American homicide victim, she and her 9-month daughter were found dead in their home in Hopkinton, MA at 6:30 PM local time on January 22, 2006. On the evening of the 21st, police were summoned to the Entwistle home after friends showed up for a scheduled dinner party and no one came to the door. On a first check of the house, police found nothing amiss but, the next day, on a more thorough search, they found the bodies well covered by rumpled bed clothes in the master bedroom. Mother and child had been killed by one bullet that passed through both bodies, although Rachel had been shot twice. The date and time of death are uncertain, but the medical examiner gave a range of from 1:00 AM Friday, the 20th and the following morning
Police later recovered husband Neil Entwistle’s car at Logan International Airport in Boston, MA, learned that his name was on the passenger list of an England-bound plane on the morning of January 21st, and traced him to his parents’ home in Worksop, England. He did not return to Massachusetts for the funeral but upon further investigation and cooperation between law enforcement agencies in both countries, he was arrested by British police on February 9 and agreed the following day to be extradited to the US where he is the prime suspect. An unemployed electrical engineer, he had allegedly been in financial difficulties, reportedly setting up websites with get-rich-quick pyramid schemes, some with pornographic material. Investigators theorized that he killed his wife and baby with a handgun taken from Rachel’s stepfather and that he may have intended to kill himself as well but couldn’t go through with the suicide.
Prior to the murders, there had been no suspicion of domestic violence or unhappiness, Rachel was seen as a happy young bride, a devoted mother, and a dedicated teacher. She had told her mother that Neil had made a lot of money working for the government and had money in offshore accounts. But, she added, Neil would not talk about finances with her.
Rachel’s father died when she was young, and her mother remarried. In addition to her brother, Rachel had four stepbrothers and two stepsisters. Her mother remembered Rachel’s concern for justice that gave birth to a dream to get a law degree and ultimately win a seat on the Supreme Court. In high school Rachel was a good student and athlete, popular with her peers, teachers and coaches. Water-related and field and track athletics held special interest for her, and she was an ardent swimmer and trained lifeguard. According to one of her teachers, she was adept at understanding concepts and complex situations. Rachel had genuine intellectual curiosity,” he said. She was the kind of kid who loved learning. She wasn’t just interested in getting good grades, but in understanding the material. She had a fascination with the past. I recall her saying how it would have been interesting to have been alive at other points in our history. The quality of her writing in the papers she did for the class was excellent. Rachel had tremendous potential and a positive and upbeat personality to go along with her intellectual ability.”
After her high school graduation, she attended the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. She spent her junior year abroad, in York, England, where she became coxswain for the University of York’s crew team. There she met Neil in 1999; they married August 10, 2003 at 5 PM in Plymouth, MA, and returned to England where Rachel taught in a Catholic high school. Their baby Lillian Rose was born April 9, 2005 at 12:57 AM in England according to her birth announcement which the parents proudly placed on their personal website (no city or town was mentioned). In July 2005, her husband quit his job in a technology company. Just 10 days before the murder, the small family had moved to Hopkinton, MA.
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