'Doctors told my mum poison symptoms were anxiety'

The daughter of a couple who were fatally poisoned with fentanyl by a family friend said doctors told her mother she had anxiety as her health deteriorated from the effects of the drug.

Luke D'Wit was jailed in 2024 for the murder of Carol Baxter, 64, and her husband Stephen, 61, who died from an overdose in West Mersea, Essex.

Ellena Baxter told the BBC her mother had Hashimoto's disease, a thyroid condition, and became increasingly unwell over the two years preceding her death with her family noticing "dramatic changes".

She said: "She was majorly confused, it was like the wires were getting crossed in her brain. She would make cold cups of tea and iron shirts on top of the hob."

The murders were the focus of a recent two-part ITV documentary, called Essex Millionaire Murders.

Mrs Baxter visited her GP, private healthcare, endocrinologists, neurologists and was treated at Colchester Hospital after suffering blackouts, flushes, headaches and feeling itchy and uncomfortable.

However, her daughter said she was continuously told she was suffering with a form of anxiety.

"[Luke D'Wit] was quadrupling the dosage of drugs and mixing up his own concoctions of drugs and putting them into capsules and feeding them to my mum as vitamins.

"She attended A&E and Luke D'Wit, inside the pill capsules, put little metal tacks, and she got a little metal screw stuck in her intestine… she had been to multiple services at this point trying to get answers," Ellena said.

The 23-year-old said seeing her mother suffer had been "devastating".

"To see someone so full of life, so full of love just fade away. She died on the 9 April 2023 but she actually died a long time before that."

As part of his manipulation of the Baxters, D'Wit created a fake doctor, called Andrea Bowden, who gave Mrs Baxter advice about her condition and put her in touch with a wide network of pretend patients.

"When this Dr Andrea did come about it was just a little bit of hope for all of us… she had been fobbed off so many times at this point by doctors, by the NHS, we just wanted answers," Ellena added.

With the help of Dr Andrea, Ellena said the family hoped her mother would recover.

Ellena said a toxicology test was never offered to her mother by any doctor, but if one had been the fentanyl she had been ingesting might have showed up in the results.

She said: "We would have taken [all her medication] away and started from scratch... if you take the vitamins away, who was doing the vitamins?

"We would have known [D'Wit] was then doing something he shouldn't, especially when Mum would have started getting better."

Ellena has called for toxicology tests to be offered to NHS patients who have unexplained symptoms when all other tests have been exhausted, under what she has named "Carol's Law".

"I need [toxicology tests] to be routinely offered... it is missing people.

"Something needs to change and if I can help make that change through Carol's Law, then that is what I'm wanting to do."

She said one of the places Mrs Baxter received treatment was Colchester Hospital, however, the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS has said it could not comment directly on the care of individuals.

The trust added it offered toxicology tests when a patient was unconscious and in the critical care unit or if someone is pregnant and believed to be using drugs which could harm their baby.

Dr Tim Leary, the chief medical officer at East Suffolk and North Essex NHS, encouraged anyone with concerns over family member's care to get in touch through the trust's patient advice and liaison service.

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