WEBVTT - Hell and Gone Murder Line: Stephen and Carole Baxter 0:00:46.550 --> 0:00:47.290 School of Humans. 0:00:49.300 --> 0:00:53.060 Helen Gone Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:56.640 an effort to raise public awareness, invite witnesses to come forward, 0:00:57.020 --> 0:01:00.220 and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated by 0:01:00.300 --> 0:01:04.740 law enforcement. While we value insights from family and community members, 0:01:05.060 --> 0:01:08.140 their statements should not be considered evidence and point to 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:12.440 the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases. We 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:16.150 remind listeners that everyone is presumed innocent until proven. 0:01:15.850 --> 0:01:17.150 Guilty in a court of law. 0:01:17.990 --> 0:01:20.970 Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply 0:01:21.030 --> 0:01:23.610 that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime 0:01:24.170 --> 0:01:25.530 is guilty of any wrongdoing. 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:31.200 This week, I was working on a case and I 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:33.820 needed a little bit more time to investigate it. So 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:37.440 I have a special treat for you. Here's an episode 0:01:37.500 --> 0:01:40.940 of Red Collar. This is my other podcast that focuses 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:45.290 on financial crimes and con artists who kill. Next week, 0:01:45.330 --> 0:01:47.850 I'll be back with a regular episode of Hell and 0:01:47.870 --> 0:01:51.070 Gone Murder Line. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy 0:01:51.150 --> 0:02:02.650 Red Collar. On Easter Sunday, April 29th, 2023, 21-year-old Ellie 0:02:02.690 --> 0:02:05.020 Baxter went to check on her parents at their home 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:09.420 on Mercia Island on the Essex coast in England. Ellie 0:02:09.460 --> 0:02:12.420 was around five months pregnant, and she was worried because 0:02:12.540 --> 0:02:13.900 she had not been able to get a hold of 0:02:13.940 --> 0:02:19.010 her parents, 64-year-old Carol Baxter and 61-year-old Stephen Baxter. The 0:02:19.050 --> 0:02:23.660 Baxters ran a very successful business called Kaz Splash. Carol 0:02:23.700 --> 0:02:25.340 had come up with the idea for the business after 0:02:25.380 --> 0:02:28.230 getting frustrated that she couldn't find a bath mat for 0:02:28.330 --> 0:02:32.230 a curved shower. Stephen, her husband, had an engineering background, 0:02:32.610 --> 0:02:35.330 so he worked on the business side. And more recently, 0:02:35.770 --> 0:02:38.030 Ellie had also been helping them out with the business, 0:02:38.450 --> 0:02:42.050 which they ran from their home. Ellie arrived at the 0:02:42.100 --> 0:02:45.500 house with her partner, Marcus, and immediately noticed that something 0:02:45.580 --> 0:02:49.180 seemed very off. The blinds were still closed, even though 0:02:49.300 --> 0:02:53.120 Stephen had a habit of opening them every morning. They 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:56.760 knocked on the door, but no one answered. So Ellie 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.760 and Marcus started walking around outside, trying to look for 0:02:59.810 --> 0:03:02.890 another way in the house. There was a spare key, 0:03:03.110 --> 0:03:06.850 but it wasn't in its normal spot. Then Ellie looked 0:03:06.870 --> 0:03:09.010 through the living room window, and that's when she saw 0:03:09.070 --> 0:03:12.210 her parents sitting in their usual reclining chairs next to 0:03:12.250 --> 0:03:16.350 each other. But they weren't moving. At this point, Ellie 0:03:16.390 --> 0:03:19.350 and Marcus started trying to break in. A neighbor heard 0:03:19.370 --> 0:03:23.520 the commotion, came over, and had a claw hammered. So finally, 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.420 Marcus was able to break into the house. That's when 0:03:26.460 --> 0:03:29.520 they saw that Carol and Stephen's hands had turned blue. 0:03:30.140 --> 0:03:33.730 There was liquid around Carol's mouth. They were both sitting 0:03:33.930 --> 0:03:39.990 upright in their chairs, dead. I'm Katherine Townsend. This is 0:03:40.070 --> 0:03:43.030 Hell and Gone Murder Line in collaboration with Red Collar. 