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51 – The Pizza Crust Murders
56 Plays1 month ago
This week, in part one, Sam tells the story of the Pizza Crust Murders involving the Savopoulos family. They lived in an upper-middle-class suburban neighborhood in Washington, D.C., known as Woodley Park. The father, Sava; the mother, Amy; and their 10-year-old son, Phillip, along with the housekeeper, Vera, were held hostage for 22 hours and then violently murdered.
Who did it? Why the rage? Was it personal? Why that day? So many questions.
And remember, this is only part one. Tune in next week for part two.
Visit us on Linktree for the collection of links, Instagram, or email us at downtherabbitholepod@gmail.com.
Sam’s sources:
- DC Mansion Murders: Evidence That Helped Convict the Killer – ABC News
- WTOP's American Nightmare Series – Season 1: 22 Hours
- Darron Wint Sentenced for Killing Four People in Northwest Washington Home Invasion – U.S. Department of Justice
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Details
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, Sam. Hi, Jeffrey.
00:00:27
Speaker
I just took the dongle out of the computer right when we started recording. Okay. And it's still recording. There we go. Hey, welcome to Down the Rabbit Hole with Sam and Jeff.
00:00:40
Speaker
I'm Jeff. And I'm Sam. ah Hey, hey, hey. I don't like it when you change things up. How did I change it up? With Sam and Jeff. It's Jeff and Sam. Oh, did I say it the wrong way? Yes. Don't that again.
00:00:52
Speaker
i didn't even know. You do it sometimes and it freaks me out. Then there's that awkward pause because i don't I'm not going to say. Creature of habit you are. I am. Creature of habit you are. right, Yoda.
00:01:02
Speaker
What's new?
00:01:05
Speaker
Nothing. yeah We just worked the whole weekend. We did. We don't have a lot of energy coming at you today. no but this is. Like we said last week,
Special Episode and Birthday Surprise
00:01:15
Speaker
this is a ah special two-parter that is primarily going to be just me telling one story for two weeks um and Jeff verbally responding.
00:01:27
Speaker
We're working on that. We're working on that. But let's start with where you can find us. Oh, you can find us on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and iHeartRadio.
00:01:40
Speaker
Indeed. You can also find us and reach out to us on Instagram at downtherabbitholdpod or on Gmail at downtherabbitholdpod at gmail.com. And that's all in our show notes.
00:01:50
Speaker
So, you know, you can look at our show notes to see where to email us or find us anywhere. So yeah, we have a link tree. ah Yeah. We didn't even know what that was.
00:02:01
Speaker
We have one. We do. So once you find us, once you share us, uh, rate us, review us, leave a comment, tell us how we can be better or tell us that you love us. Give us a right now, as you're listening to us, Jamie,
00:02:17
Speaker
Dan, Steve, as you're listening to us, rate us with five stars because that does something to the algorithm, I'm told. Not that we need assistance being top of the list, but we do.
00:02:30
Speaker
Five star review. Five star review. um Yeah. So this is a story. We're here every Thursday for you. We're dropping episodes every Thursday for you. This is a lot of fun for us.
00:02:41
Speaker
um And what we do basically on this show is we chit chat, shoot the shit, and then we flip a coin and we have coins from all around the world.
00:02:52
Speaker
And that coin determines who tells a story first. And our stories have nothing to do with each other. is there It's a surprise to me. My story is a surprise to Sam and that's how it is.
00:03:04
Speaker
Right? Indeed. This week, like we said, though, is different. So there will be no coin flippage. Um, and there won't be double stories. So this week's a a little bit of an oddity for us.
00:03:18
Speaker
What's coming up for you? What are you doing this weekend?
The Mansion Fire Discovery
00:03:20
Speaker
I'm going to Nashville. Why? What's the occasion? Just a girl's trip. Oh, no other occasion?
00:03:29
Speaker
No. We can't say? Why? none of your business. Because I have a present for you. Oh, Jesus Christ. The last present turned out terribly. Remember that?
00:03:43
Speaker
Because it's your birthday. And this show comes out on your birthday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so this show comes out on Sam's birthday, and she, Dan, the heck is up with people born in this month not wanting to tell your birthday?
00:04:00
Speaker
Seriously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan's got that one. and Dan, we will get you back. Yeah, we will. Trust me. We're already plotting. You're on the board, boo-boo. We're going to get you back. So ah this is ah present for Sam. Oh, God.
00:04:14
Speaker
From someone that you absolutely adore. That's very few people. No, you adore this person. And you will smile at the end of this. Okay? Okay.
