A man accused of murdering a married couple with fentanyl was “weird” and visited their Essex home every day, their daughter has told a court.
Luke D’Wit is accused of poisoning Stephen, 61, and Carol Baxter, 64, who he worked for and befriended, before then rewriting their will.
He denies murder.
Ellie Baxter, 22, said her mother became reliant on D’Wit, 34, due to her ill health and he made her drink “gross” herbal remedies to help.
Ms Baxter found her parents dead in their armchairs in the conservatory of their Mersea Island home on Easter Sunday in April last year.
Giving evidence at Chelmsford Crown Court, she said her parents “got on” with D’Wit but added they all thought he was “weird, but nerdy weird”.
D’Wit was first brought into her parents’ shower mat business in about 2012 or 2013 to “help build the website”, but eventually ended up coming to their house “every day”, Ms Baxter said.
She added that he knew the security key pin code to the gate of their home and the location of a key safe.
As time went by, D’Wit would give Carol Baxter, who suffered from the autoimmune disorder Hashimoto’s disease, medication in the mornings and evenings. She became “quite reliant on him by the end,” Ms Baxter said.
D’Wit also made Mrs Baxter drink “horrible” herbal remedies, her daughter said.
“They tasted gross… I think mum just got a bit desperate”, she said.
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Ms Baxter said that the day before she found her parents’ bodies, she borrowed £400 from D’Wit to pay for repairs to her car.
Prosecutors allege D’Wit installed a “mobile security surveillance application” on his phone, which allowed him to monitor a camera from another device.
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Two days before the bodies were found, doorbell camera footage captured D’Wit walking towards the Baxters’ house and looking at a phone, it is alleged.
“Was he watching them die?” prosecutor Tracy Ayling previously said. “Was this when Mr D’Wit made everything pristine, cleaning up the cups and not leaving any trace?”
The trial continues.
