When ‘caring’ handyman Luke D’Wit stepped in to look after his ill friend and employer Carol Baxter, it was assumed this was an act of kindness. Little did the local community know that D’Wit was in fact a deceitful killer
A community was left in shock after Carol Baxter and her husband, Stephen, were found dead in their Essex home. Then the horrific cause of their deaths emerged.
Successful business owners Carol and Stephen, who were well known in the area for their charitable contributions, had been cruelly poisoned by their friend and carer Luke D’Wit, who’d given the couple a lethal dose of Fentanyl.
Regarded as a ‘caring’ handyman, D’Wit, who’d worked for the couple at their shower mat company, Cazsplash, was anything but. The killer even befriended the pair and was a regular visitor at their home. They didn’t know at the time that there was an ulterior motive behind his friendliness.
As explored in the two-part ITV documentary Essex Millionaires Murder, Carol suffered from Hashimoto’s disease, a thyroid condition, which can result in symptoms such as tiredness, weight gain, and muscle weakness. As Carol’s symptoms worsened, D’Wit stepped in under the guise of caring for her. He was, in fact, slowly poisoning her.
The 64-year-old’s condition deteriorated significantly, and she was left suffering from fatigue and forgetfulness. It was later found that this was all the work of deceitful D’Wit, who had posed as a fake doctor online and given her fake medical advice.
Luke D’Wit controlled sick mum with strict rules before ordering lethal ‘cleanse’
D’Wit, 35, encouraged Stephen and Carol’s to essentially lace their own ‘health’ smoothies with an opioid painkiller while using fake identities to control their lives while ‘caring’ for them. His sinister ulterior motives led investigators to find that the kind and helpful family friend had been playing mind games with the family.
The manipulative fraudster had been inventing fake online personas, including those of doctors, while giving dangerous medical diagnoses, and secretly filming the couple in their home before murdering them – all for his own sadistic pleasure. Upon his arrest, officers began to uncover the extreme lengths D’Wit explored to control the Baxters.
Police found 80 electronic devices at D’Wit’s house, some of which had been used to create more than 20 false personas for his manipulation. After analysis, they found he was offering advice “with no clinical basis” while posing as Dr. Bowden, prosecutors told the trial.
It was revealed that D’Wit suggested Carol contact an American Hashimoto expert he had found online, Dr. Andrea Bowden. Soon, Carol and Dr. Andrea were exchanging hundreds of emails.
This advice included taking smoothies that were rich in health benefits made by D’Wit, who Dr Bowden praised as a good friend, but instead, they were cocktails of drugs and potions which made her far more unwell than she already was. Carol was starting to experience serious fatigue and forgetfulness, and her doctors had no diagnosis to offer other than anxiety.
Andrea further instructed Stephen to send twice-daily videos of Carol so she could observe how she deteriorated throughout the day. She also sent strict rules to follow, which she said would cure Carol. They included rest, exercise, and medicinal remedies “that your good friend Luke can make up.”
Detective Inspector Lydia George of Essex Police said: “Luke D’Wit visited Carol and Stephen on Easter Friday and was messaging them as this fake doctor while he was in the house with them, helping to make a ‘medicinal drink’ using a fatal dose of Fentanyl, before leaving at 8 pm. A mobile phone had been set up in the kitchen to record and monitor them. He had watched them die.”
In March last year, D’Wit, 34, was sentenced to life for the murders, with a minimum of 37 years.
Essex Millionaire Murders continues tonight at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