00:04:26
Speaker
So this is the label of the thing I'm going to give you. And it says, for centuries, wine and tattoos have been a part of our culture. A grapevine evolves into a beautiful and complex wine.
00:04:40
Speaker
Tattoos transform a canvas into a visual display of personal narrative. Our wine celebrates the individual and delivers an elevated experience. Suggested pairing includes sushi, your best friend's porch, and ah relaxing yacht rock record.
00:04:59
Speaker
i don't know what that is. This is Tattoo Girl Wine, and it comes from Columbia Valley. And it's gifted to you from, quote, your favorite big, black, beautiful, bald lesbian of Baltimore.
00:05:18
Speaker
Quote, your favorite big, black, beautiful, bald lesbian from Baltimore. balo yeah He said Baltimore. it's Balmer. Balmer. He's my favorite.
00:05:30
Speaker
I told you. So when I looked at this, I was like, oh, that's Sam. So there you go.
00:05:38
Speaker
Oh, that's perfect. Isn't that cool? Okay, i can I can support this. That's so cool. Yeah, that's a beautiful bottle of wine.
00:05:50
Speaker
That's beautiful. Oh, thank you, Fuller. So pair it with sushi, a nice porch, and some good music.
00:06:01
Speaker
I can do that. And enjoy. Sounds like a good summer night. ah From quote, your favorite big, black, beautiful, bald lesbian of Baltimore. Yesterday he was sitting outside and the sun was hitting his head. And think it was me and Jamie standing out in front of the triage entrance.
00:06:20
Speaker
And I looked over. I said, oh, look at that beautiful head over there. And he pops up and he goes. I loved it. He was so concerned about your well-being.
00:06:33
Speaker
Yeah. And that he he's special. He's a very nice person. He's my fave.
Hostage Situation and Tragic End
00:06:40
Speaker
Yeah. He really is. nobody nobody else like him so that's it that's what i got for you but yeah you thought you were gonna escape the birthday thing yeah well you didn't wishful thinking and to you out there who escaped it this time payback's a bitch you know who you are we're coming in for you Indeed.
00:07:01
Speaker
All right. um Because I'm done talking about my birthday. um We are drinking Olipops today. yes Mine is a tropical bro punch. And honestly, it's just the picture looks so relaxing.
00:07:12
Speaker
I thought you would like that. So here we go. Mine is a cream soda. Would you do like that one?
00:07:24
Speaker
It's pretty, pretty, pretty. you're pretty pretty thank you
00:07:32
Speaker
Cheers, Chris. Cheers, Chris. Cheers, Chris. Cheers, Chris. Cheers, Chris. Wow, that's very yellow. Wow, that's... It's like straight pineapple juice. It's good. This is good, too.
00:07:50
Speaker
A new kind of soda. Olipop! Not a sponsor. Not a sponsor. We just like it. We love it. So there you go. There you go. Mm-hmm. Okay. I have to admit, I'm a little nervous about this and I don't know why.
00:08:04
Speaker
um and think it's one, the idea that I'm going to be talking for as long as I am. And two, the fact that the story is, it's kind of formulated differently than I normally do because I'm, I had to put a lot of details into it. So there's a lot of details.
00:08:23
Speaker
So we're just gonna jump right off. okay Um, The story is horrible and pretty graphic um because it's incredibly long. As we've said, we're going to break it up so that I'm not talking for it way too many hours.
00:08:39
Speaker
So this is part one. Okay. It was May 14th, 2015. The address was Washington, woodland drive in northwestsh northwest washington d c The house was more akin to a mansion and a masterpiece with the house number in gold on the archway above the door.
00:08:59
Speaker
A lovely and peaceful neighborhood located in DC behind Embassy Row. The house was across the street from the home of the Australian ambassador and only a few blocks from the vice president's official residence.
00:09:11
Speaker
At approximately 1.30 that afternoon, the quiet upscale neighborhood was rocked. A wallpaper installer leaving a job called 911 to report a fire. He normally took the same route every day into and out of the neighborhood.
00:09:26
Speaker
But for some reason on this day, he decided to go a different way. As he drove down the road, he saw smoke pouring out of the windows across the whole upper level of 3201. That's the mansion, right? Mm-hmm. Okay.
00:09:38
Speaker
He tried to knock on the door, but nobody answered. He could hear alarms going off throughout the house and dogs barking inside. Oh, no. Firefighters from Engine Company 28 showed up within minutes.
