Photo credit- AP London

A British IT worker, Luke D’Wit, 34, was sentenced to a minimum of 37 years in prison after being found guilty of the murder of Stephen and Carol Baxter, aged 61 and 64. The victims were poisoned with fentanyl and monitored during their death via D’Wit’s cellphone, at their home in West Mersea, located 70 miles (113 kilometers) east of London, last April.

During the six-week trial at Chelmsford Crown Court, it was revealed that D’Wit had created a fake will on his phone, making himself a director of the couple’s shower mat company just a day after their deaths. He monitored the couple remotely as they succumbed to the deadly concoction.

The court learned that D’Wit had assumed various personas in 2021 to manipulate the couple, including posing as a doctor from Florida and a member of a fictitious support group for the thyroid condition Hashimoto’s, which Carol Baxter suffered from.

Justice Nicholas Lavender labeled D’Wit’s actions as “cruel and senseless” as he handed down a life sentence, with D’Wit being ineligible for parole for at least 37 years. The judge suggested that D’Wit extracted the fentanyl from patches initially prescribed for his late father, indicating a possible desire for control.

According to the judge, D’Wit spiked a drink given to the couple on April 7, which they consumed under the impression that it was a “supposed health drink” prepared by D’Wit. After the couple lost consciousness, D’Wit used a mobile application to monitor them while he left the house for a time, before cleaning up the crime scene.

D’Wit displayed no visible reaction as his sentence was read out in court, while the couple’s daughter expressed the profound emotional pain and betrayal caused by D’Wit’s deceitful actions over the course of a decade.

Prosecutor Tracy Ayling described D’Wit’s murder of the couple as the culmination of a “quite an extraordinary long-term case of manipulation.”