British man who befriended couple then poisoned them with fentanyl is sentenced to life

LONDON —  A British tech worker who befriended and worked for an older couple, poisoned them with fentanyl and monitored their death with his cellphone was sentenced Friday to life in prison.

The sentencing of Luke D’Wit, 34, came two days after he was found guilty of murder in the deaths of of Stephen Baxter, 61, and Carol Baxter, 64, last April at their home in West Mersea, 70 miles east of London. He won’t be eligible for parole for at least 37 years.

During the six-week trial at Chelmsford Crown Court, jurors also heard that D’Wit had created a fake will on his phone to make him a director of their shower mat company a day after he killed them.

D’Wit had used a series of personas from 2021 to manipulate the couple, according to court proceedings. He pretended to be a doctor from Florida and member of a fake support group for the thyroid condition Hashimoto’s, which Carol Baxter suffered from.

Describing D’Wit’s actions as “cruel and senseless,” Justice Nicholas Lavender handed down a life sentence, of which he must serve at least 37 years.

He said he was sure that D’Wit extracted the fentanyl that killed the couple from patches which had been originally prescribed for his father, who died in 2021.

“It’s distinctly possible what motivated you was a desire to control others,” he said.

The judge said D’Wit spiked a drink he gave to the couple on April 7, which they took because they trusted D’Wit to prepare “supposed health drinks” for them.

The defendant cleaned up afterward, the judge said, adding that “when the Baxters were unconscious, you took the macabre step of using an application on two mobile telephones to monitor them while you left the house for a time.”

D’Wit appeared to show no reaction as his sentence was read.

The couple were found dead by their daughter two days after their poisoning. She told the court that D’Wit had “lied his way into our lives” over a decade.

“I have never known an emotional pain to physically hurt so much,” Ellie Baxter said in her impact statement to the court. “It was like my insides were on fire. I screamed and I screamed.”