00:09:49
Speaker
Lieutenant Hershey breached the door and entered the massive foyer full of smoke so thick he couldn't even see his hand in front of his face. The smoke was billowing down the stairs. He got upstairs and pushed open the first door he came to.
00:10:03
Speaker
The room was lit up orange. He had found the source of the fire. He got a hose and attempted to put out the flames. Additional firefighters entered the home searching the expansive premises for any survivors or bodies.
00:10:16
Speaker
I just am in awe of a firefighter every time suspect to go yeah to go into a burning building that voluntarily voluntarily they're just heroes.
00:10:29
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. Well, one of these firefighters, private Michael Ader started searching the second floor in a room across from where Lieutenant Hershey was trying to extinguish the flames.
00:10:41
Speaker
There was no fire in here, but he was looking for bodies. He performed something called a right hand search, which is a maneuver where he crouched down close to the floor, kept himself oriented by keeping his hand anchored to the wall the entire time on his right.
00:10:54
Speaker
He covered the entire perimeter of the room. He still couldn't see through any of the smoke, but he blindly swept out with his other hand. He hit something solid and realized it was likely a chair. He tried to push at it, but it didn't budge.
00:11:07
Speaker
He assumed there was something or someone in it to weigh it down. He reached up to where he expected to feel ahead and made contact with the face. He called it out over his radio.
00:11:19
Speaker
He attempted to lift the body from the chair, but he couldn't grip them. He couldn't tell if they were alive or dead. He then tried to lean the body down take it to the floor to get a different angle to maybe scoop them up a different way.
00:11:32
Speaker
But as he laid the chair back, he encountered another body on the floor. He called it out again. He pulled the first body out of the hall,
Investigation and Key Evidence
00:11:41
Speaker
handed him off to another firefighter to carry out to the medics.
00:11:45
Speaker
Still unable to see it all, he and his lieutenant entered the room again to get the other body. As Ader grabbed the body under the arms, he heard his lieutenant asking him for help.
00:11:57
Speaker
Come help me pick up this body. But he was all the way across the room. They realized they were holding two separate people. Ugh. Within 25 minutes, there were now three bodies on the lawn across from the mansion.
00:12:10
Speaker
They were all covered in blood. It didn't add up. This isn't a normal house fire. Normally there's not blood like that. So why was there so much blood? Two of the victims were pronounced dead on scene.
00:12:23
Speaker
The third was rushed to the hospital with CPR in progress. She was announced dead at the hospital shortly after arrival when they couldn't intubate her and they realized that rigor mortis had already set in. So, okay.
00:12:35
Speaker
This is very not normal. It's not normal. So they're dead. There's blood on them and they already have rigor mortis. Exactly. So we're a couple hours in. It's not like they just died of smoke inhalation or something like that with, you know,
00:12:50
Speaker
So the firefighters that went into that second bedroom and found the bodies, when they looked down at their clothes, they were also covered in blood. the firefight The firefighters. The firefighters. Okay.
00:13:02
Speaker
And, you know, they were wiping their faces, trying to get the soot off of their masks, trying to get the kind of the everything out of their eyes. And they pulled their hands away and they realized that their gloves were saturated in blood.
00:13:15
Speaker
Their boots were covered. Was that just from touching the dead
Suspect Identification and Capture
00:13:20
Speaker
bodies? They don't know.
00:13:25
Speaker
The smoke had cleared a bit as Ada re-entered the house. He went back to that bedroom where he'd found the three victims. He later recalled that all he could think was that it was a bloodbath. He called it in as a crime scene.
00:13:38
Speaker
Police arrived a few minutes later. In the original room where Lieutenant Hershey was putting out the fire, they discovered another horrific crime scene. Firefighter Corey Goetz was on backup.
00:13:51
Speaker
He crawled toward a window and he stumbled into a hole in the floor. The heat from the fire had melted through the bed and the floorboards started to give out. As he readjusted his position to get out of that dip, he fell across another body.
00:14:06
Speaker
To his horror, it was a very small body. On May 15th, police identified the bodies of the victims. 46-year-old Sava Savopoulos,
00:14:17
Speaker
his wife Amy, 47, their son, 10-year-old Phillip, and the fourth victim was their housekeeper, Verilicia Figueroa, or Vera. What was the name of the man the last name of the family?
00:14:31
Speaker
Sivopolis. Okay. Savas and Amy had gone to college together at University of Maryland. Friends tell how he pursued Amy throughout their four years there, but then she finally agreed to go on a date with him at the end of their final year.
