A man poisoned a married couple with the opioid painkiller fentanyl and rewrote their will the day after they died, a court has heard.
Luke D’Wit, 34, worked for and had befriended Stephen and Carol Baxter, saying in a statement to police that he was “like an adopted son to both of them”, Tracy Ayling KC, prosecuting, said on Wednesday.
Stephen, 61, and his 64-year-old wife ran a company called Cazsplash, with Carol having designed a type of bathmat to fit in a curved, corner shower. Ayling said a will “was created by Luke D’Wit on his phone on 10 April at 6.54am”, the day after the couple were found dead last year.
Ayling said the defendant was the “beneficiary of a very odd will”, whose terms included that “our dear friend Luke D’Wit is to be the director and person with significant control” for Cazsplash.
She told Chelmsford crown court the prosecution’s case was that D’Wit was responsible for poisoning them, adding: “He had rewritten their will and stolen Carol’s jewellery, among many other things, to benefit from their deaths.”
D’Wit, of Churchfields, West Mersea, in Essex, denies murder.
Ayling said the couple’s daughter, Ellie Baxter, and her partner arrived at their home on Easter Sunday in 2023 and found them dead inside the conservatory. There was no suicide note and the “whole area including the kitchen was very neat and tidy”.
The prosecutor said a toxicology report indicated that a factor in both deaths was the drug fentanyl. Their stomach contents were analysed and it “suggests but doesn’t conclusively show that the drug was ingested orally”.
Carol, who had a thyroid condition and a pacemaker, was also found to have the antihistamine drug promethazine in her system, Ayling said.
She said toxicology suggested but did not conclusively show that the drug, which she said was available in products such as Night Nurse, was ingested orally.
In a 999 call played to the court, Ellie screamed and wept and told a call handler: “I need an ambulance right now.” D’Wit was later heard taking over the call, telling the call handler: “I’m a friend.”
The prosecutor said the defendant “was the last person to see them alive”.
Ayling said D’Wit also created false identities, including a solicitor, to convince relatives of the couple that the will he had written was real.
She said he created another false identity of a doctor from Florida, and a support group of false identities who also had Hashimoto’s, the thyroid condition that Carol had.
The trial, expected to last six weeks, continues.
