A BRITISH man was being questioned by American detectives last night about the murder of his wife and child, who were found dead at their home in Massachusetts.

Neil Entwistle voluntarily went to the US Embassy in London to meet four American police officers who had flown to England to interview him. The development is the latest twist in a murder investigation that has focused on eBay, the internet auction site, and the sordid world of internet pornography and pyramid selling scams.

The bodies of Mr Entwistle’s American wife, Rachel, and nine-month-old daughter, Lillian, were discovered under blankets in the bedroom of the home they were renting in the small town of Hopkinton. They had been shot dead. Mr Entwistle, 27, a computer technician, had left America up to two days before their bodies were discovered on Sunday. After a series of telephone calls between US detectives and Mr Entwistle, the Englishman agreed to meet police.

He left his parents’ home in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, with his father, Clifford, a local district councillor, at 10am yesterday. He travelled in an unmarked police car to London. After arriving at the embassy soon after midday, he met two Massachusetts state police troopers and two Hopkinton police officers. A spokesman for the Middlesex County district attorney in the US emphasised that Mr Entwistle had not been arrested and was a “person of interest” to investigators, not a suspect.

Martha Coakley, the district attorney, said: “A person of interest is a person who we believe may have relevant information about the case that we are investigating.”

She confirmed that investigators were looking into allegations that Mr Entwistle may have been involved in internet scams and into his possible connections with internet pornography.

EBay, the internet auction site, revealed that it was also helping detectives after it emerged that Mr Entwistle may have been using the site to promote his businesses.

He is said to have run a website, millionmaker.co.uk, offering what appeared to be get-rich-quick pyramid schemes linked to internet pornography and promising thousands of dollars in profits for a small joining fee. The site was shut down this week. A seller identified as Mr Entwistle was registered on eBay and had attracted a flood of angry complaints this month from buyers claiming that they had been conned.

EBay in the US said that customer feedback for the seller had been overwhelmingly positive until the start of the new year, when it turned sour, prompting eBay to suspend the account on January 9: “What you can see is someone who, at least within the eBay universe, was acting as a good eBay citizen until, all of a sudden, there was a period of 48 hours of bad feedback. We’re working with law enforcement to provide them with information.”

Detectives in America were also trying to establish how Mr Entwistle, who was unemployed, was able to rent a five-bedroom home valued at £300,000. He had been due to attend job interviews in the area yesterday. The bodies of Mrs Entwistle, 27, and her daughter were discovered on Sunday after friends became concerned that they could not contact her.

Mrs Entwistle, who studied at the University of York for two years and taught at a school in Redditch, Worcestershire, for three years, was found lying next to her child.

Mr Entwistle’s car was then found at Logan Airport, Boston. Records show that he bought a ticket to London up to 48 hours before the bodies were found.

The district attorney’s office said that it appeared that nothing was stolen from the property, which had been locked when police arrived. Relatives told investigators that the couple did not have a history of marital problems.

Mrs Entwistle and her daughter will be buried on Wednesday after a service at St Peter’s church, Plymouth, Massachusetts, near where Mrs Entwistle was brought up and near the home of her mother and stepfather, Priscilla and Joseph Matterazzo.

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