00:14:45
Speaker
After that, it was a fairy tale. Until it wasn't. Savas took over the business from his father, a CEO of American Ironworks, Inc. The couple had three children, teenagers Abigail and Katarina, who were away at boarding school during the fire.
00:15:00
Speaker
Amy wrote letters to the girls every week with updates and chitchat about their daily life. Philip, their youngest, had been at home, obviously. He was a thoughtful and loving little boy who loved Harry Potter and Hot Wheels.
00:15:14
Speaker
He attended a private school near her home, St. Albans. He had weekly phone calls with his sisters, asking them how they were doing, if there was anything bothering them, or what was going wrong so that he could pray for them at chapel.
00:15:28
Speaker
Philip had been interested in go-kart racing. While at one of the races, Savas met another racer named Jordan Wallace, who was the instructor at the Audubon Racetrack in Maryland. The two struck up a friendship, and after some the Savokalas family got a private instructor for Philip, Savas ended up making Wallace his personal assistant.
00:15:48
Speaker
Vera, their housekeeper, was a mother of two and supported her family back in El Salvador. She was a hard worker and a beautiful soul. After moving to the United States and settling in Silver Spring, she married Bernardo Alfaro, whom she had known when they were both young back in El Salvador.
00:16:05
Speaker
Bernardo's daughter, Claudia, loved Vera like she was her own mother. Every year at Christmastime, Vera would travel home to see her adult children. She was close to retiring and planning on moving back.
00:16:18
Speaker
Nelly Gutierrez was close with Vera and worked for the Savopolis family for nearly 20 years. The day of the fire, she received a text message from Amy around 9 a.m. saying, quote, I am making sure you not you do not come today.
00:16:33
Speaker
If you could come from or Monday, that would be great. End quote. If you could come, what? They think it was a it just says from, so they think it was like an autocorrect or an error or something like that.
00:16:48
Speaker
But just things. Don't come until Monday. Just don't come today. Don't come don't come today. Suspicious.
00:16:58
Speaker
Nellie thought it was odd because she wasn't scheduled to go that day anyway, but she didn't think too much of it. She described the family the same way everybody else did. Used words like wonderful, loving, kind, caring, and down to earth.
00:17:12
Speaker
Because these people were millionaires. You know, they were very well off, but everyone that talked about them said they were totally normal. You'd never know. Down to earth people. Yeah.
00:17:23
Speaker
Nellie introduced Vera to the Savopolis family and got her the job. For many years following their deaths, Nellie felt guilty. At the time, she ran her own cleaning company, she had children of her own, and she was caring for her ailing father, so she was a busy woman.
00:17:39
Speaker
According to Nellie, she had a missed phone call from the family. The night before the fire, she had received a voicemail from Savas claiming that Vera was staying overnight to help care for Phillip because he was sick and Amy wasn't feeling well.
00:17:52
Speaker
Sava's mother, who was out of town, called Nellie the afternoon of the fire and told her about it, but she didn't seem too worried. She simply asked Nellie to check on the family because she couldn't reach him. It was at this time that Nellie listened to the voicemail, combined it with a text message from Amy, and her inability to reach Vera, she began to worry something wasn't right.
00:18:12
Speaker
She immediately left her job in McLean, Virginia, drove 30 minutes to the Woodland house, and When she got to the neighborhood, she couldn't find parking anywhere. She left her car and ran full tilt to the house.
00:18:23
Speaker
She saw fire trucks, ambulances, an FBI van, and multiple police cars. The police wouldn't let her through. a neighbor recognized her, simply shook his head, and then hugged her.
00:18:35
Speaker
While on the phone with Sava's mother, the police took her to the station and questioned her for many hours. It was during this interrogation that she found out that the family and Vera had been killed.
00:18:47
Speaker
So how did this fantastic and well-loved family who people said were truly living the American dream ended up murdered and burning in their $3.5 million dollar mansion on the sunny May afternoon in this neighborhood?
00:19:00
Speaker
So recap me again, the family included, tell me the ones that they found dead. Dad, mom, Saad and Amy, youngest son or youngest child, Philip. Okay.
00:19:11
Speaker
And then Vera, the housekeeper. Okay.
00:19:16
Speaker
It didn't make sense to anybody. Friends, family, and neighbors couldn't comprehend the evil and the depravity that occurred to end the lives of such extraordinary people. It took police a week to find a suspect and three years for the case to go to trial.
00:19:31
Speaker
Through court testimony, witnesses, cell phone records, security logs, and CCTV footage, the timeline unfolded.
