Daughter of poisoned couple says she is shunned

The daughter of a couple who were fatally poisoned said people who wrongly suspected she was involved in their deaths have shunned her.

Ellena Baxter found her parents, Stephen, 61, and Carol, 64, dead in their armchairs at their home in West Mersea, Essex, on Easter Sunday 2023.

They had been murdered by 35-year-old Luke D'Wit, a family friend who had laced their medication with the opioid painkiller fentanyl after using fake identities to manipulate them.

Miss Baxter told the BBC she was determined to "clear my name" by appearing in a TV documentary about the killings.

The 23-year-old was initially arrested on suspicion of her parents' murder, along with D'Wit, but later released without charge.

In March 2024 at Chelmsford Crown Court, D'Wit was jailed for life and told he would be in prison for at least 37 years.

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."

D'Wit's trial heard he was introduced to the Baxters through his work as a freelance web designer, creating a website for Mrs Baxter's shower mat business.

Motivated by what the judge described as a "desire to control", he manipulated the couple for two years.

Between Good Friday and Easter Sunday 2023, he made sure Mr and Mrs Baxter consumed a fatal dose of fentanyl disguised in a "liver cleanse" smoothie.

Detectives found he had created more than 20 false identities, including a doctor, to trick the family about various matters such as their health and careers.

"Even now I'm still processing the depth of the manipulation," Miss Baxter said, adding she had "no idea" about D'Wit's scheming.

"He helped at the soup kitchen, he posed as Santa Claus at one of the Christmas events in Mersea.

"He was just a good person, he was a nice person. He was odd and he had quirky ways, fine, but not double murderer odd.

"It was just shocking, it took months for me to actually piece it together and realise this is what he has done."

The BBC revealed detectives have also been reviewing the deaths of D'Wit's father and grandfather in case he had killed them and avoided detection.

He used fentanyl prescribed to his late father, Vernon, to poison the Baxters - with the drug found in abundance at the home he shared with his mother in Churchfields, West Mersea.

Paying tribute to her parents, Miss Baxter said: "They were just an absolute blast to be around.

"They really, really were amazing, one-of-a-kind people."

The Essex Millionaire Murders, a two-part ITV documentary, continues on Tuesday at 21:00.

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