0:04:27.350 --> 0:04:30.510 Soon after the police came to the scene, Ellie's brother 0:04:30.550 --> 0:04:33.190 Harry and a family friend, Luke DeWitt, who also helped 0:04:33.230 --> 0:04:35.950 out at the business, showed up on the scene. Everyone 0:04:35.990 --> 0:04:38.990 agreed that what made this scene so weird was what 0:04:39.030 --> 0:04:43.030 investigators didn't find. Because there were no obvious injuries on 0:04:43.090 --> 0:04:45.570 Carol or Steven. There were no signs of a violent struggle. 0:04:45.610 --> 0:04:48.170 There was no weapon. There was no indication of foul 0:04:48.210 --> 0:04:51.010 play at all. The house was neat. Nothing seemed to 0:04:51.050 --> 0:04:53.830 be taken. So it didn't look like robbery was the 0:04:53.870 --> 0:04:57.300 motive here. This was just a couple who looked like 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:00.000 they sat down in their armchairs and died at about 0:05:00.020 --> 0:05:03.280 the same time. But what are the odds of that? 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:07.180 What actually happened to them? Ellie's first thought was that 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.010 maybe this could be a case of carbon monoxide poisoning. 0:05:10.630 --> 0:05:13.130 When she first went into the house, she started opening 0:05:13.150 --> 0:05:16.870 doors and windows just in case. But investigators didn't find 0:05:16.970 --> 0:05:20.410 any sign of a carbon monoxide leak. Carol did have 0:05:20.450 --> 0:05:23.450 a pacemaker, and when detectives looked at that pacemaker, they 0:05:23.570 --> 0:05:26.990 did find a clue. they could see that Carol's heart 0:05:27.030 --> 0:05:31.270 had stopped sometime between approximately 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. 0:05:31.510 --> 0:05:35.190 on Saturday, April 8th, the day before the bodies were discovered. 0:05:36.150 --> 0:05:39.070 So now police seem to have a pretty narrow time 0:05:39.110 --> 0:05:43.550 of death, but still no clue as to a cause. Also, 0:05:44.130 --> 0:05:46.450 if Carol was dying, we're talking about the middle of 0:05:46.470 --> 0:05:49.190 the day. So what were the odds that Stephen would 0:05:49.210 --> 0:05:52.050 just sit there, sit down next to her and die 0:05:52.290 --> 0:05:56.660 without calling for help? The medical examiner started working on 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.640 the post-mortem exam, and they found that neither Stephen nor 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:04.590 Carol had any suspicious injuries or defensive wounds. However, both 0:06:04.620 --> 0:06:08.070 of them did have some health issues. Stephen had recently 0:06:08.130 --> 0:06:11.490 had knee replacement surgery, while Carol had lived for years 0:06:11.610 --> 0:06:15.430 with Hashimoto's disease, an autoimmune condition that affected her thyroid. 0:06:16.050 --> 0:06:19.730 But neither medical history explained why both of them had 0:06:19.830 --> 0:06:23.130 suddenly died in the same room. None of these conditions 0:06:23.170 --> 0:06:26.990 they had were fatal. So for the first few weeks 0:06:27.090 --> 0:06:30.210 after Stephen and Carol Baxter were found dead, their deaths 0:06:30.290 --> 0:06:34.470 were treated more as mysterious and unexplained rather than anything 0:06:34.550 --> 0:06:38.440 involving obvious foul play. But that was all about to 0:06:38.500 --> 0:06:43.260 change because then the toxicology results came back and everything 0:06:43.340 --> 0:06:48.080 shifted because those tests showed that both Stephen and Carol 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:52.670 had died from fentanyl overdoses. They had massive amounts of 0:06:52.730 --> 0:06:57.140 fentanyl in their systems. Carol also had potentially fatal levels 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:03.170 of another drug called promethazine. It's described as a sedating antihistamine, 0:07:03.190 --> 0:07:05.110 and there was a lot of it in Carol's blood. 0:07:06.350 --> 0:07:09.770 Neither Stephen nor Carol had been prescribed fentanyl. There was 0:07:09.930 --> 0:07:12.470 no known history of drug use on either of their parts, 0:07:12.990 --> 0:07:16.620 and investigators found no injection marks on either of their bodies. 