Fentanyl killer created 20 fake identities to change couple’s will before murdering them

An IT worker befriended a married couple and created 20 fake identities to manipulate and drug them before killing them with a fentanyl overdose.

Luke D’Wit was found guilty of the murders of Carol and Stephen Baxter at Chelmsford Crown Court on Wednesday March 20.

On April 9 last year, the couple were discovered by their daughter slumped in armchairs in the conservatory of their detached home in the seaside town of West Mersea, Essex.

Over the course of a five-week trial, it emerged that D’Wit had spent months “torturing, drugging”, and manipulating the couple before giving them a fatal dose of the synthetic opioid fentanyl.

As they lay dying in their home, D’Wit monitored their passing remotely on cameras installed in the property.

He had created an “elaborate” network of up to 20 fake identities, which he used to give Carol misleading advice about how to manage a thyroid condition she had called Hashimoto’s.

On one occasion, D’Wit pretended to be a woman called Jenny, and sent her a voice note saying: “Oh so nice to finally speak to you after all these messages we’ve been doing.”

Carol believed that ‘Jenny’ was a friend of a woman named Cheryl - another of D’Wit’s inventions, who claimed to have the same disease.

“‘Jenny’ was a theatre producer who said she could help boost the couple’s daughter’s singing career.

When the recording was played in court, some jurors deemed it so ridiculous they laughed.

Prosecutor Tracy Ayling KC said that while the impression was ridiculous, it hid a “sinister intent” to make Carol sicker.

‘We were all dolls in his dollhouse’

Speaking after the verdict was returned, the couple’s son, Harry Baxter, said: “We were all dolls in his dollhouse, victim to his manipulation.”

He said D’Wit got pleasure from playing “foul games” with his parents and appeared to enjoy her declining health. “I feel great sadness looking back on the videos of her when she was acting strangely and seeing him in the background giggling and smiling knowing he’s the one inflicting this pain”, he added.

His sister, Ellie Baxter, said: “My mum lost her freedom, her will, her ability to function two years prior to her murder due to her illness.

“An illness no-one could help with or understand because it was contrived by Luke D’Wit.

“Mum felt so alone and lost, and there was nothing I could do other than give her my shoulder to cry on and cuddle her.”

Detective Superintendent Rob Kirby, of Essex Police, said the murders were “cold calculated acts”.

“In all my years in policing, Luke D’Wit is one of the most dangerous men I have come across. I have absolutely no doubt that had he not been caught, he would have gone on to commit further murders.”

The Baxters were self-made millionaires who had been looking forward to taking early retirement after years of hard work and were planning on downsizing to a bungalow. Carol wanted to take up art classes and Stephen was enjoying the prospect of being able to play more golf.

“They were going to retire early and live”, their daughter Ellie said.

After the Baxters’ bodies were first discovered, their deaths were treated as unexpected, but not suspicious, with investigators considering a possible carbon monoxide leak, alongside other innocent explanations.

Just over two months later, following a post-mortem, it emerged that the couple had been poisoned with fentanyl.

Ellie was initially arrested on suspicion of their murder as detectives pursued a number of lines of enquiry.

She was discounted as a suspect after a new will, written the day after the couple died, and empty packets of fentanyl, were discovered in the Baxters’ home.

The fake will named a close friend of the couple as the “director and person of significant control” of their company. That individual, who was described as being like an “adopted son” to the couple, was D’Wit.

Stephen, 61, and his 64-year-old wife ran a company called Cazsplash, with Carol having designed a type of bath mat to go around a curved, corner shower.

Stephen was also global lead, operational risk and assurance, for multi-billion pound transnational real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle, which was founded in the UK but has its headquarters in Chicago.

The couple, who married in 2000, had two children together. Carol, a former adult educator, had two more children from two previous marriages. They were also social members at West Mersea Yacht Club which flew its flag at half mast after their deaths.

D’Wit ‘portrayed himself as slightly weird and geeky, but ultimately harmless’

D’Wit first met the Baxters in 2014, after the couple reached out for help with IT for the business. He got the job by fraudulently claiming he had an MSc in computer science from the University of East Anglia.

After working for them as a consultant, he befriended them, and in court he claimed he had been Carol’s “closest friend”.

