An ex-con from Maryland and five of his friends were arrested late Thursday in the slaughter of a Washington, D.C. family and their housekeeper.
After a massive manhunt, Daron Dylon Wint, 34, and his cohorts were found in Washington, D.C., according to Fox News.
Savvas Savopoulos, 46, his wife Amy, 47, their son Philip, 10, and housekeeper Veralicia Figueroa, 57, were doused with gasoline and then burned alive after an alleged home invasion. Savopoulos, the CEO of an iron works company, lived in a mansion near Vice President Biden’s residence. Wint had been a welder who once worked for Savopoulos’ American Iron Works company
Police found DNA left on pizza crust, which allowed them to identify Wint on Wednesday; they traced him traveling to Brooklyn and then back to Washington, D.C. Thursday night, federal marshals discovered Wint traveling with two women in a white Chevrolet Cruze in College Park, Maryland. The car was trailing a white box truck with Wint’s brother driving and another male passenger. The box truck was found to have more than $10,000 in cash. Robert Fernandez, commander of the U.S. Marshal Service’s Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, told the Associated Press, “We had overwhelming numbers and force. They completely submitted immediately.”
Police allege that on May 14, Wint held the family hostage, demanding that a messenger bring him $40,000, then murdered all of them.
Nelitza Gutierrez, a housekeeper for the family for 20 years, told AP that the victims had been held hostage for nearly a day before they were killed. She said she had received an unusual voice mail from Savopoulos and a text message sent from his wife’s phone, instructing her, “I am making sure you are not coming today.” Gutierrez called and texted back but there was no response.
The two teenage daughters of Savopoulos were at boarding school at the time of the murders. Wint had previously assaulted his girlfriend in Maryland in 2009; in 2010 he pleaded guilty to malicious destruction of property after he allegedly threatened to kill a woman and her infant daughter. One detective reported of Wint, “The defendant advised he was good with a knife and could kill them easily and was not afraid of the police.” He was also arrested in 2010 for carrying a 2-foot-long machete and a BB pistol outside the American Iron Works headquarters. He was released after he pleaded guilty to possessing an open container of alcohol.
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