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:20.040 So now police have a new mystery to solve. How 0:07:20.060 --> 0:07:22.670 did two people who apparently have no reason to be 0:07:22.710 --> 0:07:26.370 taking fentanyl both end up with fatal quantities of one 0:07:26.390 --> 0:07:30.870 of the world's most powerful opioids in their systems? Police 0:07:30.890 --> 0:07:33.810 started looking at Carol and Steven's family and people close 0:07:33.850 --> 0:07:35.730 to them. They were trying to see if they could 0:07:35.770 --> 0:07:38.760 figure out any reason why anyone would want to harm them. 0:07:39.740 --> 0:07:43.020 Carol had been suffering from health problems. And even though 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:46.120 we said before they weren't fatal, they were increasingly serious 0:07:46.540 --> 0:07:49.980 for years. And apparently that had been depressing her. At 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:53.020 one point, about a year before she died, Carol had 0:07:53.060 --> 0:07:56.330 to rush to the hospital with severe abdominal pain. It 0:07:56.360 --> 0:08:01.250 turned out doctors discovered a 17-millimeter nail inside her colon, 0:08:01.870 --> 0:08:05.060 and she was unable to explain how she swallowed it. 0:08:05.590 --> 0:08:08.410 So now police are looking at everything out of the 0:08:08.490 --> 0:08:11.690 ordinary that happened to Carol and looking at it through 0:08:11.710 --> 0:08:14.490 the lenses of her and Stephen's sudden death and wondering, 0:08:15.110 --> 0:08:18.120 was this abdominal issue she had just some kind of 0:08:18.210 --> 0:08:22.270 weird accident, or had someone been targeting Carol even back then? 0:08:23.430 --> 0:08:26.190 As her pain got worse and worse over the years, 0:08:26.610 --> 0:08:30.370 Carol made new friends. She joined an online community for 0:08:30.430 --> 0:08:35.780 people who had Hashimoto's disease and started communicating with an expert, Dr. 0:08:35.940 --> 0:08:40.220 Andrea Bowden. Now, Dr. Bowden started giving Carol advice that 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:42.540 some of her family believe was a little bit out there. 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:45.760 They started to believe that the people in this group, 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:49.680 including Carol's online friends named Cheryl Herring, Linda Edwards, and 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:54.400 Marnie Pantry, were becoming kind of like a cult. Whenever Dr. 0:08:54.540 --> 0:08:58.120 Andrea would tell Carol something that contradicted her GP's advice, 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.540 her regular doctor, Carol would ask the other women in 0:09:01.580 --> 0:09:05.080 this online group what they thought, and overwhelmingly, these women 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:10.200 all supported Dr. Andrea Bowden. So police were also taking 0:09:10.260 --> 0:09:12.900 a closer look at the women in this online support group. 0:09:14.020 --> 0:09:18.040 Police found evidence that when Carol became skeptical of Andrea Bowden, 0:09:18.260 --> 0:09:24.250 she actually contacted another doctor, Dr. Alan Mandel. And over time, Dr. 0:09:24.370 --> 0:09:27.850 Andrea was encouraging Carol to reduce contact with people who 0:09:27.930 --> 0:09:32.340 might cause her stress. So now police are wondering, were 0:09:32.370 --> 0:09:34.660 the people in this community just a little bit eccentric 0:09:34.820 --> 0:09:38.900 or were they actually dangerous? Police were looking at Ellie's 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:41.940 friends as well. They found out that Ellie had been 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:44.640 trying to launch a singing career, and she had a 0:09:44.680 --> 0:09:47.860 friend named Jenny Trencher. This person was a theater producer 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:51.060 who was encouraging Ellie to pursue her dreams. Police found 0:09:51.180 --> 0:09:54.570 out also that there had been friction between Ellie and 0:09:54.590 --> 0:09:57.500 her parents. Ellie would talk to her friend Jenny about 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:00.750 her difficulties with her parents, about the business, and about 0:10:00.790 --> 0:10:06.080 her parents' will. Since Jenny, Ellie's friend, also knew details 0:10:06.140 --> 0:10:08.860 about the Baxter's finances, which by now police are obviously 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:11.980 looking into, Jenny got added to the people of interest 0:10:12.070 --> 0:10:16.230 who police were trying to interview. Police also started looking 0:10:16.470 --> 0:10:20.930 at the Baxter's financial situation, the whole picture. The family business, 0:10:21.030 --> 0:10:25.690 Kaz Splash, was actually having money problems. So investigators did 0:10:25.730 --> 0:10:27.770 have to consider whether this had been some kind of 0:10:27.850 --> 0:10:30.990 assisted suicide of some kind. whether Stephen and Carol might 0:10:31.030 --> 0:10:34.530 have deliberately taken the drug together, or whether one spouse 0:10:34.570 --> 0:10:37.370 could have administered the fentanyl to the other spouse before 0:10:37.450 --> 0:10:40.650 taking their own life. But there was no note, and 0:10:40.670 --> 0:10:43.650 there was also nothing in either Carol or Stephen's history 0:10:44.070 --> 0:10:46.050 to indicate that this was any kind of a motive. 