Neil Entwhistle found guilty

[QueenMeabhOfConnaught]

On the BBC site now.

I am trying to imagine what it would be like to have a child accused of such a dreadful thing. I always wonder when I see these parents with their desperate belief in their children's innocence if I would be able to convince myself like that in the teeth of so much evidence that my child hadn't done it.

There was a story in my local paper today where a 16-yr-old was banned from his school prom because he refused to remove a facial piercing for school and swore at and shoved the headteacher when asked to. His mum was outraged and they were pictured in the local rag ranting about how unfair the school was.
I'm not comparing these two cases in any way or suggesting that he will end up like Neil
Entwhistle but backing up your child when they are clearly in the wrong is such a disastrous thing to do.

Can you imagine?

I mean, really? Picking up a gun and...doing that? To your little baby?

He must be insane. He just must be.

Oh no, not 'blame the mother again'! Can't we accept that sometimes men do this sort of thing, and we don't always have to look for a woman to blame. Actually, I find it rather ironic that while blasting the parents for blaming the murdered wife, people are trying to place the blame on the murderer's mother.
The same thing happened with Harold Shipman - it was his relationship with his mother/wife that made him do it (take your pick), and just about every notorious male killer.
I'm sure his parents are bloody odd. Their 29 year old son murdered his wife and baby and is now facing the rest of his natural life without parole (what 50 years?) in a US prison. If that was my beloved son denying it I'd probably be deluded and 'odd' too and grasping at any straws to make this all different.

I just foumd it in really bad taste that his mother (ok she is going to go to bat for her child) said "I knew DIL was depressed," "she killed our grandchild" "she killed herself"

Yes a mother is as able as a father to kill their child, but everything points to that not being the case here.

Yes, of course he killed her, but they are hardly likely to be thinking dispassionately or even rationally. I think ideally they would be treated as people who hardly know what they are doing and gently ignored. It feels to me as if they are being set up as hate figures, when really, which of us could say we'd be able to cope with one of our kids doing something like this out of the blue?

I feel sorry for both sets of grandparents. Can't imagine how you would cope with either set of circumstances.

Hard to have even a shred of sympathy for Entwistle after such selfish, cruel defence. Attempting to cast the blame on his wife was an appalling thing to do. And it just didn't add up - if his story of trying to shield his wife from blame was true, why was he pleading not guilty?

he could life withouth parole, an automatic sentence, as many states now have for first degree or capital (murder in conjunction with rape, robbery or kidnapping, murder of a law enforcer/fire department personnel or parametic) murder.

sorry, he got life without parole.

entwistle

I think this must be very tough on his parents. They must have, and will still be, going through hell. They have lost their DIL and their baby granddaughter - and now their son, in a different way.

They have heard his story so much over the months no doubt. He is their son; they will want to believe he is not capable of this. They will look for anything, no matter how small and flimy it may seem to others, to prove he is innocent. Their son has tolf them he is innocent, and right now they probably have to hold that to them. To accept he is guitlty in effects means giving up their son as they know him. How difficult must that be, one can only guess.

However I suspect now he has been found guilty, arrticulalryly if this goes to appeal and he is still found guilty (as it very very likely), in time they will realise it to. They must begin a form of grieving for their son - or rather for the man they believed him to be. One of the first stafges of the grieving process is denial - I suspect they will remain in this phase for a while yet. It will be a long process for them.

This man after all is still their son, their child. They didn't deserve to be put in this position, and they will have no reference on which to call to know what they should do or how they should act. I think they should be allowed to go through this process in peace.

actually people he grew up with described his parents as good parents and gave no indication he was the bully

I have no sympathy for him whatsoever but character assasination of his parents is unfair- the haven't been convicted of anything and have a horrible thing to face.

I think those that condomn his parents right now are being very very unfair. You have no idea how you would react under such pressure and under such circumstances. Hopefully you will never be placed in that position.

I see parents like this coming into prison - good people, people who haven't been int rouble with the police before, parents who have done nothing wrong - but their child, their son, is now serving a life sentence for murder. Especially when they are newly sentenced. Some of those parents must be under such immense pressure and suffering. How can they be expected to take it all in straight away and reat in the way the media want them to?

