Briton 'not a Suspect' in Us Murders

A British man whose American wife and baby daughter were found murdered in their family home in the US four days ago was not a suspect in the case, Nottinghamshire police said tonight.

Neil Entwistle is believed to have flown back to the UK from Boston, Massachusetts, a day or two before the bodies of his wife Rachel and daughter Lillian were discovered on Sunday night.

Tonight Nottinghamshire police said there were no extradition proceedings in relation to Mr Entwistle, 27, and said he was being treated as a "potential witness" by US authorities.

A statement from the force, which is local to the home of Mr Entwistle's parents Clifford and Yvonne, said there were "no legal powers to take executive action" if he was not a suspect. "In the circumstances it is not our role to comment on speculation regarding his whereabouts," the statement added.

Mr Entwistle, an unemployed computer technician, is understood to have been in contact with American officers investigating the double murder. Reports that four plainclothes US detectives boarded a plane to Britain last night have not been confirmed by the Home Office.

Ms Entwistle and Lillian were found dead in their £1,534 rented five-bedroom home in the quiet town of Hopkinton, Middlesex county, where they lived with Mr Entwistle. Their bodies were found under a pile of blankets in a bedroom at their home.

Police had been contacted after friends turned up for a dinner party at the home and found no one answered.

Martha Coakley, a US district attorney in Middlesex county, said last night they believed Mr Entwistle left the US late on Friday or early on Saturday. Several sources in the US confirmed he was on a flight from Boston to London on Friday.

Ms Coakley told the Boston Globe investigators had developed a rough timeline that placed Mr Entwistle in Massachusetts when the shootings happened, but insisted he was still only "a person of interest" in the case.

The Middlesex district attorney's office would not comment on reports that Mr Entwistle ran a website offering what appeared to be "get-rich-quick pyramid schemes". According to the US newspaper MetroWest Daily News, a site registered to a Neil Entwistle in York claimed to offer 24-hour, seven-day-a-week support to those with adult internet businesses.

Mr and Mrs Entwistle met through a university rowing club when Mr Entwistle was studying electronic engineering and business management at York and she was a visiting student. They married in 2003 and moved to the US shortly after Lillian's birth, and began renting their new home in Hopkinton less than two weeks ago.