0:10:46.510 --> 0:10:49.170 Friends and family said Stephen appeared happy and in a 0:10:49.210 --> 0:10:52.840 good mood shortly before his death. The Baxters had also 0:10:52.890 --> 0:10:55.460 been talking about a future and they were talking about 0:10:55.500 --> 0:10:58.420 retirement and travel and spending more time with their family. 0:10:59.580 --> 0:11:04.140 Once toxicology transformed this investigation, police went back through the 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:08.130 Baxter home much more carefully. Inside the wicker container where 0:11:08.150 --> 0:11:11.910 Carol's medications were stored, police found four empty packets of 0:11:11.970 --> 0:11:16.110 fentanyl patches. This discovery was hard to explain because again, 0:11:16.410 --> 0:11:19.030 neither of the Baxter's had a prescription for fentanyl. There 0:11:19.050 --> 0:11:21.220 were no marks indicating that either of them had been 0:11:21.230 --> 0:11:24.660 wearing the patches before their death. So did someone drug 0:11:24.680 --> 0:11:27.480 the Baxter's by putting patches on their skin and then 0:11:27.580 --> 0:11:31.980 remove the patches at some point later? Police didn't think so. Instead, 0:11:32.060 --> 0:11:36.060 investigators formed a theory that the drug had been consumed orally, 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:38.900 but they couldn't determine precisely how that could have happened. 0:11:39.660 --> 0:11:42.540 There were no incriminating traces on the glasses or on 0:11:42.560 --> 0:11:45.980 the cookware or utensils in the house, and no obvious 0:11:46.020 --> 0:11:49.750 container that could explain how two fatal doses could have 0:11:49.770 --> 0:11:54.690 been prepared and consumed. The location of the empty packets 0:11:54.950 --> 0:11:59.020 was mysterious as well because emergency personnel had looked through 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:02.640 Carol's medication after the bodies were discovered. Apparently, they hadn't 0:12:02.700 --> 0:12:05.500 noticed the fentanyl packaging. Now it was sitting at the 0:12:05.540 --> 0:12:09.110 bottom of the medication container. Had it simply been missed 0:12:09.150 --> 0:12:13.150 during the initial examination or had something changed inside the 0:12:13.190 --> 0:12:28.200 house after Stephen and Carol died? Carol and Stephen did 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:31.380 have a will, a will that left everything to their children. 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.200 But then investigators found something else in Carol's home office, 0:12:35.780 --> 0:12:39.370 a document headed with words to the effect of what 0:12:39.410 --> 0:12:42.410 should happen in the event of Stephen Carol's death. It 0:12:42.450 --> 0:12:45.430 appeared to be an attempt at a codicil, a document 0:12:45.470 --> 0:12:48.810 that's intended to amend an existing will. And it dealt 0:12:48.830 --> 0:12:52.050 with the couple's house, their possessions, and most importantly, their company, 0:12:52.230 --> 0:12:56.900 Cat Splash. According to the new document, their daughter Ellie 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.480 would become the company's sole shareholder, while Luke DeWitt, the 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.360 family friend who sometimes helped with the business, would become 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:08.230 a director and exercise significant control over its operations. I 0:13:08.270 --> 0:13:12.470 have seen estimates that they were worth between 1.5 and 0:13:12.470 --> 0:13:15.590 2.5 million pounds, but a lot of their net worth 0:13:15.950 --> 0:13:18.700 seemed to be equity in their property rather than cold, 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:23.980 hard cash. The document also directed that $ 60, 000 from the 0:13:24.020 --> 0:13:27.960 Baxter's estate should be put into the company. The codicil 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:31.520 specified that when Ellie turned 30 years old, she and 0:13:31.560 --> 0:13:34.400 Luke were supposed to share the directorship and she would 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:38.630 not be permitted to remove him. This codicil was dated 0:13:38.710 --> 0:13:44.150 November 22nd, 2022, several months before the couple's deaths. But 0:13:44.170 --> 0:13:47.990 there were serious problems with this document. So first of all, 0:13:48.070 --> 0:13:51.450 Carol and Steven did have a regular lawyer. They had 0:13:51.570 --> 0:13:54.030 used this attorney to prepare the will that they had 0:13:54.070 --> 0:13:56.850 from 2021, the one that left their estate to their children. 