A criminal such as neil creates several layers of victims- the primary ones (wife and chikld, God bless); then the famillies who have also lost grandchildren etc through no fault of their own.

Poor souls

I think criticising the parents is completely out of order. Why should it follow that they are in some way to blame? I?m sure that they probably blame themselves, I know that if my ds committed such a horrific act I would ask myself what I had done wrong that I had brought up a child capable of such things. But he is an adult, perfectly capable of taking responsibility for his own actions.

And maybe they believed the wife was depressed. They were living in a different country after all, so all they probably had was email/phone communication. How do we know he hadn?t told them she was depressed? If this murder was pre-meditated, he might have been sewing the seeds for quite some time before he actually went through with it. She?d not long had a baby after all, therefore he would probably have found it quite easy to convince his family she was suffering from pnd and had had murderous/suicidal thoughts. They were in this country, so couldn?t pop round to check on her/make sure everything was ok. And in the meantime he was doing whatever it was he?d been doing, and then, having convinced his parents his wife was depressed, he kills her and the baby, flies home to the UK and tells his parents that the worst has happened and that she has killed his baby and herself and maybe he told them that he?s scared the police might think he?d done it (not inconceiveable that they might after all) and that?s why he?s come home.

Obviously I don?t know whether that?s what happened, but if the groundwork had been laid beforehand, and he?d never been in trouble before, why would his parents have any reason to believe he was lying?

And of course she may well ahve ben depressed

depressed people can have murderous bastard husbands too sadly

My comment about having the moral fibre to send him back to face the music is I feel, totally valid.

He did not attend the funeral, and rang a florist to order a bouquet in his absence.

Now, whether I as his Mother believed he was innocent or guilty I would have sent him back to face the music.

Do we know she didnt try to persuade him to turn back? She couldn't have forced him.

I also don't think anyone could possibly tell anyone how they should respond when they were no doubt immersed in terrible grief for their granddaughter, and terrified for their son.

i am just watching it on sky news and have got to say i don't think he looks quite so glib today i actually think he looks tired and a little scared. good i hope he is absolutely petrified and crappin his pants -just like his pooer wife and that poor baby felt fear he will now face fear!

he'll probably be separated from the other prisoners for a while, especially in the yard.

child killers are the lowest of the low in US prisons, even among hardened murderers.

right up there with paedos and gang drop-outs/informants 'snitches'.

myredcardigan the comments your DH made re mothers shooting their children, my mum and I were talking yesterday and we both said the same thing.

I have felt so sick over all of this! Accusing that poor thing of murdering her grandchild was a despicable thing to say, despite what they must be going through. Going on to talk about her depression was a low as well. She was the one with the close-knit family and successful job she loved.

I cannot stop thinking about what she must have been thinking when she realised the man she loved and trusted was going to kill her and the baby. It actually makes me want to weep!!!

I was also getting very sick of hearing how concerned everyone was that he would not get a fair trial. No high profile cases do in the States because of Court TV, et all. If he was so concerned about a fair trial, he should have killed her somehwere else. His defense was unforgivable and I cannot see how anyone involved can sleep at night.

He is complete waste of space!!

My DH said the same thing. Women do not shoot their babies!
Also, cases have shown that women who do kill their child disengage emotionally, almost as if they just shut off! They don't cuddle them and shoot them in the chest.

despicable or desperate? ther's a world of difference between condoning what someone says, and realising they are unlike;y to be in their right minds atm and hoping they are getting appropriate professional input.

They have lost a grandchild, and effectively their son. And they cant get angry at the bastard who did it because.... he's their son.

I hope with the right help they'll realise what they said is wrong and be able to apologise and face up to reality.

And whilst I have no idea how i'd react and never want to know, I pra that if I were in the position of the in laws here, that I would have the capacity, despite my grief, to identify fellow hunan suffering.

That is true, but it must be very hard for her parents to hear things like that. The fact is that they have not lost their son. They can visit him, speak to him, write to him. He is alive.
His parent's should have made no comments to the press at all. The media outlets are looking for the next story and they don't care how they get it. Their comments have made people spit on them in the street and they have done nothing but believe their disgusting son.

It is all too sad!