Fentanyl murderer would have killed again had he not been caught – detective

An IT worker who murdered a married couple by poisoning them with fentanyl would have gone on to kill again if he had not been caught by police, a detective said.

Luke D’Wit, 34, who befriended and worked for Stephen and Carol Baxter, created a series of fake online personas to manipulate them before he killed them.

These included a doctor from Florida and members of a fake support group for the thyroid condition Hashimoto’s, which Mrs Baxter suffered from.

He later changed their will to make him a director of their shower mat company.

Mrs Baxter, 64, and her 61-year-old husband were found dead at their home in West Mersea in Essex by their daughter Ellie on Easter Sunday last year.

D’Wit denied their murders but was found guilty by unanimous verdicts at Chelmsford Crown Court on Wednesday, following a trial that lasted more than a month and on a third day of jury deliberations.

The Baxters’ daughter Ellie was in the public gallery and wept when the two guilty verdicts were returned, as she was comforted by her brother Harry.

The defendant, who used a wheelchair throughout the trial, did not appear to react in the secure dock of the court.

Detective Superintendent Rob Kirby addressed media outside court afterwards, as Ellie and Harry Baxter stood by his side, along with members of the wider family.

“In all my years of policing, Luke D’Wit is one of the most dangerous men I have ever come across,” he said.

“I have absolutely no doubt in my mind had he not been caught he would have gone on to kill further people.”

He said that D’Wit “disgracefully … based his defence on collusion between himself and Stephen Baxter”.

“Stephen is tragically not here to defend himself but from everything we knew about him we know this could never have been the case,” said Mr Kirby, of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate.

“Thankfully, today the jury have seen through D’Wit’s fantasies and delivered guilty verdicts.”

D’Wit denied murdering the pair and claimed in court that he created fake identities on the instructions of Mr Baxter and to give Mrs Baxter “someone to talk to and air all her grievances to”.

Prosecutors said D’Wit, of West Mersea, created a fake will on his phone the day after the Baxters were found dead, making him a director of their shower mat company Cazsplash.

Another fake persona – a solicitor – was used in connection with the new will, prosecutors said.

Tracy Ayling KC said in her prosecution closing speech that D’Wit murdered Mr and Mrs Baxter “calmly, coolly and in a way which had been entirely planned, maybe for some while”.

The couple’s daughter said in evidence that her parents believed D’Wit was “weird, but nerdy weird”.

She said he had initially been brought into their shower mat business in about 2012 or 2013 to “help build the website” before eventually coming round to their house “every day”.

She said afterwards, in a statement released through police, that her mother “lost her freedom, her will, her ability to function two years prior to her murder due to her illness”.

She said that “no-one could help with or understand” her illness “because it was contrived by Luke D’Wit”.

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

Their son Harry Baxter said D’Wit played “foul games torturing and drugging” his mother.

“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 as we were all dolls in his dollhouse, victim to his manipulation,” he said, in a statement released through police.

Mr Kirby said in an interview outside court that D’Wit “fooled everyone”.

“He befriended people, came across as a very amenable, helpful person but in the background he was a cool, calculated killer who spent years planning the demise of Carol and Stephen Baxter,” he said.

He described D’Wit as a “loner” who “spent hours of his time creating false personas, all there to create control over the Baxters”.

“The level of deviousness he went to was phenomenal,” Mr Kirby said.

Asked about a possible motive, Mr Kirby said it was “unclear what was going on in D’Wit’s mind”.

“Certainly he stood to benefit financially from the death of the Baxters and we believe that certainly this played part of the role in his motive,” he said.

He continued: “D’Wit’s downfall was the arrogance that existed within him.

“He didn’t cover his tracks properly and he was deluded in thinking that he could use fentanyl to kill two people and that wouldn’t be found to be suspicious.”

D’Wit was arrested at his workplace and his bag contained fentanyl patches, opened and unopened.

Prosecutors questioned his claim that he was taking these back to a pharmacy following the death of his father in 2021.

The judge, Mr Justice Nicholas Lavender, said he would sentence D’Wit on Friday.