- Stephen, 61, and Carol Baxter, 64, were found dead at home in April last year
This is the moment an IT worker left the house of a millionaire shower tycoon and his wife ‘after murdering them with fentanyl before rewriting their will’.
Luke D’Wit, 34, befriended entrepreneurs Stephen, 61, and Carol Baxter, 64, and ‘became like an adopted son to them’, a court heard.
Ring doorbell camera footage played to the jury shows D’Wit leaving the couple’s luxury home on Mersea Island, Essex, at 7.55pm on Friday, April 7 last year – making him the last person to see them alive, according to prosecutors.
Two days later the couple were found dead by their daughter, Ellie – with a post mortem later revealing they had ingested large amounts of fentanyl.
D’Wit lived nearby and was quickly on the scene, before making a dramatic 999 call to police as Ellie is heard crying hysterically in the background. He told the call handler: ‘We’ve just turned up at the house and we haven’t really heard from anyone for a day and half.
‘So we came round and their daughter got here first and they came round the back, looked in the conservatory window and they were sitting in their arm chairs not moving. We smashed the window to get in but they’re both stiff and cold.’
The Baxters’ deaths were treated as unexpected but not suspicious at first.
Police later discovered D’Wit had created a will on his phone on April 10 at 6.54am – a day after the couple were found dead, Chelmsford Crown Court was told.
A police interview with D’Wit filmed shortly after the couple’s bodies were discovered was also shown to the jury.
In the bodycam footage, the 34-year-old rubs his left forearm with his right hand as he says he left their home just before 8pm.
He said: ‘Me and Stephen had been talking about work and the business because Carol can’t work anymore. She hasn’t been able to do anything.
‘We were having a chat but he didn’t really seem up to it. I was going to come back tomorrow and use the gym. I am used to checking on them and I always pop in but they wanted this weekend to…
‘Steve’s mum Irene, who lives in London, was worried because he wasn’t answering her calls either which again isn’t unusual because they want time away.
‘But again, because we were concerned we drove past here at 7.30pm last night but because we saw the blinds were down and the lights were on, we thought they are doing what they want. They’ve got their weekend. The lights are on – all cool.’
D’Wit told the officer he was called to the house after the couple’s daughter found them unresponsive in their chairs.
‘I literally ran from home to here and just as I got here they smashed the back doors in.’
He added he last saw them alive on Friday – two days before the interview – and explained that he had gone into the house and saw the couple’s bodies.
D’Wit told the officer he was asked by a paramedic to get all of Carol’s medications ‘because she has got a lot’.
‘She has had various things over the years for various operations she has had. So I went upstairs and got anything that I thought looked like a tablet and put it in a brown box for the paramedic.’
He then explained that ‘sometimes she forgets to take’ her medications because she has to take so many.
The court heard that the will D’Wit allegedly created listed him as the beneficiary and that it was ‘very odd’.
It included terms such as ‘our dear friend Luke D’Wit is to be the person of significant control’ in Cazsplash, a company the couple ran which sold bespoke bath mats to go around curved showers.
Prosecutor Tracy Ayling QC told jurors: ‘He had rewritten their will and stolen Carol’s jewellery, among many other things, to benefit from their deaths.’
D’Wit, who lives in West Mersea, denies murdering Mr Baxter and his wife.
On the opening day of the trial, the jury was told that the couple’s daughter, Ellie, arrived at their home on Easter Sunday last year and saw them dead inside.
An ambulance was called at 1.10pm and all three emergency services attended, including the fire service which ruled out carbon monoxide poisoning.
‘They were found by their daughter and her partner, dead in the conservatory, sitting in their individual armchairs,’ Ms Ayling said.
‘There was no obvious reason for their deaths but as their bodies were examined, it was revealed they had been poisoned using a drug called fentanyl.’
Fentanyl is a powerful opioid painkiller.
There was no suicide note and the ‘whole area, including the kitchen, was very neat and tidy’.
In the 999 call played to the court, Ellie screamed and wept and told a call handler: ‘I need an ambulance right now.’
She said ‘I need to get inside’ and was heard banging on the glass of the conservatory, swearing and saying that she thought they were dead.
D’Wit then took over the call, as Ms Baxter wept in the background, and told the call handler: ‘I’m a friend.’
The defendant appeared to be ‘very calm and plausible’ during the call, the prosecutor said.
He was the ‘last person to see them alive’ but ‘wasn’t seen as a suspect and in fact provided statements to police as a witness’.
In an account to police, D’Wit said he left the Baxters’ at 7.55pm on April 7.
Ms Ayling told the jurors: ‘He said Carol was asleep and Steve was standing in the kitchen saying he was going to do something for dinner,’ said Ms Ayling.
But police were ‘able to discover he left Carol and Stephen incapacitated at this time’, she added.
A toxicology report in June last year indicated that a factor in both deaths was the drug fentanyl, the court was told.
Checks of the stomach contents in both victims ‘suggests but doesn’t conclusively show that the drug was ingested orally’.
Mrs Baxter, who had a thyroid condition and a pacemaker, was also found to have the antihistamine drug promethazine in her system.
‘It’s difficult to imagine any scenario when two individuals who are not prescribed fentanyl could accidentally contaminate their food with this drug,’ Ms Ayling said.
Their original will stated their estate would be left to their four children – two from their marriage and Mrs Baxter’s two other children from a previous relationship.
The new will, allegedly written on D’Wit’s phone, said: ‘Cazsplash is to continue trading in whichever way is planned.
‘Our daughter, Ellie Baxter, is to be the 100 per cent shareholder and complete owner. There is no financial gain to this.
‘Our dear friend, DW, is to be the director and person of significant control.
‘Our business-making decisions are down to him apart from an agreed and respected wage – there is no financial gain to this.’
During the 999 call, Ellie was heard saying: ‘We need an ambulance right now, she’s been poisoned.
‘My mum’s not very well. They’re poisoned, they’re dead. They’re frozen. They’re so cold.’
When D’Wit took over and was asked if the couple were beyond help, he replied: ‘Yeah. There’s some blood on her mouth. She has yellow, blue fingers.’
Bodycam footage from a police officer showed D’Wit saying: ‘I last saw them on Friday. Me and Steve were just talking about work.
‘We drove past the house last night and the blinds were down.’
D’Wit met the Baxters in 2013 when they needed help with IT for their business.
He worked in their house three times a week and knew Mrs Baxter had Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, an autoimmune disease, the court heard.
As her condition worsened, D’Wit would turn up most days to help care for her.
A copy of D’Wit’s CV was shown to the jury in which he claimed he had an MSc in computer science from the University of East Anglia. The prosecution said the university has no record of him attending as a student.
The defendant also denies a charge of possession of a Class A drug and one count of theft.
The case continues.
William Turner is a seasoned U.K. correspondent with a deep understanding of domestic affairs. With a passion for British politics and culture, he provides insightful analysis and comprehensive coverage of events within the United Kingdom.
