Stephen Baxter and Carol Baxter were discovered unresponsive at their seaside home in April. Photo / Family handout
Stephen Baxter and Carol Baxter were discovered unresponsive at their seaside home in April. Photo / Family handout
An alleged murderer used an app on his phone to watch a married couple dying after allegedly poisoning them with the painkiller fentanyl, a court has heard.
Luke D’Wit, 34, befriended and worked for millionaires Stephen and Carol Baxter, before rewriting their will and killing them with the powerful opioid, jurors were told.
The couple were found unresponsive and slumped in chairs in the conservatory of their home in West Mersea, Essex, on April 9, by their daughter.
Tracey Ayling KC, prosecuting, said D’Wit installed a “mobile security surveillance application” on his phone that allowed him to monitor a camera remotely.
Ayling said police who analysed D’Wit’s phone found images of the Baxter couple “in their armchairs” on the afternoon of April 7 last year, one timed at 5.14pm.
She said doorbell camera footage captured him walking towards the Baxters’ address “looking at a phone” that day.
“The prosecution case is that he was looking at these images of the Baxters in their conservatory sitting in their armchairs,” the prosecutor said. “The same chairs they were discovered in by Ellie [their daughter] two days later.”
She said the couple “did not move at all” after the images were taken.
The trial was previously told Carol had a thyroid condition and a pacemaker. “If she had moved after those ... images were taken, the pacemaker would have recorded it,” said Ayling.
Luke D'Wit pictured in Essex Police bodycam footage as he provided a statement to the force. Photo / Essex Police
She added: “Why was Mr D’Wit watching Mr and Mrs Baxter in the conservatory?
“Was he watching them die?”
She said D’Wit did not leave the Baxters’ home until 7.55pm on April 7, when he was captured by a doorbell camera.
“He was the last person to see them alive,” said Ayling, continuing to open the prosecution’s case.
“He watched them dying on his phone.”
The court previously heard the couple’s original will stated the Baxters’ money would be left to their four children.
The will said Cazplash, the Baxters’ company, was to “continue trading in whichever way is planned” and added D’Wit “is to be the director and person of significant control”.
D’Wit met the Baxters in 2013 when the couple needed help with IT for their business.
A copy of D’Wit’s CV was shown to the jury in which he said he had an MSc in computer science from the University of East Anglia. The university says it has no knowledge of D’Wit.
