IT worker Luke D’Wit found guilty of murdering Essex couple with Fentanyl
An IT worker has been found guilty of murdering a couple with strong opioid Fentanyl.
Luke D’Wit was accused of killing Stephen Baxter, 61, and his 64-year-old wife Carol and rewriting their will to take charge of their shower mat and bathroom company.
The 34-year-old from Mersea worked for the couple and is said to have described himself as “almost like a son” to them.
The Baxters were discovered at their home by their daughter on Mersea Island in Essex on Easter Sunday last year.
Harry Baxter, their son, said D’Wit played “foul games torturing and drugging” his mother in the lead-up to his parents’ deaths.
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Moment man arrested for fentanyl murders
Mr Baxter said in a statement released through Essex Police that he had already lost his mother “a long time ago” before his parents were found dead.
“I refer to the day Luke began his foul games torturing and drugging her,” he said.
“Unbeknownst to me, I had already lost my mother a long time ago.
Stephen and Carol Baxter were found dead at their home last Easter. Pic: Family handout/PA
“I feel great sadness looking back on the videos of her when she was acting strangely and seeing him in the background giggling and smiling knowing he’s the one inflicting this pain as we were all dolls in his dollhouse, victim to his manipulation.
“Our life will forever be punctured by the gravity of his actions.”
The Baxters’ daughter previously told Chelmsford Crown Court they “got on” with D’Wit, but all thought he was “weird”.
Ellie Baxter said he was brought in to help build a website but ended up visiting the house “every day”, eventually helping her mother take her medication.
She told the jury that D’Wit knew the pin code to the gate of their home and the location of a key safe.
Luke D’Wit denied murder. Pic: Essex Police/PA
The trial heard that two days before the bodies were found, doorbell camera footage captured him walking towards the Baxters’ house and looking at a phone.
“Was he watching them die?” prosecutor Tracy Ayling asked the court.
She added: “Was this when Mr D’Wit made everything pristine, cleaning up the cups and not leaving any trace?”
Fentanyl – an extremely strong opioid about 100 times stronger than morphine – was found in the bodies of Mr and Mrs Baxter.
The trial had lasted more than a month and D’Wit, who had denied murder, was convicted by unanimous verdict of the jury on a third day of deliberations on Wednesday.
The defendant, who used a wheelchair throughout the trial, did not appear to react in the secure dock of the court.
The judge, Mr Justice Nicholas Lavender, said he would sentence D’Wit on Friday.
‘He would have committed further murders’
Detective Superintendent Rob Kirby, of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said in an interview outside court that D’Wit was “without doubt one of the most dangerous men I’ve ever experienced in my policing career”.
He said: “I have absolutely no doubt that had he not been caught, he would have gone on to commit further murders.”
Mr Kirby said that “justice has been served today”, adding that D’Wit “rightly belongs behind bars”.
The defendant “fooled everyone”, he added.
“He befriended people, came across as a very amenable, helpful person but in the background he was a cool, calculated killer who spent years planning the demise of Carol and Stephen Baxter.”
He described D’Wit as a “loner” who “spent hours of his time creating false personas, all there to create control over the Baxters”.
“The level of deviousness he went to was phenomenal,” Mr Kirby said.
Asked about a possible motive, Mr Kirby said it was “unclear what was going on in D’Wit’s mind”.
“Certainly, he stood to benefit financially from the death of the Baxters and we believe that certainly this played part of the role in his motive,” he said.
Prosecutors are considering whether to bring further criminal charges against Lucy Letby over the deaths of babies at two hospitals where she worked
The Crown Prosecution Service said it had received “a full file of evidence from Cheshire Constabulary asking us to consider further allegations in relation to deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital and Liverpool Women’s Hospital”.
“We will now carefully consider the evidence to determine whether any further criminal charges should be brought,” it added.
“As always, we will make that decision independently, based on the evidence and in line with our legal test.”
Letby, 35, was found guilty of murdering seven children and attempting to murder seven more between June 2015 and June 2016 while working in the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital and is currently serving 15 whole-life orders.
Letby worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital and Liverpool Women’s Hospital
She is understood to have carried out two work placements at Liverpool Women’s Hospital, where she trained as a student, between October and December 2012, and January and February 2015.
Police said in December that Letby was interviewed in prison as part of an investigation into more baby deaths and non-fatal collapses.
A Cheshire Constabulary spokesperson said: “We can confirm that Cheshire Constabulary has submitted a full file of evidence to the CPS for charging advice regarding the ongoing investigation into deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at the neo-natal units of both the Countess of Chester Hospital and the Liverpool Women’s Hospital as part of Operation Hummingbird.”
Detectives previously said the investigation was looking into the full period of time that Letby worked as a nurse, covering the period from 2012 to 2016 and including a review of 4,000 admissions of babies.
