US:NEIL ENTWISTLE, the British IT expert convicted of the murder of his American wife and nine-month-old baby, will spend the rest of his life in the US prison system with no chance of parole.
He was given two concurrent life sentences yesterday, a day after a jury found him guilty of shooting his wife, Rachel (27) and baby, Lillian, at point-blank range. Entwistle, who was having financial problems and displaying increasingly erratic sexual behaviour, used a revolver he had taken from his father-in-law's home.
Sentencing him, Judge Diane Kottmyer said the murders defied comprehension. "They involved the planned and deliberate murders of the defendant's wife and nine-month-old child, in violation of the bonds we recognise as central to our identity as human beings: those of husband and wife and parent and child."
Under Massachusetts law, there is no death penalty, but convicted murderers can be held in custody until they die.
Rachel's mother, Priscilla Matterazzo, asked the judge to give Entwistle two consecutive life sentences out of respect for her daughter and granddaughter. But Judge Kottmyer said that was immaterial as he would never be released.
Mrs Matterazzo said Entwistle's defence, that his wife had been depressed and had committed a murder-suicide, was "low and despicable". Entwistle's parents, Cliff and Yvonne, told their local newspaper in England that they were devastated by a guilty verdict on their "innocent son". - (Guardian service)