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Debt, Escort Service, Then Murder?

A man accused of killing his wife and baby daughter visited the Web sites of escort services and accessed directions to at least one just two days before his family was shot, according to documents released Monday.

Neil Entwistle, 27, was arrested in his native England last week and charged with first-degree murder in the Jan. 20 slayings of his wife, Rachel, and their 9-month-old daughter, Lillian, at their home in the Boston suburb of Hopkinton.

Prosecutors said they believe Entwistle killed his wife and daughter after becoming despondent over mounting debt.

In an arrest warrant affidavit released last week, investigators said Entwistle had tens of thousands of dollars in debt and also "had recently expressed a dissatisfaction with his sex life."

British authorities signed an order Friday authorizing Entwistle's return to Massachusetts, but it wasn't clear when he would arrive.

One affidavit describes a telephone conversation between state trooper Robert Manning and Entwistle on Jan. 23, while Entwistle was at his parents' home in Worksop, England.

Entwistle allegedly told Manning that on the day of the killings, he had left the house to run errands — and that when he returned he found his wife in the master bedroom, partially covered with a comforter.

"Neil said that he pulled down the comforter, saw his wife was pale, saw blood on the baby and that the baby had been shot, and they were dead," Manning recounted.

The trooper said Entwistle decided to drive to his wife's parents' home in Carver, 50 miles away, "since he had no number to call them." Authorities say they believe Entwistle used a .22-caliber handgun owned by his father-in-law to kill his wife and daughter, then drove back to Carver to return the weapon before catching a flight to England.

The court filings released Monday at the request of news organizations include affidavits filed in support of search warrants for Entwistle's home, car and computer. Investigators spell out their reasons for seeking warrants, as well as lists of items found during the searches.

Framingham District Court Judge Robert Greco agreed Monday to make public more than 200 pages. Some information remained sealed.

Entwistle visited the Web sites of several escort services and sought out directions to at least one two days before the slayings, according to the documents.

Prosecutors said Monday they did not know if Entwistle had hired an attorney in Massachusetts. He may be assigned a lawyer if he declares himself indigent.

Last week, hours after British authorities arrested a man in the shooting deaths of his wife and baby daughter at a London subway station, U.S. officials shed new light on the slayings, which shattered a peaceful Boston suburb last month and neighbors' perception of a happy family.

But among his Web site ventures: Millionmaker.co.uk, which promised customers as much as $6,000 in monthly earnings; srpublications.co.uk, which offered a manual that it said would help men enlarge their penises; and srpublications, which offered software at reduced prices on eBay.

Upon Entwistle's arrest, Rachel Entwistle's family issued a statement saying they were "deeply saddened" by the arrest.

"Rachel and Lilly loved Neil very much. Neil was a trusted husband and father, and it is incomprehensible how that love and trust was betrayed in the ultimate act of violence," the statement said.

Police were first called to the Entwistles' Hopkinton, Mass., home on Jan. 21 but didn't see anything wrong, authorities said. Coakley said that friends of the couple had showed up for a dinner party but no one answered the door, and that Rachel Entwistle's mother called police when she couldn't reach her daughter.

After a missing person's report was filed, police visited the home again. During the search, they detected an odor and discovered the bodies in the bedroom. Coakley has said the bodies were covered by bedding and "almost not visible."

Rachel Entwistle and her daughter were laid to rest together in a wooden casket on Feb. 1 at a service attended by about 500 mourners, but not Neil Entwistle. The memorial service was at the same Roman Catholic church where the baby was baptized less than two months earlier.

Neil Entwistle didn't return for their funeral.

He had met his future wife in 1999 at the University of York, where she was spending a year studying abroad. They married in 2003 and stayed in England until last year. Their daughter was born in April.

The family moved to Massachusetts and had rented the Colonial-style home in Hopkinton less than two weeks before she and her daughter were killed.

Relatives told investigators that the Entwistles did not have a history of marital problems, and said Neil Entwistle was looking for a technology job at the time. His wife had been a teacher but also was not working.

In Massachusetts, a first-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.

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