Entwistle’s murder appeal is lodged

Neil Entwistle was found guilty in 2008 of killing his wife Rachel and nine-month-old daughter Lillian Rose at their home in Hopkinson, Massachusetts.

Entwistle’s lawyer, Stephen Paul Maidman, argues that evidence taken from the couple’s rented house was seized illegally because police did not have the right to search the home without a warrant. He says evidence should never have gone before a jury.

But prosecutors say police were justified as ‘community caretakers’ to go into the home after receiving reports from worried family members and friends.

They say Entwistle had become despondent after accumulating tens of thousands of dollars in debt and had complained about his marriage.

Evidence is being heard at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, but a decision about whether he will be granted a retrial could take weeks or even months.

Entwistle, a former IT consultant, is serving life in prison for the double murder, without the possibility of parole.

He fled to the UK the day after the murders in January 2006 and claimed he had done so to be consoled by his parents.

He told the jury he had found his wife and daughter cuddled together in bed, dead from apparent gunshot wounds, after he returned home from running errands.

The couple met through a rowing club when Entwistle was studying at the University of York. They married in 2003 and moved to the US shortly after their daughter was born.