Accused man 'made burial request'

The defence team says Mr Entwistle loved his wife and daughter

A British man accused of murdering his wife and daughter asked if they could be buried together as that is how he had "left them", a US court has heard.

Neil Entwistle, 29, from Worksop, Nottinghamshire, denies murdering his wife, Rachel, 27, and nine-month-old daughter, Lillian, in January 2006.

Joseph Matterazzo, his father-in-law, said he made the remark over the phone. Mr Entwistle had said: "That's the way I left them, I mean that's the way I found them," it was alleged.

"That's exactly what he said," claimed the Briton's father-in-law.

Mr Entwistle's wife and daughter were found shot dead at the family's rented home in Hopkinton, near Boston, Massachusetts.

After his family's deaths Mr Entwistle flew to the UK on a one-way ticket and went to his parents' home in Worksop.

'Big mess'

He was arrested at Royal Oak underground station in west London in February 2006 and taken back to the US.

Prosecutors have told the jury the IT worker had a secret life - that he was thousands of pounds in debt, visited websites offering casual sex, and searched online for ways to kill people and take his own life.

Mr Matterazzo, a project worker for a US electrical company, told Middlesex County Superior Court in Woburn, Massachusetts, that Mr Entwistle had called him from the UK and had described the murder scene as a "big mess", adding: "I don't know how things got like this."

The jury heard that Mr Entwistle called his father-in-law several times in the days after the murders.

The 61-year-old, of Carver, Massachusetts, owned the .22 calibre revolver which US prosecutors said Mr Entwistle used to shoot and kill his wife and baby daughter.

Mr Matterazzo said he had spoken to Mr Entwistle days after the deaths

He said the Briton's "voice was shaky" and he was "whimpering" when he called from England.

Mr Matterazzo went on: "He mentioned a couple of times that he knew I had guns in the house.

"I asked why did he care I had guns in the house?"

And, when asked by prosecutor Michael Fabbri for Mr Entwistle's response, Mr Matterazzo said: "Nothing."

The Briton's father-in-law went on: "I asked him, 'Neil, did you do this? Do you know who did this?' He said, 'No, I did not'."

He also told the court that he had taken Mr Entwistle to his shooting club in October 2005, three months before the murders.

Mr Matterazzo said the Briton "did very well with it", when asked about the former IT worker's performance with the .22 calibre revolver, which the prosecution say was used to kill Mrs Entwistle and her baby daughter.

He also said he had liked his son-in-law "a lot", adding: "He was part of the family."

The trial continues.