Double murderer Luke D’Wit was thought to be ‘caring’ for Stephen and Carol Baxter but instead was slowly poisoning the couple and giving them strict rules to ‘get them better’
Stephen and Carol Baxter were found dead in their home in West Mersea in Essex in 2023 by a “nerdy weird” killer who “played” with the family’s lives.
The couple’s daughter Ellie Baxter described killer Luke D’Wit as “nerdy weird” who played a lot of computer simulation games, and she thinks her family were a “real-life version” for him. He held the remote control and “we were his little pieces to play with” she said.
D’Wit, 35, laced Stephen and Carol’s medication with an opioid painkiller while using fake identities to control their lives after ‘caring’ for them. The computer science graduate lived with his mother in a small semi-detached home and locals knew him as a quiet man who volunteered at a soup kitchen and helped to organise the town carnival.
Essex Millionaire Murders: Handyman’s twisted web of lies who posed as fake doctor before poisoning couple
However he had a more sinister motive when it came to ‘caring’ for the Baxter’s, and was jailed for life with a minimum tariff of 37 years at Chelmsford Crown Court in March 2024. The story of unmasking the unassuming killer airs tonight in a two-part documentary ITV documentary, Essex Millionaire Murders.
The documentary includes footage from the front door security camera as Ellie makes the harrowing discovery, and her heartbreaking screams as she’s arrested for the crime. But in reality, it was D’Wit who was behind the killings. The relationship evolved when D’Wit started keeping Mrs Baxter company on walks and at the gym.
He also helped her take medication and performed odd jobs and quickly became Carol’s carer, something her daughter Ellie was extremely grateful for. When the couple were found dead in their home, police arrested Ellie, and took her and her brother Harry in for questioning. D’Wit had told police Carol took a lot of medication as she suffered with Hashimotos, a thyroid condition, which he helped her with, and sometimes she would forget how many times she had taken it.
But as the investigation went on, it was found that the kind and helpful family friend had actually been playing mind games with the family, inventing fake online personas including doctors, giving dangerous medical diagnoses, and secretly filming the couple in their home before murdering them – all for his own sadistic pleasure.
Upon his arrest, they 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 used for his manipulation and after analysis, had found he was offering advice “with no clinical basis” while posing as Dr Bowden, prosecutors told the trial.
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 real diagnosis other than anxiety.
The symptoms she was experiencing weren’t typical of Hashimoto’s, and they were the effects of her being slowly poisoned by D’Wit, who ensured Mrs Baxter kept him updated on her decline via video messages she sent to Dr Bowden. BBC reported that the police investigation uncovered an email sent by D’Wit to the couple on the morning of their deaths, detailing a “liver cleanse recipe” they should follow.
It explained how the fatal dose of fentanyl had been administered into their bodies. D’Wit then watched them die between Good Friday and Easter Sunday in a video stream he set up from a phone hidden in their property.
Essex Millionaire Murders airs tonight on ITV at 9pm.