0:13:57.470 --> 0:14:00.350 And the lawyer told police they had never said anything 0:14:00.370 --> 0:14:03.670 to him about amending it or creating a new document. 0:14:04.150 --> 0:14:08.070 And this newly discovered document was not signed by Steven 0:14:08.130 --> 0:14:12.830 or Carol. But most mysteriously, police found the wording on 0:14:12.850 --> 0:14:18.310 the document strange. The discovery of a quickly written and 0:14:18.390 --> 0:14:22.850 kind of unprofessional document like that inevitably forced investigators to 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.840 look closely at the people who appeared to benefit from it. 0:14:26.940 --> 0:14:30.280 One of them was Carol and Stephen's daughter, Ellie. So 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.860 law enforcement were reviewing all communications between the Baxters and 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:37.580 their daughter, Ellie. They found that Carol had previously told 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:41.720 Ellie that the company would eventually belong to her. But, 0:14:42.150 --> 0:14:46.030 Some of the messages also showed tension surrounding money and 0:14:46.430 --> 0:14:50.650 arguments between the Baxters and Ellie about their frustrations with 0:14:50.710 --> 0:14:54.840 her having limited involvement in the company. Carol had complained 0:14:54.870 --> 0:14:57.880 that her daughter wasn't very good with managing money and 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:01.960 had shown relatively little interest in the business. Meanwhile, Ellie 0:15:01.980 --> 0:15:06.260 told investigators she had no idea how serious Kaz Splash's 0:15:06.300 --> 0:15:10.440 financial problems had become. So Ellie started talking to the 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:14.330 attorney who prepared this codicil. His name was Martin Ellison, 0:15:14.710 --> 0:15:18.210 and Martin assured Ellie that this was legit, that he 0:15:18.230 --> 0:15:20.750 had written it up himself, and it was completely above board. 0:15:22.150 --> 0:15:24.830 Ellie at the time was also dealing with the very 0:15:24.890 --> 0:15:28.130 real emotional consequences of having been the person who discovered 0:15:28.150 --> 0:15:31.500 her parents' bodies. She was pregnant when she looked through 0:15:31.540 --> 0:15:34.240 the conservatory window and saw her parents dead in their chairs. 0:15:35.060 --> 0:15:38.530 The shock caused her to start bleeding heavily. and she 0:15:38.570 --> 0:15:41.370 was scared that she might lose her baby. A medical 0:15:41.420 --> 0:15:45.940 examination fortunately established that her pregnancy was continuing normally, but 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:49.760 I'm sure this was terrifying for her. In the weeks afterwards, 0:15:49.820 --> 0:15:54.480 she was simultaneously grieving her parents, organizing their funeral, and 0:15:54.600 --> 0:16:00.180 trying to avoid further stress to her or her unborn child. Meanwhile, 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:02.620 police were also looking at someone else who had been 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:07.370 very close to the Baxter family, 31-year-old Luke DeWitt. Luke 0:16:07.390 --> 0:16:10.070 DeWitt had a background of working in IT. He had 0:16:10.090 --> 0:16:12.410 been working at the Baxter's business for a few years. 0:16:13.350 --> 0:16:16.440 Luke was known around town for being kind of a nerdy, 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:19.520 quiet guy, but someone who was very kind, who did 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:23.620 volunteer work. In 2021, Luke's father had died of cancer, 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.140 and after that, he got even closer to Stephen and Carol. 0:16:28.060 --> 0:16:31.320 Luke ended up being diagnosed with bone marrow cancer. And 0:16:31.460 --> 0:16:34.240 Carol and Steven supported him through that, through the brutal 0:16:34.300 --> 0:16:38.860 chemotherapy appointments and the treatments. And Luke also helped them. 0:16:39.690 --> 0:16:42.140 When Carol was going through her health issues, Luke would 0:16:42.190 --> 0:16:45.470 prepare healthy meals for her. They weren't just coworkers, they 0:16:45.490 --> 0:16:48.670 were like family at this point. In fact, Luke was 0:16:48.750 --> 0:16:51.230 one of the last people to see Steven and Carol alive. 