juror’s statements in a 2008 post-verdict Dateline interview are the reasons enough for a new trial.
Entwistle’s trial ended with jurors rejecting the defense contention that Rachel Entwistle perpetrated a murder-suicide with her father’s gun, taking the life of their nine-month-old baby Lillian and her own at the family’s Hopkinton home.
What did the jurors determine?
However, jurors ultimately determined that the evidence overwhelmingly showed that Neil Entwistle, a computer engineer, alone was behind the “unimaginable and unforgivable” family murders.
The infamous incident has been adapted into several true crime documentaries, YouTube videos, and at least one book.
It was established that Neil Entwistle shot and killed his wife and their daughter and took a one-way flight to London while he was reeling under the burden of debt and living a sex-obsessed double life, according to Boston 25 News.
Ashley Sousa, one of the last jurors to be convinced that this was not a murder-suicide case, spoke with Dateline after the trial and explained what swayed her.
“Rachel and I were both 5’2″. So if we had the same arm length and I held the gun from my head — from my face — and I shot myself, I would have burn marks all over my face,” Sousa said.
The remarks came to light again as part of Neil Entwistle’s latest attempt at convincing the world that his trial was unfair.
Entwistle primarily argued in the typed petition brought and signed only by him that an “extraneous reenactment experiment” that played out during jury deliberations.
“I mean, post-partum depression is real. And as a mother, I can tell you it’s real,” the juror told Dateline, adding “And I’ve had post-partum, but we actually went through the crime scene in the deliberating room. I mean, we reenacted it and we went through.”
Entwistle asserted that this “extraneous reenactment experiment,” in which the juror compared her height to Rachel Entwistle’s and speculated about having the same arm length, denied him the “right to a decision based on the evidence at trial, governed by the rules of evidence” just to obtain a conviction.
“The jury’s reenactment of the crime scene involved trying different configurations of Rachel and Lillian Entwistle and of Rachel Entwistle’s holding of the gun, information not part of the evidence at trial,” the convicted double murderer argued.
“The jury’s reenactment relied on the assumed equal arm length of Rachel Entwistle and a deliberating juror, information not part of the evidence at trial.”
The inmate insisted that the jurors improperly sent him off to prison for life by using the so-called “reenactment experiment ” to “resolve a key issue.”
“Ashley Sousa rendered her guilty verdict against the defendant based on information introduced by and conclusions drawn from the jury’s reenactment experiment of the crime scene,” the petition said.