He portrayed himself as a slightly weird, geeky, but ultimately harmless friend who just wanted to help. He lived at home, shared a bedroom with his mother, Janatha, showed little interest in careers or relationships, played video games and occasionally attended Comic Con, a comic book fan convention.

Numerous friends gave evidence saying he “had a good sense of right and wrong” and often helped out at a local soup kitchen.

In the months before they died, D’Wit created numerous false identities, including a doctor, which he used to manipulate the couple and separate them from their relatives.

D’Wit put Carol in touch with a “Dr Andrea Bowden”, who he claimed was a specialist from the USA who could help advise her on how to manage her thyroid condition.

He also created fake aliases for the imaginary doctors’ patients, including one called “Cheryl” who Carol talked to about her health fears.

Another identity, Linda, was also created, who encouraged Carol to take the remedies offered by Dr Bowden. One message from Linda read: “Do what Andrea says or you will have other problems.”

Dr Naveed Younis, an endocrinologist who gave evidence in court, described the treatments and remedies as “utter rubbish”.

The couple described D’Wit as their “mixologist” and Carol told Dr Bowden he always made “all of her potions”.

Stephen also exchanged messages with Dr Bowden, and would complain about D’Wit and the fact he never left them alone.
In one message, he said: “When he’s in the house he doesn’t recognise that it’s time appropriate for him to leave.

“On some days, Carol thought Luke was following her. She got a bit fed up with him”.

D’Wit, posing as the fake doctor, replied: “I’m aware of his faults, but he does seem like a lovely lad”.

Solicitor Christopher Andrews, said that the Baxters created and wrote their will which was approved and signed in September 2021, and he was never contacted about updating it before their deaths.

The couple’s original will had stated that the Baxters’ money would be left to their four children – two from Carol and Stephen’s marriage, and Carol’s two other children.

Discussing the fake will, which had been created on D’Wit’s phone, Mr Andrews said it didn’t “read as a legal document”.
He added: “It appears whoever drafted this document has no idea how a business is run.”

D’Wit was arrested on July 6 after the will was discovered and it became clear that he had been the last person to see the couple before they died.

When their bodies were found, D’Wit was called over to the house by Ellie, and on police bodycam footage he is heard saying: “Unfortunately with Carol, you don’t know what she’s taken … sometimes she forgets and she can take it six or seven times. She doesn’t know.”

As police arrested him, he was found to have both unopened and opened packs of fentanyl patches in his rucksack. He was also found to have a number of metal tacks alongside pill casings.

During the trial it emerged that Mrs Baxter had been admitted to hospital after complaining of severe pain and where x-rays showed a number of identical tacks in her stomach.

Detectives “strongly believe” she had been secretly fed the tacks by D’Wit. In court, when questioned, he maintained he was completely innocent but admitted creating the fake identities.

He said he had only done so however, to help the couple. DSI Kirby said that D’Wit had purported to be an “upstanding, helpful and kind member of the community”.

He said: “The reality is far more sinister. He is a cold, calculated murderer.

“D’Wit went to great lengths to cover up his tracks. He deceived everyone who knew him, who welcomed him into their family homes and who relied upon him for help, or at least what they believed was help.

“Thankfully, the jury saw through his fantasies and gave guilty verdicts.”

‘Our life will forever be punctured’

In her final remarks to the jurors before they went out to consider their deliberations, Ms Ayling said D’Wit had “coolly and calmly” executed the pre-planned murders.

She added: “He has called witness after witness saying how good, quiet and kind he is. You may be tempted to be beguiled like others. There are legions of people that have fallen for his manipulation and lies.”

The victims’ son Harry said that D’Wit had taken “what we all held most sacred and found a way to extract it for himself”.
“Our life will forever be punctured by the gravity of his actions”.

He added: “My eldest daughter will forever have lost the wealth of wisdom and experience my parents possessed.”

He said his mother was “the definition of the word love” and his father “the definition of the word intelligence”.

“He sacrificed his life for us to live on and when the days came where he could finally take time and retire and have time to teach me, a young man, naive and keen at the beginning of his adult life, it was stolen away by someone we all trusted the most.”

As the verdicts were returned, Ellie wept in the public gallery. D’Wit, who used a wheelchair throughout the trial, did not react. He will be sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court on Friday March 22.

The Baxter’s children said their parents had been taken from them by “someone we all trusted the most”.

You can read their statements in full below.