0:16:52.030 --> 0:16:54.650 Luke had visited the house on Friday night while Carol 0:16:54.670 --> 0:16:58.140 was asleep and Steven was cooking dinner. Remember that Carol's 0:16:58.180 --> 0:17:01.500 pacemaker indicated that she was alive after that, after Luke left. 0:17:01.980 --> 0:17:05.500 She died sometime on Saturday afternoon, and Luke had left 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:08.740 the house by then. This was verified by a security 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:11.610 camera that covered the front of the property. That camera 0:17:11.650 --> 0:17:14.630 did not record anyone coming or going from the house 0:17:14.750 --> 0:17:18.010 on Saturday. Now, it was possible someone could have approached 0:17:18.030 --> 0:17:21.490 from another direction and maybe avoided the camera, especially someone 0:17:21.530 --> 0:17:24.510 familiar with the house, but police didn't know for sure, 0:17:24.570 --> 0:17:26.930 and they didn't have any evidence that that's what took place. 0:17:27.810 --> 0:17:30.690 So now, police were taking a hard look at Ellie, 0:17:30.890 --> 0:17:34.830 her husband, and Luke DeWitt. But no one could believe 0:17:34.890 --> 0:17:37.510 that Luke would do anything like that. Everyone said he 0:17:37.530 --> 0:17:40.970 was known as having good character. He apparently volunteered at 0:17:41.010 --> 0:17:43.960 soup kitchens. He would pose as Santa Claus for local 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:47.980 events in town. After his father died, Luke lived with 0:17:48.020 --> 0:17:51.640 his mother. Now, trial reporting would later describe the adult 0:17:51.700 --> 0:17:55.690 son and mother as sharing a bedroom. So there were 0:17:55.990 --> 0:17:59.690 rumors flying around that Luke's relationship with his mother was 0:17:59.770 --> 0:18:02.850 a little bit odd and close. I am not suggesting, 0:18:02.890 --> 0:18:05.610 by the way, there was anything inappropriate about the mother-son 0:18:05.650 --> 0:18:08.690 relationship at all. The rumors that were flying around were 0:18:08.710 --> 0:18:11.030 more along the lines of them being very close and 0:18:11.050 --> 0:18:13.390 it may be being unhealthy. But in spite of that, 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.640 everybody described Luke DeWitt as a good guy. One article 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:19.460 described him as someone who, quote, was known locally as 0:18:19.500 --> 0:18:23.760 an eccentric but generally harmless computer enthusiast, end quote. As 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:26.540 far as everyone could tell, other than volunteering and working 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:29.880 in IT, Luke DeWitt's main hobby was playing video games. 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:34.780 And Luke had been so helpful. After the bodies were discovered, 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:38.610 Luke came over and helped communicate with emergency services when 0:18:38.690 --> 0:18:40.970 Ellie was too distraught to explain what was going on. 0:18:41.850 --> 0:18:47.070 He also assisted in gathering Carol's medication for paramedics. Afterward, 0:18:47.110 --> 0:18:50.330 he helped Ellie organize the funeral. He even babysat her 0:18:50.390 --> 0:18:53.970 son while she went on her pregnancy doctor's appointments. To Ellie, 0:18:54.290 --> 0:18:56.390 he was one of the people supporting her through the 0:18:56.530 --> 0:19:01.240 worst period of her life. However, now police were wondering 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:04.080 if there was a dark side to Luke staying so 0:19:04.120 --> 0:19:07.200 close to the family in that way. Then, in June 0:19:07.220 --> 0:19:10.900 of 2023, police came to Ellie's house and arrested her 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:15.120 on suspicion of murdering her parents. Ellie said she was shocked. 0:19:15.220 --> 0:19:17.900 She denied having anything to do with their deaths. She 0:19:17.980 --> 0:19:21.000 told investigators she hadn't even known that fentanyl had killed 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:24.600 them until police revealed it during questioning. But Ellie was 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:28.240 not the only person arrested that day. Police also arrested 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:33.650 her boyfriend, Marcus, and they arrested Luke DeWitt. Ellie later 0:19:33.870 --> 0:19:37.470 said that this was horrific and stressful. She was heavily pregnant, 0:19:37.510 --> 0:19:40.150 and now she was being questioned in connection with her parents' murder. 