How to achieve effect of making it appear person gradually disappears?

Hi, I am trying to create an effect where there are two people in a scene, shot on a tripod. So everything, except for the people is static. I want one of them to gradually disappear by me adjusting opacity level. I shot one scene with one person visible, then shot again with other person visible. Then shot third time with no one visible.

On the timeline I have the three shots, one on top of the other.

I thought I could achieve the effect using a difference opacity somehow. Things not working as I expected. I suspect there is a workflow way to do this, and that order vertically matters, and opacity setting on per layer matters. Just can't figure out effective way.

Any other ideas on best way to do this?

The shot with nobody present goes on the bottom with the other 2 shots on top.

I am assuming you have one person on the left and the other on the right?

You need to use the Crop tool to crop away half of the top image so that the person on the middle image shows through.

Alternatively you could use a mask instead of the crop tool.

You will also need to keyframe the opacity to make a gradual fading.