Letby’s lawyer Mark McDonald said: “The evidence of the innocence of Lucy Letby is overwhelming,” adding: “We will cross every bridge when we get to it but if Lucy is charged I know we have a whole army of internationally renowned medical experts who will totally undermine the prosecution’s unfounded allegations.”
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Three managers at the hospital where Lucy Letby worked have been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter.
On Tuesday, it was confirmed that three managers at the Countess of Chester hospital had been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter in a separate investigation.
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Police said the suspects, who occupied senior positions at the hospital between 2015 and 2016, have all been bailed pending further inquiries.
There is also an investigation into corporate manslaughter at the hospital, which began in October 2023.
A public inquiry has also been examining the hospital’s response to concerns raised about Letby before her arrest.
In May, it was announced the inquiry’s final report into how the former nurse was able to commit her crimes will now be published early next year.
Earlier this year, Letby’s lawyers called for the suspension of the inquiry, claiming there was “overwhelming and compelling evidence” that her convictions were unsafe.
In February, an international panel of neonatologists and paediatric specialists told reporters that poor medical care and natural causes were the reasons for the collapses and deaths.
Their evidence has been passed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, and Letby’s legal team hopes her case will be referred back to the Court of Appeal.
A power outage that shut Heathrow Airport earlier this year, causing travel chaos for more than 270,000 passengers, was caused by a “catastrophic failure” of equipment in a nearby substation, according to a new report.
Experts say the fire at the North Hyde Substation, which supplies electricity to Heathrow, started following the failure of a high-voltage electrical insulator known as a bushing, before spreading.
The failure was “most likely” caused by moisture entering the equipment, according to the report.
Two chances were also missed that could have prevented the failure, experts found, the first in 2018 when a higher-than-expected level of moisture was found in oil samples.
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Moment Heathrow substation ignites
Such a reading meant “an imminent fault and that the bushing should be replaced”, according to guidance by the National Grid Electricity Transmission.
However, the report by National Energy System Operator (NESO) said the appropriate responses to such a serious issue were “not actioned”, including in 2022 when basic maintenance was postponed.
“The issue therefore went unaddressed,” the report added.
The design and configuration of the airport’s internal power network meant the loss of just one of its three supply points would “result in the loss of power to operationally critical systems, leading to a suspension of operations for a significant period”, the report added.
Heathrow – which is Europe’s biggest airport – closed for around 16 hours on 21 March following the fire, before reopening at about 6pm.
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Heathrow bosses were ‘warned about substation’
Around 1,300 flights were cancelled and more than 270,000 air passenger journeys were disrupted.
Tens of millions of pounds were lost, thousands of passengers were stranded, and questions were raised about the resilience of the UK’s infrastructure.
More than 71,000 domestic and commercial customers lost power as a result of the fire and the resulting power outage, the report said.
NEOS chief executive, Fintan Slye, said there “wasn’t the control within their [National Grid’s] asset management systems that identified that this [elevated moisture levels] got missed.
“They identified a fault, [but] for some reason the transformer didn’t immediately get pulled out of service and get repaired.
“There was no control within the system that looked back and said ‘oh, hang on a second, you forgot to do this thing over here’.”
Sky’s science and technology editor, Tom Clarke, pointed to the age of the substation’s equipment, saying “some of these things are getting really very old now, coming to the end of their natural lives, and this is an illustration of what can happen if they are not really well maintained”.
The report also highlights a lack of joined-up thinking, he said, as “grid operators don’t know who’s critical national infrastructure on the network, and they don’t have priority”.
Responding to the report’s findings, a Heathrow spokesperson said: “A combination of outdated regulation, inadequate safety mechanisms, and National Grid’s failure to maintain its infrastructure led to this catastrophic power outage.
“We expect National Grid to be carefully considering what steps they can take to ensure this isn’t repeated.
“Our own Review, led by former Cabinet Minister Ruth Kelly, identified key areas for improvement and work is already underway to implement all 28 recommendations.”
In May, Ms Kelly’s investigation revealed that the airport’s chief executive couldn’t be contacted as the crisis unfolded because his phone was on silent.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who commissioned the NESO report, called it “deeply concerning”, because “known risks were not addressed by the National Grid Electricity Transmission”.
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Mr Miliband said energy regulator Ofgem, which opened an investigation on Wednesday after the report was published, is investigating “possible licence breaches relating to the development and maintenance of its electricity system at North Hyde.
“There are wider lessons to be learned from this incident. My department, working across government, will urgently consider the findings and recommendations set out by NESO and publish a response to the report in due course.”
The Metropolitan Police previously confirmed on 25 March that officers had “found no evidence to suggest that the incident was suspicious in nature”.
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