WASHINGTON -- A DC jury convicted Daron Wint, a fired welder, of 20 counts of murder, kidnapping, extortion, and arson in the horrifying deaths of Savvas, Amy, and Phillip Savopoulos, and their housekeeper, Vera Figueroa.
Daron Wint was dead silent on Thursday, as the jury foreman answered “guilty” to each count against him. Savopoulos family members wiped their eyes and looked straight ahead.
Almost three and a half years after the brutal kidnapping and murder of four people inside a Northwest DC home, 12 jurors convicted the only man ever charged on Thursday.
Jurors found Daron Wint, 37, had held the four for $40,000 in ransom. Even after it was paid, they found he stabbed and burned to death, Savvas and Amy Savopoulos, their son Phillip, 10, and their housekeeper, Vera Figueroa.
Prosecutors said Wint barged into the home on May 13, 2015, that tied up Phillip and Figueroa with duct tape and zip ties, and then captured Amy and Savvas as they came home. He held the four overnight until Savvas’ assistant left a bag of cash in the garage, and then murdered all four on the afternoon of May 14.
Wint had tried to blame his brother and half-brother for the killings, testifying that Darrell Wint had lured him to the house with a promise of a job painting and dry-walling. He said when he got there, Darrell Wint gave him a piece of pizza, and then asked him to help empty the house of belongings. Daron Wint says he refused and walked out of the house, never realizing the family was being held hostage upstairs.
Firefighters found the murder victims in two different rooms after responding to calls for flames shooting out of the windows of the stately home in the wealthy Woodley Park neighborhood.
Wint had been a welder at the Savopoulos family company, American Iron Works, in Prince George’s County, until he was fired, and then spent years looking for steady work.
Detectives found Wint’s DNA on a pizza crust and a knife inside the house, and a hair that matched him in the bedroom with Phillip Savopoulos’ badly burned body.
Defense attorneys pointed to a witness who said he say a skinny man with short hair driving Amy Savopolous’ Porsche out New York Avenue minutes after the house was set on fire. Wint has long dreads and spent a lot of time working out.
At the time of his arrest, a detective wrote in charging documents that he did not believe one man could have committed the crime alone. But no one else was ever charged. And prosecutors told jurors that even if others were involved, they should find him guilty if they concluded he participated.
