9.15am BST/3.15am ET

Neil Entwistle case: British man goes on trial in Boston

Briton Neil Entwistle, who is charged with the murder of his wife and daughter in Massachusetts, US, appears at Middlesex superior courthouse, Massachusetts, US, in April 2006
Briton Neil Entwistle, who is charged with the murder of his wife and daughter. Photograph: Reuters

The murder trial of a British man who allegedly shot dead his American wife and baby daughter is due to start today in Boston, Massachusetts.

Prosecutors allege Neil Entwistle shot his wife, Rachel, and nine-month-old daughter, Lillian Rose, in the family's rented home in a Boston suburb.

He then fled to his parents' home in Worksop, Nottinghamshire.

Entwistle was said to be despondent over mounting debts and dissatisfied with his sex life. In the days before the killings, he conducted online searches for information about murder and suicide, according to papers filed last week.

Entwistle, 27, denies the charges. He insisted he loved his family and was so horrified at finding them dead that he returned to Britain to be with his parents. He said he did not call for help because it was obvious they were dead.

Entwistle's lawyer, Elliot Weinstein, has repeatedly said he is concerned his client cannot receive a fair trial because of the extensive media coverage, but the judge denied a request to move the trial on Friday.

Entwistle and Rachel Souza met in 1999 at York University, where she was spending a year abroad. They married in 2003 and lived in England for two years. In the summer of 2005, they moved to Carver, Massachusetts, a small town 40 miles south of Boston, to live with her mother and stepfather.

Her family told police they never saw any signs of trouble, except for one argument over money they overheard in the autumn of 2005.

Entwistle told police his marriage was "perfect", they did not fight and never had any "cross words".

But prosecutors said Entwistle, a computer programmer, was unable to find a job after the family moved to America and built up credit card debts. He started a number of internet businesses, all of which failed.

Entwistle started expressing unhappiness about his sex life, investigators said.

Searches of his computer showed that he joined a website called Adult Friend Finder in August 2005. In the week before the killings, he allegedly visited sites called Blonde Beauty Escorts and Naughty Nightlife Escorts.

When he returned to the UK, he tore a page from a London tabloid containing hundreds of ads from women "providing a variety of escort and sexual services", according to court documents.

Although financial pressures were mounting, the family had moved out of his mother-in-law's home into a rented house in Hopkinton, in Boston's south-west suburbs. Ten days later, Rachel and Lillian were dead.

Entwistle told state police he told his wife he had a job interview on the day of the killings, but the interview did not go well so he went shopping for computer parts. Prosecutors said there was no job interview.

Entwistle said he discovered his wife and daughter dead when he returned home two hours later.

He said he was so distraught that he got a knife from the kitchen to kill himself, but could not go through with it because he "knew it would hurt",according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors say that after his wife and child were shot, Entwistle drove 50 miles to his in-laws' house and returned a handgun he had taken earlier from his father-in-law's gun case.

Entwistle's DNA was found on the grip of the gun and DNA matching Rachel was found on the muzzle, court documents say.

Authorities found Entwistle's car at Boston's Logan International airport where he bought a one-way ticket to England and boarded the flight with no luggage.

The trial is expected to last for three weeks.

Today's best video

Today in pictures