00:19:41
Speaker
From this point on, the story gets a little bit convoluted because we're going to have jump forward, jump back, jump forward, jump back in the timeline because we're going to get a bunch of different people's perspectives and then a whole bunch of different cell phones and all that kind of stuff. So ah try and stick with me. And if you need clarification, let me know.
00:20:05
Speaker
So it's intricate and there's a number of viewpoints and stories. We have to cover all of the different timelines from those viewpoints to get a clear picture. And that's why three years, you know, they had to build this timeline.
00:20:20
Speaker
We'll start with the basic information that was gathered about the victims in the final hours. On Wednesday, May 13th, Sava started his day working on his passion project, as they called it. He had a martial arts dojo set to open in Chantilly, Virginia later that week, and he was slightly behind schedule.
00:20:37
Speaker
Early that morning, he exchanged lighthearted text messages with Katarina, with whom he was very close. They were chatting about her decision to ask a boy to go to the prom. He was telling her that he was proud of her and reminded her to hold the door open for him that night, since, quote, gender roles were stupid, according to Katarina.
00:20:57
Speaker
Philip was staying home from school to go to a doctor's appointment that day. Amy took him to the appointment that morning just over the Maryland line. Surveillance footage from the office shows the pair going into the building.
00:21:09
Speaker
okay Okay. By 1045, the garage ticket stub has them leaving. At approximately 1230 that afternoon, Phillip's teacher sent a text to Amy's phone saying, don't even bother bringing Phillip back to school at this point.
00:21:24
Speaker
Amy never responded to that message. Okay. Nellie, having been asked by Amy a few days earlier, also went to the dojo with her cleaning crew to help Savas with finishing touches.
00:21:37
Speaker
Vera was supposed to join them, but she changed her mind at the last minute and ended up going to the Woodland house. When Nellie attempted to call Vera that afternoon, she didn't answer. Neighbor and friend, Margaret, was in her car to pick up her daughter at 3.25 p.m.
00:21:54
Speaker
when she saw Amy walking leisurely towards her home. She said that her outfit that day stood out in her mind because it was a nice outfit and instead of her normal, usual athletic gear.
00:22:07
Speaker
Amy was in the nice outfit. She was in the normal? Okay. Yeah. And that was one of the things that Margaret had pointed out during her interviews was part of the thing that was down to earth was Amy never dolled herself up. You know, they would go and they would pick the kids up from school, which were high-end, private,
00:22:24
Speaker
schools for these kids and you you know, the moms would show up and they'd be all dolled up. And there was Amy and Margaret just in their comfy clothes, kind of slumming it, but they were friends. They kind of became fast friends because of that.
00:22:35
Speaker
So Margaret's at the school. So Margaret's going to pick her daughter up and she sees Amy walking by. She points out that she was in a khaki skirt, a cardigan or a dark jacket carrying a large brown leather bag.
00:22:48
Speaker
And nobody knows where she had been at this point. This would have left Philip at home with Vera, who normally ended her shift right around that 3.30 time period.
00:23:00
Speaker
Investigators believe that by the time Amy returned home, the intruder was already inside, and the phone lines were cut. At 3.14 p.m., the pet hotel that the Savopolis family frequently used for their two dogs was attempting to call the house to confirm a booking for Memorial Day. Okay. In the memo from the receptionist that made that call, it was documented that she couldn't reach the family and, quote, home phone was disconnected.
00:23:29
Speaker
Photos of the scene show an upright Starbucks cup and a brown leather bag upright on an antique wooden bureau inside the foyer. That's the bag she was carrying, right? Mm-hmm.
00:23:41
Speaker
So those are set down carefully. Okay. However, there's also signs that something wasn't quite right. In those same photos, just next to the foyer, you can see notebooks and children's books just scattered across the front hallway.
00:23:57
Speaker
This is why it's kind of believed that Amy was taken hostage shortly after she entered the home. She walks in, she puts her bag down, she puts her Starbucks cup down, and then you see those things.
00:24:09
Speaker
It's all disheveled. Everything is everywhere. Okay. okay
00:24:16
Speaker
At approximately 4.20 p.m., the pet resort attempted to call Amy's cell phone. This call was unanswered. However, at 4.38 p.m., Amy made a call to Savas asking him to come home.
00:24:31
Speaker
Nellie was right next to him when he took the call, and she remembers that he was joyful and making jokes about how Nellie was oh so lazy and, you know, he had to stay and make sure that she was doing her job.
00:24:43
Speaker
He agreed to come home because Amy said that she had plans with her friends and she needed Savas to go home and stay with Phillip. But she didn't act distressed or anything. and Nope. Okay.
