IT worker jailed for 37 years for murdering couple with fentanyl-laced drink
A loner who befriended a couple before poisoning them in a plot to try and inherit their business has been jailed for life.
Luke D’Wit, 34, met Carol and Stephen Baxter, 64 and 61, while building a website for their shower mat company based in Mersea Island, Essex.
Carol suffered from a rare autoimmune disease, which D’Wit used to manipulate her into taking ‘potions’ he had invented.
The 34-year-old created more than 20 fake online profiles, including a doctor from the US and members of a fictitious support group for the disease, to contact Carol and convince her the remedies were legitimate.
Eventually he would leave them a mixture of hot water, aspirin, lemon juice and fentanyl – a highly potent painkiller which can be lethal at very small doses – to drink in their armchairs in April last year.
D’Wit had installed a security camera allowing him to monitor the couple from his phone.
A court heard he ‘watched them dying on his phone’ and re-entered the home to cleaned up their cups and ‘any trace’ of his concoction before leaving.
The couple were found dead by their daughter two days later.
As part of their close-knit island community, D’Wit was said to have little social life outside his friendship with the couple and still shared a bedroom with his mother.
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