Neil Entwistle loses final appeal in US (From York Press)

Neil Entwistle loses final appeal in US

10:42am Wednesday 16th January 2013 in News

A FORMER University of York student has lost an appeal to America’s highest court against his conviction for the murder of his wife and baby daughter.

The US Supreme Court’s refusal to review Neil Entwistle’s case means he has now exhausted all appeals and will spend the rest of his life in prison for killing his wife Rachel, 27, and nine-month-old baby, Lillian Rose.

Entwistle, who met Rachel while studying in York, was convicted in 2008 of cold-bloodedly shooting her and the baby in the master bedroom of their rented home in January 2006.

A lawyer acting for Entwistle claimed evidence was illegally seized and should have been suppressed, and that jurors may have been biased by media coverage of the case. But prosecutors said he received a “true and just” trial.

American newspapers have quoted Joe Flaherty, a long-time family friend of the victims and former state police chief homicide detective in Boston, as saying Rachel’s family were “relieved” by the decision.

Attorney General Martha Coakley was also reported to have said she believed the jury’s guilty verdict had been just, and she was pleased for the victims’ family that this decision had brought an end to the appeal.