How to Catch A Criminal: Behind Closed Doors

Every officer with a decent amount of time on the job knows the unexpected turns an investigation can take. Seeing a major case through to completion often involves giving up on a theory and taking your investigation in a different direction as new information becomes available. In How to Catch A Criminal, we look at the many ways not-so-perfect crimes are solved. This month, a family’s odd behavior leads to a terrible discovery.

On the afternoon of May 13, 2015, 46-yearold Savvas Savopoulos received a phone call from his wife, 47-year-old Amy. Amy explained that she had to go out to run an errand and Savvas needed to come home to look after their son, who stayed home sick from school. Up to this point, the day was like any other. Savvas, the CEO of American Iron Works, a massive construction company, had been busy with a side project. While American Iron Works is headquartered in Maryland, and the Savopoulos family resided in the Woodley Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Savvas was busy in nearby Chantilly, Virginia, working on opening his own martial arts studio. After the phone call, Savvas returned home to his Washington, D.C., mansion, where Amy waited, along with their 10-year-old son Philip, and 57-year-old Veralicia Figueroa, their longtime housekeeper. The Savopoulos also had two daughters, Abigail and Katerina, both in their teens, but they were away at boarding school. As soon as Savvas walked through the front door, the day became unlike any other, and no one would see the Savopoulos family alive again.

Around 8:30 p.m., Savvas called his assistant, Jordan Wallace and him a voicemail with very clear, albeit strange, instructions. The following morning, Wallace was to head to the American Iron Works office and pick up a package. From there he was supposed to deliver the package to the Savopoulos home and let Savvas know when he was 10 minutes away. A little after 9:00 p.m., Amy ordered two pizzas using a credit card, with the special instructions to leave them on the porch and not knock on the door, because she was nursing her sick child back to health and did not want to disturb him. Around 9:30 p.m., Savvas called Nelly Gutierrez, the family’s other housekeeper and informed her, Veralicia, or Vera as they called her, was staying over for the night and therefore Nelly’s services weren’t needed the following day.

On the morning of May 14, Jordan Wallace did as he had been asked. When he arrived to the office, he was met by Ted Chase, the CFO of the company. Just like Wallace, Chase also received a call from Savvas on the night of the 13th. Savvas explained that he was going to an auction soon and needed some cash in order to bid on construction equipment. Savvas sent Chase a signed letter addressed to the bank, authorizing a cash withdrawal of $40,000 from the company’s bank account, and for the funds to be handed directly to Chase. Even though the request was unusual, there was no reason to think Savvas would be irresponsible with company funds. Chase placed the money into a manila envelope and provided it to Wallace when he arrived. As Wallace headed for Woodley Park, he couldn’t help but peek inside the envelope. He was quite surprised to see he had been entrusted to deliver a large sum of cash to his boss’s home. Despite his surprise, he continued with his task as planned.

As instructed, Jordan Wallace texted Savvas to say he was nearing the house with the envelope. Savvas texted back to state he was in the middle of a conference call and knocking on the front door would disturb his meeting. Instead, Wallace was asked to place the envelope in the front seat of Savvas’s sports car in the garage, which would be open. After making the drop, Wallace texted Savvas to let him know the job was done. Unbeknownst to Wallace, he was not the first visitor to the Savopoulos home that morning. Prior to his arrival, Vera’s husband, Bernardo, had been knocking at the door, concerned that his wife didn’t come home last night. Bernardo hadn’t heard a word from Vera, despite her never before staying the night with the Savopoulos’. He pounded on the door, sure that someone must be home that could give him some answers. His efforts were futile, and Bernardo eventually gave up looking for Vera at the Savopoulos residence. He finally received some comfort a short time later when he received a call from Savvas, who stated Amy was sick, so he and Vera took her to the hospital. Bernardo wasn’t alone in thinking there was something off about the Savopoulos family’s behavior that morning, but he and the rest of the world would soon learn the reason for it.

A little after 1 p.m. on May 14, D.C. Fire & EMS received reports of smoke coming from the Savopoulos residence. Upon arrival, firefighters made entry into the home to extinguish the flames and ensure there was no one trapped in the inferno. What they found changed the nature of the call from structure fire into arson, as well as a quadruple homicide. With the fire out and the home still mostly intact, investigators were able to determine the four victims were Savvas, Amy, Philip, and Vera. The Savopoulos family and Vera Figueroa had all been beaten and stabbed, with Savvas and Vera both showing signs of strangulation as well. Philip’s body showed signs of prolonged torture, but the extent of his injuries was difficult to determine, because the fire had caused severe damage as well. The investigation quickly determined the fire was started by gasoline which had been poured into Philip’s room and ignited. A picture of what happened inside the home between the night of May 13 and the morning of the 14th came together rapidly, especially once the Savopoulos’s Porsche 911 was found on fire less than an hour from their home. Phone records and interviews with Ted Chase, Jordan Wallace, and Nelly Guttierez all pointed in the same direction. Someone held the family against their will while extorting them for $40,000, and the offender took extra care to keep anyone else from arriving to interfere with their plan.

The person who committed this crime was a special kind of depraved. They successfully orchestrated the delivery of the $40,000 to the home without raising suspicions, at least not enough for anyone to contact Law Enforcement. Then, rather than take the money and make an escape, the thief decided to brutally kill all four occupants and attempted to raze the mansion to hide the crime. Despite these efforts, this individual made two critical errors. First, during the time the family was held hostage, Amy was forced to order two pizzas to sustain the family and kidnapper through the night while they waited for the bank to open and the money to be delivered the next morning. The kidnapper did not finish the crust from his slice of the pie, and the fire did not harm the leftovers. DNA was easily recovered from the partially eaten pizza. The second mistake the kidnapper made was having an extensive criminal history, which made his DNA readily available in state and national databases. In no time at all, 34-year-old Daron Wint was identified as the man who left behind that slice of pizza. A nationwide manhunt for Wint began, and just one week after the fire, Wint was arrested in Washington, D.C.

At trial, the prosecution stated that Wint was an employee of American Iron Works in 2005 but was fired when he pulled a knife on another employee. In the preceding 10 years, Wint struggled to remain employed and out of trouble. Wint eventually became desperate for money and decided to extort his wealthy former boss, who had the kind of life he could only dream of. This plot would not only satisfy his need for cash but also give him the satisfaction of revenge against the man who fired him. Wint is believed to have tricked his way into the home under false pretenses while Amy was out, making Vera and Philip the first victims of his wrath. Amy was then attacked as she returned home, followed by Savvas. Prosecutors also argued that the torture suffered by Philip was a deliberate method of gaining compliance from Savvas and the other captives. If anyone refused to do exactly as they were told, Philip would suffer. In the end, Daron Wint was found guilty of 20 counts of kidnapping, murder, and extortion. He was sentenced to four life terms without parole, and all of his appeals have been denied.