A British man has been found guilty of the murder of his American wife and nine-month-old baby by a US jury.

Neil Entwistle, 29, of Worksop, Notts, had denied killing wife Rachel, 27, and Lillian Rose, at their home in Massachusetts in January 2006.

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Shortly after the verdicts were announced, his lawyers announced that they would appeal.

After 13 hours of deliberation, jurors rejected Entwistle's defence that his wife had killed their baby before turning the gun on herself, and that Entwistle had covered it up to "protect her honour".

Eyes closed

Entwistle, wearing a black suit with a blue tie, looked down as the jury returned its verdicts, before closing his eyes.

As well as being found guilty of the first degree murders of his wife and daughter, he was also convicted on two firearms charges: illegal possession of a firearm and illegal possession of ammunition.

Immediately after the verdicts were announced and Entwistle was led away to the cells, his parents Clifford and Yvonne made statements in which they maintained their son was innocent.

Speaking outside Middlesex County Superior Court in Woburn, Massachusetts, Mrs Entwistle said she stiill believed that her daughter-in-law had been depressed at the time she died.

Clifford Entwistle said: "We will continue to fight for our innocent son in the hope that some day justice will prevail and our little grand-daughter Lilly will rest in peace."

Appeal

Entwistle's lawyer Elliot Weinstein said that "in a different environment" another jury would have reached a different result.

He said he was confident that an appeal against the conviction would succeed, claiming that the police had made "unlawful entries" when they entered the Entwistle house after the killings.

During the two-week trial the jury heard that Entwistle had a secret life in which he trawled the internet for escorts and looked at websites about bankruptcy, killing and suicide.

But the defence insisted that Mrs Entwistle had been depressed and had killed her daughter, then herself.

They said that Entwistle had returned the gun used to kill the pair to his father-in-law's house in an attempt to protect his wife's honour.

A post-mortem examination found Mrs Entwistle had been shot in the forehead at close range and Lillian was killed with a bullet which passed through her abdomen and lodged above her mother's left breast as she cradled her child protectively on the bed.

(BBC)

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