UK - Stephen Baxter, 61, Carol Baxter, 64, West Mersea, Essex, Easter Sunday 2023, Murder Investigation

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  • #41
  • #42
10:11KEY EVENT
Sentencing hearing to begin today
Good morning all. Chief Reporter Ellis Whitehouse is here once again in court for the sentencing of Luke D'Wit, following the guilty verdicts from the jury on Wednesday. It's a packed courtroom today and the hearing is set to begin at 10.30am. Live updates will follow shortly.

www.essexlive.news

Double murderer sentenced for poisoning 'millionaire' couple - recap

Carol and Stephen Baxter died at their home in West Mersea in 2023
www.essexlive.news www.essexlive.news
 
  • #43
10:34ELLIS WHITEHOUSE

Judge enters the room​

Mr Justice Nicholas Lavender and Luke D'Wit have entered the court, and the hearing has begun. We'll now be hearing a victim impact statement from Ellie Baxter.

10:44ELLIS WHITEHOUSE

Ellie Baxter reads heartbreaking statement​

Luke D’Wit brainwashed Carol Baxter into making her illness worse, her daughter Ellie Baxter has claimed. In a victim impact statement she has emotionally just read to the court, she said:
My mum and dad are dead. But they didn’t just die. They were taken from me and my young children. My mum lost her freedom, her will, her ability to function two years prior to her murder due to her illness.
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An illness no one could help with or understand because it was contrived by Luke D’Wit. Mum felt so alone and lost and there was nothing I could do other then give her my shoulder to cry on and cuddle her. I tried to push her to go to the doctors which she did but she was completely brainwashed by Dr Andrea Bowden. I even suggested completely removing her thyroid because we all believed that was the root of the problem. No thyroid, no more of mum’s life being destroyed.
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  • #44
10:45ELLIS WHITEHOUSE

"Twisted" D'Wit filmed "laughing", Ellie claims​

"Twisted" Luke D'Wit was filmed laughing, Ellie Baxter said:
Luke D’wit who was behind the persona Dr Andrea Bowden thought sending videos of my mum for Andrea to see would be a good idea. But in reality Luke just wanted to see and watch the outcome of his twisted, abominable actions. Sometimes even filming my mum himself and laughing.”
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  • #45
10:46ELLIS WHITEHOUSE

Tributes to Stephen and Carol Baxter​

Miss Baxter says she and her mother had loved to travel and had plans to venture to parts of Asia including Japan, which is a dream “that can never be fulfilled”. Talking about her as a grandmother, she said:
My mum loved my son to bits. She would constantly buy him toys and take him out for walks in his pram. Even when she was at deaths door his face would still light her up. At times she wouldn’t be able to speak or properly open her eyes. but she could hear, she knew and her smile shone through.”
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Regarding Stephen Baxter, she said:
My dad was a strong man ‘there are no short cuts in life’ he would always say. He worked every day of his life and provided for mum, my brother and I. There was nothing we ever needed. He loved us all. My Dad raised me to be strong and sincere.
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The first time my dad held my son, his first grandchild, he understood the love mum had for her grandchildren. He said my son just fit perfectly in his arms like my brother and I did. He lit up and he was excited for my new baby. A new baby he never got a chance to meet.”
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  • #46
10:49ELLIS WHITEHOUSE

Ellie Baxter claims she nearly lost her second child due to stress D'Wit caused​

Miss Baxter said following her parents dying, the reality of Luke D’Wit’s involvement set in, and the horror of what he had done. She claimed she almost lost her second child due to the stress. She continued:
Of how my parents and I were manipulated and how someone we had loved, trusted and looked after for many years could do something so nefarious. The stress of this day caused me to have a bleed. I genuinely thought I had lost my daughter as well as my mum and dad.”
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  • #47
10:52ELLIS WHITEHOUSE

Luke D’Wit “hacked his way into their lives”​

Ellie Baxter said Luke D’Wit “hacked his way into their lives” over the course of a decade. She reveals she still messages her parents phone numbers wishing them happy birthday.
She added:
I messaged to tell them about my beautiful little girl and it still hurts when I don’t get a reply. They had so much life left to live and so much to look forward to. All crushed due to one man’s heinous crimes.
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A man my family protected and cared for. A man who lied his way into our lives. A man so manipulative he hacked his way into our lives over a decade ago, schemed and thoroughly planned my parent’s demise. Years of pain and trauma were given to us and the chance of countless years and endless memories have been snatched from my family and I.”
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  • #48
10:54ELLIS WHITEHOUSE

D’Wit’s actions caused “great anxiety”​

We’re now hearing from Tracy Ayling KC about the prosecution’s position on what sentence D’Wit should receive. As stated beforehand upon the guilty verdict, they are seeking that Mr Justice Lavender impose a whole life order on D’Wit, meaning he would never be released from prison.
Ms Ayling said there is underlying evidence of manipulation and control over the Baxter’s lives. She said D’Wit’s actions caused “great anxiety” for his victims and the wider Baxter family, which is “indicated in Stephen Baxter’s messages”. She said there is a “significant degree of planning” in the killings.