00:24:55
Speaker
He was still very busy at the dojo at the time of the call. Nellie and her crew felt that it was weird because they knew that Amy was aware of how important this work was and that they were already behind and that he needed to get stuff done.
00:25:09
Speaker
Jordan Wallace was with Savas at the dojo and remained there after he left.
00:25:16
Speaker
It is believed that that call from Amy was forced under duress as an intent to lure him home. Oh. A few minutes after hanging up with Savas, Amy returned the call to the pet resort.
00:25:30
Speaker
The receptionist ct recalled that Amy didn't sound like herself. She sounded off and very short. Normally, she was bubbly and friendly, and she had never once failed to request add-ons and special services for the dogs, but this time she didn't.
00:25:46
Speaker
Just before 6 p.m., the house alarm system sent out three alerts. five fifty six 556, 557, and 559, there were records of the glass sensors going off, meaning that there was some sort of breaking glass in the house.
00:26:03
Speaker
At the time, the security system was relatively new and wasn't fully activated. The notifications were being logged on a computer somewhere in like suburbia Maryland, but nobody was actually physically monitoring them.
00:26:16
Speaker
On May 13th, the system was not in armed status, which wasn't unusual because the family was still getting used to having it. 30 minutes later, ah FBI tracking verified that at 6.25 p.m., Savas was still driving home.
00:26:33
Speaker
Investigators believe that Savas was caught off guard and attacked right as he walked into the home because they found traces of his blood on the kitchen door in the back of the house. In the photos of the hallway off the kitchen, you can see his red briefcase toppled over with his contents spilled out and his ring of keys is just dropped on the floor.
00:26:54
Speaker
Based on evidence, it's known that the adults were held together in Abigail's room. The women bounded the wrists and ankles with duct tape, Savas with his wrists restrained by zip ties.
00:27:08
Speaker
Philip was held in Katarina's adjoining room. The victims were held captive for nearly 24 hours. It appeared that they gave in to every demand the intruder made.
00:27:21
Speaker
Investigators speculate that they were doing everything they could just to keep Phillip safe.
00:27:27
Speaker
Who is separated. Yeah. Okay. Yep. So, Katarina's room, Abigail's room.
00:27:34
Speaker
Cell phone records play a vital role in creating the continued timeline and explaining the situation during their captivity. Just before 8 p.m., Savas called his sister, who worked for the business, handling all the money.
00:27:48
Speaker
He told her that he needed to withdraw between $35,000 and $50,000 immediately. Debbie, sister, immediately debbie his sister Knew it was a lot of money, but it wasn't an entirely odd request because he frequently went to auction auctions for the business and took amounts semi-similar to that, so she wasn't worried.
00:28:07
Speaker
She suggested that he gets a cashier's check, but he was insistent that it had to be cash, and it had to be now. She found that a little bit abnormal, but nothing else stood out as weird.
00:28:18
Speaker
She told him that she couldn't help him right then because all the banks were closed that night, so she would try again in the morning. Savas was desperate at this point. At 8.27 p.m., he called Jordan and left him a voicemail.
00:28:32
Speaker
He requested that he change his plans for the next day. Instead of meeting him at the dojo, he instructed him to go to the Hyattsville office and wait to receive a package that would be ready at about 10 a.m. Which is the cash.
00:28:44
Speaker
Hearing the voicemail after the fact is almost chilling because he sounds completely normal, upbeat, and he even makes jokes in it. And...
00:28:54
Speaker
yeah they're doing all they can They're doing all they can to seem as normal as they can. They're acting their way through this. And I think that's one of the things that really stuck with me about this story was once you hear it all and it all wraps up and you kind of know what happened, to to realize that they were reaching out to family, that they were talking to other people, and nobody picked up on it you know because they were trying not to.
00:29:23
Speaker
they were china they were trying They were acting as normal as they could. Yeah. At 8.30 p.m., Jordan texted that he had received the message and he confirmed that he would, in fact, go to Hyattsville in the morning.
00:29:35
Speaker
At 9.14 p.m., Amy called Domino's Pizza in Tenleytown. She ordered two pizzas, one cheese and one pepperoni, and a bottle of soda. She paid over the phone and added the tip.
00:29:48
Speaker
She gave explicit instructions to leave the pizza on the front porch and not ring the doorbell because she was tending to her sick son.
00:29:58
Speaker
Savas' call to Nelly occurred at 9.35 p.m. That's the voicemail she left. In the voicemail, he explained that Vera would be staying overnight because Phillip and Amy weren't feeling well.