0:19:41.110 --> 0:19:45.500 But very quickly, Ellie and Marcus were released from police custody, 0:19:46.060 --> 0:19:49.420 but Luke DeWitt remained there. And what police were beginning 0:19:49.460 --> 0:19:53.400 to uncover would completely change the story of Stephen and 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:58.460 Carol Baxter's deaths. Because when Luke was arrested and police 0:19:58.540 --> 0:20:03.010 looked through his rucksack, they found lots of fentanyl pouches. 0:20:18.250 --> 0:20:21.280 When Luke was questioned he had a reason for having 0:20:21.300 --> 0:20:24.020 these patches. He said that he had the fentanyl because 0:20:24.140 --> 0:20:26.840 it had originally been prescribed to his father who had 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:30.930 died from cancer two years earlier. When police searched Luke's 0:20:30.950 --> 0:20:34.640 house they found more fentanyl. Again Luke told them investigators 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:36.880 that there was an innocent explanation for all this. He 0:20:36.940 --> 0:20:39.290 said he had just been going through his father's things slowly, 0:20:39.770 --> 0:20:43.150 had collected the leftover medication, and eventually he said he 0:20:43.170 --> 0:20:45.230 was going to take it to the pharmacy for disposal. 0:20:45.270 --> 0:20:46.870 He just hadn't had a chance to do it yet. 0:20:47.950 --> 0:20:51.910 But when investigators compared those patches with the empty fentanyl 0:20:51.940 --> 0:20:55.660 patches discovered among Carol's medications, they found that they were 0:20:55.740 --> 0:20:59.760 from the same batch and that Luke's fingerprints were on 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:03.820 the packets found at Carol and Stephen's house. Those fentanyl 0:21:03.860 --> 0:21:07.550 patches changed the entire direction of the investigation, but they 0:21:07.590 --> 0:21:11.510 were far from the only disturbing things police found. Luke 0:21:11.670 --> 0:21:15.030 also had a large quantity of an over-the-counter medication that 0:21:15.090 --> 0:21:20.140 contained promethazine, The same sedating antihistamine that was found at 0:21:20.180 --> 0:21:24.080 potentially lethal levels in Carol Baxter's blood. Some of the 0:21:24.120 --> 0:21:27.980 tablets have been crushed into powder. And investigators even found 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:31.530 what appeared to be a makeshift pestle and mortar among 0:21:31.570 --> 0:21:35.710 Luke's belongings. Now again, Luke had an explanation. He claimed 0:21:35.770 --> 0:21:38.010 he ground up that medication so he could combine it 0:21:38.050 --> 0:21:40.690 with a cream to treat his eczema. But police were 0:21:40.730 --> 0:21:43.810 not convinced. Especially since at the foot of his bed, 0:21:44.230 --> 0:21:48.550 investigators found another bag and this one contained empty pill capsules. 0:21:49.550 --> 0:21:51.560 Luke said he had brought the bag home from the 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:55.460 Baxter's house and that it wasn't his. But investigators developed 0:21:55.580 --> 0:22:00.300 a very different theory. They believed the crushed promethazine had 0:22:00.340 --> 0:22:04.230 been put into capsules that Luke had created pills that 0:22:04.270 --> 0:22:08.560 contained several times the therapeutic dose of this medication. That 0:22:08.660 --> 0:22:11.740 offered a possible explanation for something that had puzzled Carol's 0:22:11.780 --> 0:22:15.790 family and doctors long before her death. Those periods when 0:22:15.830 --> 0:22:19.890 Carol said she was becoming profoundly drowsy and confused and disoriented. 0:22:21.270 --> 0:22:26.480 Then police found something even more shocking. Remember Carol's hospitalization 0:22:26.610 --> 0:22:29.500 due to abdominal pain that was such a mystery? Well, 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:33.140 police found a bag that contained dozens of metal nails. 0:22:34.290 --> 0:22:37.490 So investigators now believe that accident wasn't an accident at all. 0:22:38.110 --> 0:22:41.400 They believed a nail was put inside a capsule and 0:22:41.500 --> 0:22:45.000 given to Carol without her knowledge. Something that once looked 0:22:45.020 --> 0:22:48.880 like an isolated medical mystery was now being examined as 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:52.130 an act of deliberate poisoning. But the physical evidence was 0:22:52.250 --> 0:22:56.080 only one part of what police seized. Luke had an 0:22:56.140 --> 0:23:00.640 extraordinary quantity of electronics, around 80 devices, according to reporting 0:23:00.860 --> 0:23:03.980 that was broadcast in a documentary about this case called 0:23:04.020 --> 0:23:10.420 The Millionaire Murders. This included