10:56ELLIS WHITEHOUSE

D’Wit "tried to deceive the authorities"​

Ms Ayling has said that D’Wit tried to deceive the authorities and suggest three different members of the Baxter family could have killed the couple. She said:
He attended the funeral home with Ellie Baxter, and attended the funeral, and suggesting Stephen Baxter killed his wife. And then suggesting that Ellie Baxter and Harry Baxter were possible murderers.” Ms Ayling also pointed out D’Wit had given Carol Baxter a quadruple dose of promethazine, a drug she was taking for her Hashimoto’s disease.
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  • #49
  • #50
10:59ELLIS WHITEHOUSE

Carol Baxter's 'disease' was 'manufactured' by D'Wit​

Ms Ayling additionally said that Carol Baxter was not in fact suffering from Hashimoto’s disease as it was manufactured by Luke D’Wit. She suggests there is evidence of a sadistic nature in D’Wit’s case. She added: “He was involved in making her take the medication, controlling her and causing her suffering.”

www.essexlive.news

Double murderer sentenced for poisoning 'millionaire' couple - recap

Carol and Stephen Baxter died at their home in West Mersea in 2023
www.essexlive.news www.essexlive.news
 
  • #51
11:05ELLIS WHITEHOUSE

No mitigation offered​

Adam Davis KC, defending, has offered no personal mitigation on behalf of D’Wit, but implores the judge not to impose a whole life order. He said: “The defendant knows from the conviction of the jury that he faces a very, very long time in prison. But it’s our submission that it should not be appropriate to make it his whole life.”

11:05ELLIS WHITEHOUSE

Judge considers sentence​

Mr Justice Lavender has retired to consider the sentence he will pass.

www.essexlive.news

Double murderer sentenced for poisoning 'millionaire' couple - recap

Carol and Stephen Baxter died at their home in West Mersea in 2023
www.essexlive.news www.essexlive.news
 
  • #52
11:46KEY EVENT

Double murderer jailed for 'cruel and senseless' poisoning of millionaire couple​

A "cruel and senseless" murderer who poisoned a millionaire Essex couple with fentanyl will not see the light of day for at least 37 years as he was jailed. Luke D'Wit showed no emotion whatsoever as Mr Justice Nicholas Lavender lambasted him for the calculating manipulation of Carol and Stephen Baxter.
D'Wit killed the Baxters using fentanyl after posing as a doctor and creating a fake Will to ensure he benefitted financially from their deaths. The 34-year-old of Churchfields, Mersea Island was found guilty by a jury earlier this week of the double murder in April 2023.

www.essexlive.news

Double murderer sentenced for poisoning 'millionaire' couple - recap

Carol and Stephen Baxter died at their home in West Mersea in 2023
www.essexlive.news www.essexlive.news

BBM. Lots more at link.
 
  • #53

Attachments

  • #54

" 'I found Mum and Dad lifeless ​

in their favourite chairs. ​

Now I wonder if their fentanyl killer was drugging me too'."​


www.dailymail.co.uk

'Was Mum and Dad's fentanyl killer drugging me?', asks Ellie Baxter

Early one morning last June, Ellie Baxter answered a knock at the door of the home she shared with her partner and one-year-old son to find two police officers on the doorstep.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk
 
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  • #55
  • #56
  • #57
Fascinating case. Would not be surprised if this isn’t his first murder. He seems like Harold Shipton to have realized that “quiet” deaths of the elderly are usually assumed to be natural.
 
  • #58
Twick said:
Fascinating case. Would not be surprised if this isn’t his first murder. He seems like Harold Shipton to have realized that “quiet” deaths of the elderly are usually assumed to be natural.
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Sometimes the less than 'quiet' deaths are assumed to be natural too, imo, speculation.
D

UK Thread 'UK - Serial killer preying on elderly couples, could be on the loose since mid-1990's'

'A serial killer in our midst': Fears after 1990s Wilmslow killings reexamined
''A serial killer who murders vulnerable couples may have been active in the North West since the mid-1990s - and could still be on the loose - a shocking report has claimed.

According to a confidential document seen by the Sunday Times, two suspected double murders in Wilmslow, Cheshire, could have been the work of an offender unknown to the police.

The report, compiled by one of the most senior coroner's officers, raises serious concerns about two cases where husbands were previously thought to...
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  • #59
So interesting!
 
  • #60
www.bbc.co.uk

Daughter of poisoned Mersea couple says she is shunned on island

Ellena Baxter, whose parents were murdered by a manipulative killer, says people "look away" in shops.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk


Miss Baxter said "people put two and two together and got five" after word spread of her arrest when she was seven months pregnant.
"When I am in Mersea, if I go into the shops people look away from me," she said.
"It's really horrible but these people who are speculating, they didn't go to the trial, they don't know the facts and it has been really difficult."
Miss Baxter, who herself was deceived by false identities created by D'Wit, said she agreed to appear in the ITV documentary so people could hear her story.
"I wanted to clear my name," she said.
"I just wanted to outline that actually I wasn't involved, this is what happened and I wanted to help tell that story."
 
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