Handyman ‘set up secret camera to watch millionaire couple die after poisoning them & rewriting will in his favour’
A HANDYMAN set up a secret camera to watch a millionaire couple die after he poisoned them and rewrote their will, a court heard.
Luke D'Wit is accused of murdering Stephen and Carol Baxter, who ran bath and shower mat firm Cazsplash, in Mersea Island, Essex.
The 34-year, who worked for the couple, allegedly targeted them with a "web of deception and manipulation".
He is accused of poisoning the Stephen and Carol with a powerful opioid painkiller then rewriting their will "in order to profit from their deaths".
Chelmsford Crown Court heard D'Wit set up a camera using the iHeart home security app on two separate mobile phones.
Police were able to recover cached images, which showed Stephen, 61, and wife Carol, 64, slumped in their armchairs in a conservatory, it was said.
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Prosecutor Tracy Ayling KC told jurors: "You will need to ask yourselves, why was Mr D’Wit watching Mr and Mrs Baxter in the conservatory?
"Was he watching them die? Both of them were already incapacitated, and we know the fentanyl was taken orally.
"He was indeed the last person to see them alive. He watched them dying on his phone.”
The court heard the app was downloaded on one of D'Wit's phones on August 6, 2022, and activated with a verification code just after 4pm on April 7 last year.
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Around an hour later, the app was downloaded again on a second phone and verified.
Jurors heard D'Wit was seen on CCTV checking his phones as he went round to the couple's home on the night they died.
Ms Ayling said he may have been making sure they were "incapacitated" before going inside to clear up cups that contained the drug.
She explained: "The prosecution case is that he was looking at those images of the Baxters in their conservatory sitting in their armchairs.”
Footage shows the moment D'Wit, who claimed to be like an "adopted son" the couple, left the home after allegedly murdering Carol and Stephen.
He allegedly later Googled how to delete Ring doorbell videos.
The couple were discovered on April 9 when daughter Ellie popped round.
'Poisoned to death'
In a 999 call played to jurors, she can be heard screaming as she tells the operator: "I need an ambulance right now."
Ellie then yells out "they're f***ing dead! They're frozen" as she attempted to smash the conservatory glass.
D'Wit then takes over the call as Ellie weeps in the background and tells the call handler: "I'm a friend".
He continued: "They are dead. They are both just cold.”
Jurors were told the alleged killer was "very calm and plausible" and explained he was the last person to see Carol and Stephen alive.
He tells officers in the bodycam footage how he "literally ran from home" to the couple's house after learning they were dead and "smashed the back doors in".
The IT worker claims he was asked by a paramedic to "get all of Carol's medications because she has got a lot".
He then explained that "sometimes she forgets to take" her medications because she has so many.
The following day, he allegedly wrote the new will, the court was told.
Jurors heard it included terms that "our dear friend Luke D'Wit is to be the person of significant control" for Cazsplash.
Ms Ayling said: "He had rewritten their will and stolen Carol's jewellery, among many other things, to benefit from their deaths."
Police discovery
Although there was no obvious cause of death, tests revealed Stephen and Carol had been poisoned by a drug called fentanyl, the court heard.
In both cases, their stomach contents were analysed, which "suggested but doesn't conclusively show that the drug was ingested orally".
When he was arrested, D'Wit was found to have what was left of his grandfather’s fentanyl patches with some packets already opened, it was said.
Jurors heard how four empty patches from the same batch were found in the Baxters’ home.
Officers also discovered some of Carol's jewellery, as well as her bank card and unopened letters addressed to her, the court heard.
D’Wit denies two counts of murder, theft and possession of a Class A drug.
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The trial continues.
