Trial Begins for Mansion Murder

By D.C. Witness Staff - September 11, 2018
Court | Daily Stories | Homicides | Suspects |

“This is what nightmares are made of,” an attorney for the prosecution said Sept. 11 during his opening statement in a murder trial that has garnered an immense amount of attention in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

Daron Wint is charged with first-degree murder, felony murder while armed, first-degree burglary, extortion, kidnapping, arson, kidnapping against a minor and first-degree theft. He allegedly kidnapped, tortured and murdered  Amy Savopoulos, 47; Philip Savopoulos,10; Savvas Savopoulos,46; and Veralicia Figueroa, 57 in the Savopoulos residence, located on the 3200 block of Woodland Drive, NW, in 2015.

They were “beaten, bound, tortured, killed,” the attorney said. “Burned, charred, beyond all recognition,”he continued, pointing a finger at Wint, 36. Then that “coward fled back to Maryland.”

As the prosecutor spoke to the jury he recreated the scene of the murder, bringing jurors through step-by-step of the environment emergency personnel endured as they tried to rescue any victims.

As one firefighter crawled around an upstairs bedroom, he felt a body in a chair and then another one on the floor. According to court documents, Amy, Savaas and Figueroa, the family’s maid, were dead in one room. The child, charred to a crisp, in another.

According to the Office of the Medical Examiner in the District of Columbia, Amy, Savvas and Figueroa were stabbed and beaten with a baseball bat. Savvas was also strangled. Both Amy and Savvas died before the fire began. The same case cannot be determined for the boy. Even though Philip’s charred body displayed multiple stab wounds to the abdomen, the medical examiner cannot verify if he was alive before the fire was set. The clothes of all the victims, along with the rooms they were trapped in were drenched with gasoline.

Figueroa, who was strangled as well, was taken to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

“Why did this happen? Money, greed, ransom,” said the prosecution. Apparently, Wint worked for Savvas for two years, previously. It’s “no secret the boss, owner had money.”

On May 14, Savvas gave specific instructions to his assistant and driver to deliver $40,000 of the company’s money to his home in Northwest DC. According to the prosecutor, the assistant was told to place the money in the trunk of a fancy sports car in the garage. He did as instructed and left the scene.

The prosecution said there are five separate pieces of DNA evidence linking Wint to the crime, including pizza crust, a construction vest, a knife used to prop open a first floor window, a hair strand found inside a construction hat in the garage and another strand found on the bedding inside the room where Amy, Savvas and Figueroa were found.

“We are going to put this together for you; piece-by-piece,” he said.

“For all the charges, he is guilty,” the prosecution said, explaining that even if Wint did not kill the decedents, his presence in the house is enough to convict him of the murders. 

The defense wasted no time explaining to the jury the crime was carried out by two other men, both the brothers of Wint.

“DNA doesn’t lie, but it doesn’t tell you the whole story,” defense attorney Jeffrey Stein said. “Siblings that have the same mother will have the same DNA hair profile.”

Wint’s DNA was not found on the murder weapons, a samurai sword and a baseball bat.

The defense also said the assistant should be a person of interest. He had only been employed for seven weeks and is linked to people who changed portions of the ransom money into money orders days after the incident, Stein said. Also, when police conducted a search of the assistant’s vehicle, they reported a heavy gasoline odor on the passenger side.

Stein told the jury that Wint could not have known to cut telephone wires, destroy the in-home surveillance system, and silence the family’s two dogs. The defense implied that more than one man was responsible for restraining, torturing and murdering four people.

“There is only one verdict consistent with the law and with justice and it is not guilty,” Stein said. 

Jerel Flint, an intern with D.C. Witness, also contributed to this story.