Husband, housekeeper were beaten, strangled during quadruple homicide (2024)

Details of the alarm were revealed Monday during a preliminary hearing for Daron Wint, the 34-year-old man charged with first-degree murder in connection with the deaths. Police have said that the victims were held captive overnight and that the attacker or attackers fled with $40,000 delivered to the home as ransom.

Wint, dressed in an orange D.C. jail jumpsuit with his wrists and ankles shackled, sat next to his public defenders as Jeffrey Owens, the lead D.C. police detective assigned to the case, testified for nearly five hours about evidence that authorities believe links Wint to the killings. Wint once worked for a Savopoulos family business, American Iron Works.

Police have said in court papers that they think others may have been involved in the crime. However, Owens testified that police so far have not recovered any evidence linking anyone else to the slayings. The detective added that authorities were still poring over “more than a hundred” pieces of evidence.

Owens also shared new information about the cause of death for two of the victims. Owens said a medical examiner determined that Savvas Savopoulos and Figueroa were strangled and beaten. He said there was evidence that at least one of the four victims was fatally stabbed and that a knife was found in the trash behind the house. Owens also said that a baseball bat as well as a samurai sword, taken from Savopoulos’s martial arts collection, were also being examined to determine whether they were used in the killings.

During the hearing, Abigail Savopoulos, 19, one of Amy and Savvas Savopoulos’s two daughters, sat in the front row of the courtroom, often writing notes. She and her sister were away at school when the killings took place. Her grandfather, Amy Savopoulos’s father, sat next to her.

It remained unclear who was at the house at the time the alarm was triggered or whether the alarm company contacted the home. But Owens confirmed that Amy Savopoulos was home during the day taking care of Philip, who had been injured in an incident that friends have described as a go-kart accident.

Savvas Savopoulos had been in Chantilly that day to help prepare for the opening of a martial arts studio, according to police documents. One longtime American Iron Works employee told police that he last saw Savvas Savopoulos at the studio about 6 p.m. May 13, according to police documents.

Prosecutors said that after Wint entered the house on May 13, he forced Amy Savopoulos to call Domino’s Pizza at 9:14 p.m. and have two pizzas delivered to the house. Owens testified that Amy Savopoulos paid with a credit card and instructed the driver to leave the pizzas outside of the house. When the driver arrived, the detective said, the house was dark, except for the porch light.

Authorities have said they identified Wint as a suspect after his DNA was found on pizza crust at the home.

At some point, Savvas Savopoulos instructed his assistant to withdraw $40,000, all in $100 bills, from Savopoulos’s bank account and deliver it to the home, according to authorities. The attacker or attackers took the money after it was dropped off the morning of May 14, authorities have said.

During his testimony, Owens told Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Bach that Wint’s DNA also was found on a neon-green construction vest that was inside a blue Porsche taken from the home. The car was found burned in New Carrollton, Md.

Owens testified that Wint’s DNA wasn’t the only evidence found on the vest. Savvas Savopoulos’s DNA along with a third person’s DNA were also detected, the detective said.

Under cross-examination by public defender Arthur Ago, Owens said a witness told police about seeing a man with a close haircut driving the Porsche. Wint has shoulder-length braids.

Ago then spent much of the hearing questioning the detective about Jordan Wallace, 28, Savvas Savopoulos’s assistant. The morning of the killings, Wallace accompanied another Savopoulos employee to a bank to retrieve the cash and then delivered it to the house.

Judge Rhonda Reid-Winston ordered Wint to remain in jail, ruling that there was probable cause” that Wint committed first-degree murder and that he was involved in “holding these people against their will.” Winston cited Wint’s DNA on the pizza crust and the vest as well as the $30,000 in cash and money orders that authorities found in Wint’s possession when he was arrested. She also noted that Wint fled the area, driving to Brooklyn, where his girlfriend lives, days after the killings.

Wint’s next hearing is scheduled for Sept.25.