On Easter Sunday 2023, retired couple Stephen and Carol Baxter were found dead in the conservatory of their home on Mersea Island, off the Essex coast. Initially their deaths were - until toxicology revealed both had been poisoned with the powerful opioid fentanyl. Suspicion fell on Luke D’Wit, the unassuming IT consultant who had spent a decade quietly embedding himself in the Baxters’ lives as friend, employee and unofficial carer. In this episode, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes profiles a real-life puppet master — a man who built twenty fake online identities to control his victims, forged a will to inherit their business, and watched on a hidden phone feed as they died. Listen now to The Profiler, with Kerry Daynes.

Key psychological themes

This episode explores: psychopathy and the urge for control • the long con — grooming adults over a decade • catfishing and the use of fake online identities • performative care and the "surrogate son" persona • power, patience and the puppet-master mindset

Contributors featured in this episode

Kerry Daynes — Forensic psychologist, presenter, and author of Dark Side of the Mind and What Lies Buried.

Ellis Whitehouse — Chief Reporter, Essex Live; covered the case from the day the bodies were discovered.

Hannah Pettifer — ITV News reporter; reported on the investigation and trial at Chelmsford Crown Court.

Gary Cunningham — Former homicide detective.

Professor Atholl Johnston — Professor of Clinical Pharmacology; expert on fentanyl and overdose.

Detective Superintendent Rob Kirby — Senior investigating officer, Essex Police

What you'll learn in this episode

How Luke D’Wit spent ten years embedding himself in the Baxters’ lives as IT consultant, friend and carer for Carol

Why fentanyl — fifty times stronger than heroin and a hundred times stronger than morphine — was the near-perfect murder weapon

How D’Wit created twenty fake online identities, including a Florida-based doctor and a confidante called "Jenny", to control Carol Baxter’s medical treatment

What a metal tack found inside Carol’s body, more than a year before the murders, revealed about D’Wit’s earlier intentions

Why a hidden phone live-streaming the Baxters’ final hours back to D’Wit’s home was the "silver bullet" piece of evidence

What Kerry Daynes identifies as the true motive — power and control, not money — once D’Wit’s plan to inherit a failing business unravelled

Relevant links and further reading

Kerry Daynes — Dark Side of the Mind (Endeavour, 2019)

Kerry Daynes — What Lies Buried (Endeavour, 2021)

https://www.essexlive.news/news/essex-news/listen-999-call-between-accused-9100011 — Essex Live: the harrowing 999 call from the scene

Essex Police — DI Rob Kirby on convicted killer Luke D’Wit (court-steps statement, available on Essex Police’s YouTube channel)

BBC News and The Guardian — contemporary coverage of the Mersea Island murders and the Chelmsford Crown Court trial

Support for those affected by sudden bereavement, poisoning and coercive control — Cruse Bereavement Support • Victim Support • Hourglass (for older victims of abuse)

Subscribe & follow

If you’re gripped by The Profiler, with Kerry Daynes, follow the show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. A rating or review takes thirty seconds and genuinely helps new listeners find us.

Visit theprofiler.co.uk

For an exclusive filmed interview with Kerry Daynes on the cases behind the series — including untold detail on the Luke D’Wit investigation — visit theprofiler.co.uk. Subscribe to the newsletter for case updates, parole-hearing alerts, and early access to new episodes.

Content note

This episode contains an emergency-services recording made at the scene of two sudden deaths, and descriptions of poisoning, coercive control and the deliberate killing of vulnerable adults. Listener discretion is strongly advised. If you have been affected by the issues raised, support is available from Cruse Bereavement Support (0808 808 1677) and Victim Support (0808 168 9111).

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

By the summer of 1997, eight-year-old Jamie Lavis had been missing for nearly a month — and the Manchester bus driver who killed him, Darren Vickers, had vanished too. Tracked down to a North Wales fairground, where he was strapping children in and out of rides, Vickers was arrested, then released for lack of evidence, and welcomed back to the Lavis family home with a celebration party. In Part 2, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes follows the police hunt for Jamie’s body in Reddish Vale Park, the trial that exposed Vickers as a grooming predator and child sexual abuser, and the chilling jailhouse confession he made only after the verdict was in. This is the story of how detectives finally broke through one of Britain’s most brazen killers. Listen now to The Profiler, with Kerry Daynes.

Key psychological themes

This episode explores: brazen manipulation • performative empathy and staged grief • the predator who returns to the scene • grooming and child sexual abuse • blame-shifting and false allegations • the psychology of a post-conviction confession

Contributors featured in this episode

Kerry Daynes — Forensic psychologist, presenter, and author of Dark Side of the Mind and What Lies Buried.

Roy Rainford — Retired Senior Investigating Officer, Greater Manchester Police; led the Jamie Lavis murder investigation.

Asif Husein — Former Greater Manchester Police Family Liaison Officer to the Lavis family; arrested Vickers in North Wales.

David Ward — Former Northern Correspondent for The Guardian; covered the case and the trial.

Jeff Anderson — Former Head of News, ITV Granada, Manchester.

What you'll learn in this episode

How Darren Vickers tried to evade arrest by fleeing to a North Wales fairground job that put him in daily contact with children

Why Vickers kept returning to Reddish Vale Park — and what Kerry Daynes says that compulsion reveals about him

How a single jaw bone, identified through dental records, finally gave detectives enough to charge him

What QC Brian Leveson’s courtroom address exposed about the grooming and sexual abuse of Jamie Lavis

Why Vickers confessed to senior detective Roy Rainford only AFTER the jury’s guilty verdict

How Karen Lavis went from defending her son’s killer to telling the press, on the courthouse steps, that justice had been done

Relevant links and further reading

Kerry Daynes — Dark Side of the Mind (Endeavour, 2019)

Kerry Daynes — What Lies Buried (Endeavour, 2021)

Faking It: Tears of a Crime (Warner Bros. Discovery) — some interviews in this episode were originally featured in the series. Watch on https://www.discoveryplus.com

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/326657.stm — BBC News archive: contemporary coverage of the Jamie Lavis case

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/disturbing-picture-shows-how-evil-15392826 — Manchester Evening News: how an evil child killer wormed his way into his victim’s family

Support for families of missing or murdered children — Missing People (UK) • Victim Support • NSPCC

Subscribe & follow

If you’re gripped by The Profiler, with Kerry Daynes, follow the show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. A rating or review takes thirty seconds and genuinely helps new listeners find us.

Visit theprofiler.co.uk

For an exclusive filmed interview with Kerry Daynes on the cases behind the series — including untold detail on the Jamie Lavis investigation — visit theprofiler.co.uk. Subscribe to the newsletter for case updates, parole-hearing alerts, and early access to new episodes.

Credits

Presented by Kerry Daynes

Produced by Shearwater Media

Executive producers: Jeff Anderson and Steve Anderson

Editing & Music by Rob Warner

Content note

This episode contains descriptions of the abduction, sexual abuse and murder of a child, and references to the discovery of human remains. Listener discretion is strongly advised. If you have been affected by the issues raised, support is available from the NSPCC (0808 800 5000) and Victim Support (0808 168 9111)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.