phones, computers, tablets, smartwatches, hard drives, 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:14.340 and USB devices. Some of the phones were unregistered, and 0:23:14.380 --> 0:23:18.340 investigators found technology that allowed telephone numbers from numerous countries 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:21.390 to be used remotely. Now, given Luke's background in IT, 0:23:21.450 --> 0:23:24.410 none of this was necessarily criminal on its own. The 0:23:24.450 --> 0:23:28.740 significance emerged only after investigators began the enormous task of 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:33.960 reconstructing what those devices had been used to do. Then 0:23:33.980 --> 0:23:37.040 they found out that Jenny, this person she had been 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:40.200 talking to online, was not who she appeared to be. 0:23:40.980 --> 0:23:44.400 Jenny wasn't real at all. She was a persona invented 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:50.010 by Luke DeWitt. Investigators even recovered evidence suggesting that Luke 0:23:50.110 --> 0:23:53.410 had researched ways to alter his voice during telephone calls. 0:23:54.230 --> 0:23:58.330 And they found recordings where Luke appeared to practice speaking 0:23:58.450 --> 0:24:02.100 in a woman's voice as Jenny. This makes the hairs 0:24:02.130 --> 0:24:03.660 on the back of my neck stand up as I'm 0:24:03.700 --> 0:24:07.320 reading it because it's so creepy. Ellie had no idea 0:24:07.380 --> 0:24:09.620 that the person she was pouring her heart out to 0:24:09.720 --> 0:24:13.100 about her troubles with her parents was actually Luke DeWitt. 0:24:13.880 --> 0:24:17.300 And the deception continued even after Stephen and Carol died. 0:24:17.920 --> 0:24:19.680 But that was just the tip of the iceberg because 0:24:19.920 --> 0:24:24.510 Jenny wasn't Luke DeWitt's only persona. Luke also invented Martin Ellison, 0:24:24.870 --> 0:24:27.930 the attorney who told Ellie that this weird document concerning 0:24:27.970 --> 0:24:32.510 Casplash was authentic. Luke lied about everything. He lied about 0:24:32.550 --> 0:24:35.930 his academic credentials and medical records showed he never even 0:24:36.050 --> 0:24:39.700 had bone cancer. He had never gone through cancer treatment, 0:24:40.220 --> 0:24:43.890 but he had stolen from the Baxters. police found jewelry 0:24:43.970 --> 0:24:47.970 belonging to Carol in Luke's house. So there was now 0:24:48.050 --> 0:24:52.850 a much darker way of interpreting Carol's deterioration. For roughly 0:24:52.970 --> 0:24:56.330 two years, she had been consuming various homemade tonics and 0:24:56.390 --> 0:24:59.770 mixtures that were recommended by this medical network she trusted. 0:25:00.490 --> 0:25:03.130 And Luke was the person who would prepare the drinks 0:25:03.270 --> 0:25:06.780 and encourage her to listen to the online doctor, Andrea Bowden. 0:25:07.980 --> 0:25:10.780 Carol trusted him so much that she apparently made jokes 0:25:10.840 --> 0:25:15.900 about him being her mixologist. Investigators believed that some of 0:25:15.940 --> 0:25:20.210 these tonics that Luke gave Carol had been dosed with promethazine. 0:25:20.790 --> 0:25:24.950 Carol's mysterious worsening illness, the drowsiness, the confusion, the erratic 0:25:24.990 --> 0:25:27.730 behavior were at least in part because she was being 0:25:27.770 --> 0:25:31.090 deliberately poisoned. None of the reporting that I've read about 0:25:31.110 --> 0:25:33.980 this case covered this, but I definitely wondered, did she 0:25:34.060 --> 0:25:36.160 ever really have an illness at all? Or was this 0:25:36.420 --> 0:25:40.210 all Luke's doing? This may shock you or you may 0:25:40.250 --> 0:25:43.770 have figured it out by now, but Luke was also Dr. 0:25:43.910 --> 0:25:48.940 Andrea Bowden and every single friend in the online support group. 0:25:49.760 --> 0:25:54.160 Luke used his online personas to completely manipulate Carol. If 0:25:54.200 --> 0:25:57.400 she became confused or exhausted, the online doctor could attribute 0:25:57.420 --> 0:25:59.960 it to her illness. If she questioned any of Dr. 0:26:00.060 --> 0:26:03.380 Andrea's treatments, the other doctor who was also Luke DeWitt 0:26:03.780 --> 0:26:06.400 or the other supposed patients could encourage her to keep 0:26:06.480 --> 0:26:11.800 taking the health tonics. Luke controlled Carol's entire online world. 0:26:13.000 --> 0:26:15.610 And Luke was obviously there in person as well to 0:26:15.670 --> 0:26:18.770 make Carol her health tonics, the ones that were laced 0:26:18.970 --> 0:26:23.130 with deadly drugs. To me, Luke DeWitt definitely fits the 0:26:23.170 --> 0:26:25.670