Baby's bloody pajamas shown at double-murder trial
By DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 16, 5:48 PM ET
WOBURN, Mass. - Jurors in the trial of a British man accused of killing his wife and 9-month-old daughter were shown the baby's undershirt and polka-dot pajamas caked with dried blood Monday — a sight that drew gasps in the courtroom.
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State police chemist Deanna Dygan testified that she determined that the gunshot to the chest that killed Lillian Rose Entwistle was a "contact shot," with the gun pressed directly against the baby.
Neil Entwistle, 29, has pleaded not guilty to murder in the January 2006 killings of his daughter and his 27-year-old wife, Rachel.
When Dygan identified Lillian's bloody "onesie" undershirt and footed "sleeper" pajamas, Entwistle looked away and later dabbed his eyes with a tissue. His mother, Yvonne, sobbed as she sat in the front row of the courtroom and was comforted by Entwistle's father, Clifford.
A small hole was visible in the upper left chest area of the pajamas and the onesie. Jurors were also shown the bloodstained green nightshirt Rachel had been wearing.
Prosecutors allege that Entwistle shot his wife and daughter after becoming despondent over mounting debt and dissatisfied with his sex life. The suspect flew to his native England the day after the killings and was arrested in London three weeks later.
Entwistle told police he came home from running errands and found his wife and daughter fatally shot in their bed in the master bedroom of their rented house in Hopkinton, where they had moved 10 days earlier.
In his cross-examination of Dygan, defense lawyer Elliot Weinstein tried to undermine investigators' credibility by highlighting the fact that police initially did not realize that Rachel Entwistle had been shot in the head.
At first, police noticed a wound above her left breast, but an autopsy later revealed that she died of a gunshot wound to the head. The post-mortem examination showed that Lillian Entwistle died of a gunshot wound to the chest; investigators said that bullet passed into Rachel Entwistle's chest.
"You didn't notice that she had been shot in the middle of her forehead at first?" Weinstein asked.
"This was the careful and meticulous work, and yet nobody saw that that evening, did they?"
"That's correct," Dygan replied.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080616/ap_on_re_us/mother_and_baby_dead
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