Geeky psychopath killed for pleasure

OVER TWO grimly gripping episodes, ITV's The Essex Millionaire Murders told how web designer Luke D'Wit had fatally poisoned Carol and Stephen Baxter, a lovely, loving couple who had thought of him as a friend. Geeky psychopath D'Wit constructed fake internet identities to callously lead the Baxters to their doom.

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“I watched someone literally kill my parents in front of me,” said their daughter, Ellena, who at one point was arrested herself as a suspect.

Stephen, 61, and Carol, 64, were found dead at home in West Mersea, Essex, in April 2023. The documentary used mobile phone, bodycam and CCTV footage, so we heard Ellena’s actual screams when she found their bodies.

With no signs of a break-in or obvious injuries, it looked at first like a mercy killing/suicide pact - Carol suffered from Hashimoto’s disease, a thyroid condition, and was deteriorating fast. The toxicology reports told a different story, however.

After slowly poisoning Carol, D'Wit had served the couple deadly smoothies laced with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid painkiller, and promethazine (a sedative). He’d also created fictitious online avatars, including Dr Andrea Bowden, supposedly a Californian Hashimoto's specialist.

Posing as Bowden, he'd convinced Carol to take health drinks he had prepared and put her in touch with supportive patients he'd invented.

His devious plot was only uncovered when Essex Police hacked into his phone and realised D’Wit had groomed and gaslighted the Baxters for months before killing them. But why?

Despite ITV's clickbait title, money wasn’t a motive. He did forge a will to leave himself running Carol’s small shower mat business, Cazsplash, along with Ellena, but the judge dismissed it as a red herring.