00:30:10
Speaker
He also explained that Vera's phone had died and he didn't have a charger that fit it. He then asked Nellie to contact her family and explain the situation.
00:30:21
Speaker
In four years, working Monday through Friday, Vera had never once stayed over at the house. she's She still had very limited English and was typically nervous working alone because she was afraid she couldn't communicate well.
00:30:36
Speaker
She could have used Savas or Amy's phones to call. And Amy being sick directly contradicted what Savas had told her earlier in the day when he left the dojo so that Amy could go out with friends.
00:30:47
Speaker
So something wasn't adding up. But unfortunately, Nellie didn't hear that voicemail until the next morning. The pizza delivery man noted that the house looked and seemed almost deserted when he arrived.
00:31:00
Speaker
All the lights were off except for the porch light, but he followed instructions and left the food on the porch.
00:31:08
Speaker
When somebody went to retrieve the pizza, the security camera on the front porch was triggered by the motion of opening the door. At 10.08 p.m., Savas called the security company to ask how the system worked.
00:31:22
Speaker
He was asking about the video recording. Was it continuous? Was it triggered by something? Where is the video stored? Was it accessible to him? Could it be deleted? Does anyone else have access?
00:31:33
Speaker
He was informed that the footage was saved directly to a hard drive of a computer on the third floor inside the house. This footage was never recorded, never found, and never watched because the hard drives were missing from the home when it was searched.
00:31:50
Speaker
By sunrise on Thursday morning, shortly after 6 a.m., the family and Vera had been held hostage in their own home for 15 hours. At 619, Amy's phone was used to make more phone calls to a man named Eric Pellick, who was the VP of SCI Security, which was the Civopolis' security system.
00:32:11
Speaker
At 702, another call went to Pellick. leaving voicemails asking to confirm there was no storage no footage stored in any clouds anywhere. They also wanted to know how to access the footage on the computer in the house.
00:32:25
Speaker
Whoever was making these calls was desperate. The calls were unanswered because the company wasn't open yet. Savas was busy that morning making calls to secure the money.
00:32:36
Speaker
He called Jordan to remind him to go to the office and wait for the package. He called his sister again, asking now specifically for $40,000, and said he needed it dropped off at the house. She said she would reach out to the company's CFO, Ted Chase.
00:32:52
Speaker
Before 8 a.m., Savas called Bank of America and caught one of American Ironworks' regular bankers. He told her he needed the $40,000. She found it slightly odd that he wanted it all in cash, but nothing else seemed off.
00:33:05
Speaker
She told him she would work on it. He called the CFO and told him that he had to go and pick up the money. However, only the CEO, Savas, had access to make the withdrawal, so they had to find a way to get a letter to Savas for a signature and then sent back to Ted because Savas said he was unavailable to go himself.
00:33:26
Speaker
At 8.24 a.m., Savas returned the typed letter to Ted with his signature. At 8.30 in the morning, Nellie tried to call Vera check on her. How did he return the letter?
00:33:37
Speaker
Faxing. Oh, okay. She didn't answer.
00:33:44
Speaker
Nellie called two more times throughout the day and never got through to Vera. Elena Shepard, the Bank of America employee, called Savas shortly after 9 a.m. and told him that she found a bank that had the money.
00:33:55
Speaker
Conveniently, the branch was just down the street from the AIW Hyatt's office. Jordan Wallace arrived at the office just around that same time. Here's also the thing I'm thinking. $40,000. That's such a random, like these people are millionaires.
00:34:12
Speaker
That's so random. So shoot big if going to do this, right? But 30, you said $35,000 to $50,000. Now they're wanting $40,000.
00:34:22
Speaker
It's like. There's something specific in mind. Why $40,000? Yeah, it's something specific. Because if you know they're millionaires, which obviously you know they have money, Look at their house. Too big.
00:34:34
Speaker
Right? yeah Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. and So hold on to that thought because a lot of these things like come back into play later.
00:34:47
Speaker
So Ted Chase at the Hyattsville office approaches Jordan and says, you got to come to the bank with me. At the same time, back the house, the doorbell rang and it was a tech from the sprinkler company.
00:35:00
Speaker
The appointment had been on the books for weeks, but nobody was answering the doors. At 9-12, the Sprinkler Company got a call from Amy saying that she was canceling the appointment because she was at the hospital with her son.
00:35:13
Speaker
According to testimony from the man at the company who took the call, he recalled that Amy sounded very nervous on the phone.
