Fentanyl killer who poisoned married couple in bid to steal their shower mat company jailed

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An IT employee and double assassin who befriended a married couple earlier than poisoning them with fentanyl has been jailed for all times.

Luke D’Wit, 34, created quite a few on-line personas to manipulate Stephen and Carol Baxter, and later modified their will to make him a director of their shower mat company.

Mrs Baxter, 64, and her 61-year-old husband had been discovered lifeless in their armchairs at their dwelling in West Mersea in Essex by their daughter Ellie on Easter Sunday final 12 months.

In a 999 name, D’Wit might be heard calmly taking up the decision and describing himself as a “friend” to the household earlier than giving a false account.

Despite initially being handled as a witness, toxicology studies confirmed fentanyl in the couple’s system, with D’Wit confirmed to be the final particular person to see them alive. Following a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court, he was convicted of their murders and has now been jailed for a minimal time period of 37 years.

An investigation discovered that he had created quite a few faux personas to deceive the Baxter household, which included a physician from Florida and members of a help group for the thyroid situation Hashimoto’s, which Mrs Baxter suffered from.

In a sequence of manipulative messages pretending to be Dr Andrea Bowden, he supplied medical recommendation with “no clinical basis” resembling encouraging Mrs Baxter to spend much less time together with her family members.

He additionally pretended to be a theatre producer to earn the belief of their daughter, with D’Wit serving to Miss Baxter movie music recordings to ship to ‘Jenny’.

In proof, Miss Baxter instructed jurors that her dad and mom believed D’Wit was “weird, but nerdy weird”.

She stated he had initially been introduced into their shower mat enterprise in about 2012 or 2013 to “help build the website” earlier than ultimately coming spherical to their home “every day”.

Reading her sufferer affect assertion,she described D’Wit as a “man so manipulative he hacked his way into our lives over a decade ago, schemed and thoroughly planned my parents’ demise”.

She stated her dad and mom had “looked after Luke”, including: “They just decided he was lonely, especially after Luke’s dad died. They took him under their wing and would let him join in.”

It was found that he additionally put in a “mobile security surveillance application” on his cellphone, which allowed him to monitor a digital camera from the couple’s conservatory.

During the ultimate moments of their lives, he watched on his cellphone because the Baxters first turned incapacitated by the medication, then died.

When arrested at his office, his bag contained fentanyl patches, opened and unopened which he claimed had been from the demise of his father in 2021.

The sentencing choose, Mr Justice Nicholas Lavender, instructed Luke D’Wit: “It’s distinctly possible what motivated you was a desire to control others.”

Wearing a patterned blue short-sleeved shirt, D’Wit appeared to present no response as he sat in a wheelchair in the safe dock.

The choose stated he was positive that D’Wit “extracted the fentanyl from patches which had been originally prescribed for your father, who died in 2021”.

He stated these had been crushed right into a powder and given to Stephen and Carol Baxter in a drink, which they took as they trusted D’Wit to put together “supposed health drinks”.

Detective Superintendent Rob Kirby, of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, stated exterior court docket: “I have absolutely no doubt in my mind had he not been caught he would have gone on to kill further people.”

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