Mr D’Wit giving a statement to Essex Police before his arrest (Image: Essex Police / PA Wire)
Pictures reveal the moment an IT worker accused of fatally poisoning a millionaire couple left their home before allegedly changing their will.
The court heard that Luke D’Wit, 34, worked for and befriended entrepreneurs Stephen, 61, and Carol Baxter, 64, before allegedly killing them with powerful painkiller fentanyl – often referred to as the “zombie drug” for its effects on users.
The couple’s daughter found them dead in their luxury home on Mersea Island, Essex, in April last year.
Chelmsford Crown Court was told that D’Wit, who denies the murder, created a new will for the couple on his phone the day after their bodies were found.
The will, described as “very odd” in court, made Mr D’Wit a beneficiary.
Luke D’Wit leaving the couple’s home when he was accused of poisoning them (Image: Essex Police / PA Wire)
Ring doorbell footage issued by police appears to show Mr D’Wit leaving the house on April 7, 2023, after being the “last person to see them alive”, the prosecution claimed.
Images from bodycam footage also show the accused speaking with police.
The Baxters ran a company called Cazsplash, with Mrs Baxter having designed a type of bathmat to go around a curved, corner shower.
The will, a section of which has also been released by police, reads: “Our dear friend Luke D’Wit is to be the director and person with significant control.”
It added that “all business-making decisions are down to him”.
The new will named Mr D’Wit as a beneficiary, the prosecution said (Image: Essex Police / PA Wire)
Mr D’Wit, of Churchfields, West Mersea, had become “like an adopted son to both of them”, the court heard.
Tracy Ayling KC, prosecuting, said the prosecution case was that Mr D’Wit, “who worked for and had befriended” the couple, was responsible for poisoning them.
“He had rewritten their will and stolen Carol’s jewellery, among many other things, to benefit from their deaths,” said Ms Ayling.
The couple’s daughter, Ellie Baxter, arrived at their home and saw them dead inside the conservatory in Victory Road in Mersea Island on Easter Sunday – April 9 – last year.
“They were found by their daughter and her partner dead in their conservatory, sitting in their individual armchairs,” said Ms Ayling. “There was no obvious reason for their deaths but as their bodies were examined it was revealed they had been poisoned by a drug called fentanyl.”
Forensics examinations concluded they had died of a fentanyl overdose (Image: Essex Police / PA Wire)
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There was no suicide note, Ms Ayling said, and the “whole area including the kitchen was very neat and tidy”.
Three emergency services attended after their daughter called for help. The fire service ruled out carbon monoxide poisoning.
The prosecutor said that a toxicology report of June 29, 2023 indicated that a factor in both deaths was the drug fentanyl. Their stomach contents were analysed, the result of which “suggests but doesn’t conclusively show that the drug was ingested orally”.
Ms Ayling added: “It’s difficult to imagine any scenario when two individuals who are not prescribed fentanyl could accidentally contaminate their food with this drug.”
In an emotional 999 call played to the court, Ms Baxter can be heard crying as she tells the call handler: “I need an ambulance right now”, before banging on the glass of their conservatory and saying: “I need to get inside.”
Mr D’Wit is later heard taking over the call, as Ms Baxter weeps in the background. He told the call handler: “I’m a friend.”
The prosecutor said Mr D’Wit appeared “very calm and plausible” in the call. In his account to police, Mr D’Wit said he left Mr and Mrs Baxter’s address at 7.55pm on April 7, the barrister said.
She added “police were able to discover he left Carol and Stephen incapacitated at that time”.
Ms Ayling said Mr D’Wit created false identities, including a solicitor, to convince family members of the Baxters that the will he had allegedly written was real. She said he had also created another false identity of a doctor from Florida, and a “support group of false identities who were also sufferers of Hashimoto’s”, the thyroid condition that Mrs Baxter suffered from.
He even posed as a doctor called Andrea Bowden and told Ms Baxter that “seeing family releases too many chemicals in the adrenal gland” and warned her to “keep contact less regular, why not take your family out weekly, one at a time”.
The trial, estimated to last six weeks, continues.