00:35:22
Speaker
Back to Hyattsville, Ted and Jordan drove separately to the bank. Jordan had no idea how much money they were picking up or why. He was just doing what he was told. Ted was nervous because he thought that that was a lot of money to be carrying around in cash, so he wanted Jordan there as a witness.
00:35:39
Speaker
Security footage shows the pair in the bank as they waited for the teller. It took 12 minutes to complete the transaction. Bernardo Alfaro, Vera's husband, and his daughter showed up at the Woodland Drive house shortly after the sprinkler tech left.
00:35:55
Speaker
Because he worked nights, he didn't realize that Vera wasn't home until the next morning when he arrived to an empty house and he couldn't reach her on her on her cell phone. Claudio, Bernardo's daughter, waited in the car parked out on the street.
00:36:11
Speaker
In front of her, she saw a fancy car. She thought her husband would appreciate it, so she snapped a picture and sent it to him at 9.34 in the morning. It was a blue convertible Porsche 911.
00:36:24
Speaker
Bernardo later recalled that nobody was answering, but he felt like there was someone in the house. He said he heard small sounds like furniture moving, like a chair being dragged across the floor. After many minutes, he goes back to the car and he tells his daughter that he's agitated and worried.
00:36:40
Speaker
And then, just as he's starting to go back to the house to start banging on the door, he gets a call from Savas apologizing and saying that Vera had accompanied Amy to the hospital. He didn't tell them what hospital they went to, and when Bernardo tried to call back, Savas didn't answer.
00:36:55
Speaker
So again, Bernardo knows that his wife doesn't speak English very well. He doesn't know where his wife is. Savas is telling him that his wife, who doesn't speak English well, is now at a hospital in what capacity?
00:37:07
Speaker
he doesn't He doesn't explain anything more than that. Records show that on Savas' phone, he had misdialed Bernardo's number three times before he actually got it right and the call connected.
00:37:23
Speaker
Back in Hyattsville, Ted hands the money to Jordan, who puts it in a black backpack. They part ways. Stavis calls Jordan at 9.51 a.m., tells him to call when he's 10 minutes away for more instruction.
00:37:36
Speaker
In kind of a weird moment, Jordan had more money in his backpack than he had ever seen in cash. So he takes a photo of the cash, sends it to his girlfriend, and then deletes the picture after saying, my boss and my job are so cool.
00:37:54
Speaker
Okay. Nothing is ever deleted. Ever. Right? Ever. It's always there. It's always there. it's always there. Yeah. It's always there. Yeah. So he took the picture, sent it to his girlfriend, and kind of like a, look what I got going on. Kind of braggy. Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:10
Speaker
I mean, think about it. He had worked as ah an instructor at like a racetrack, and now he's working for this millionaire. He's got $40,000 in a bag. Right? Please. Right. And I mean, he's young. He's like early twenty s right? Yeah.
00:38:23
Speaker
So Nelly receives that weird text from Amy at 9.56 AM. m So all of this is kind of overlapping. What did the weird text from Amy say? It said, just making sure you're not coming today. If you could come from or Monday, that be great. that's right.
00:38:36
Speaker
So there's like the typo. And you know it's not a normal text to get because she wasn't going to be there anyway. Savas receives a text from Katarina talking about prom and the after party.
00:38:49
Speaker
She never received a response. At 10.15 a.m., Jordan called with his 10-minute warning. Sava said he was on an important meeting and couldn't be disturbed, so he tells Jordan not to knock or ring the doorbell.
00:39:02
Speaker
He tells him to leave the package on the driver's seat of the flashy red Mosler sports car that's in the garage and then go on to the dojo.
00:39:13
Speaker
I mean, they're just forced to be – they're being so cautious. and What other options do they have, right? right Yeah. So leave the cash in the car.
00:39:26
Speaker
In the garage. Okay. okay don't don't I don't want to interact with you at all. Don't interact with anyone here. don't ring the but Don't tell anyone you're here. Just drop and go. So Jordan parks on the street across from the driveway and noted that the right side of the two-car garage was already open.
00:39:43
Speaker
He switched the cash into a manila envelope trying to look more official. He didn't notice anything off and he never heard it anything. At 1026, he texts Savas, tells him that the package was delivered.
00:39:54
Speaker
As he drove away, the texting dots that show up on like an Apple iMessage or whatever popped up, but then they disappeared.
00:40:05
Speaker
Around the same time, Nellie sends her reply to Amy that just says, okay, I won't be there. Okay. There are no more phone calls or text messages sent from anyone inside the house that day.
00:40:16
Speaker
There's no way to know what happened over the next few hours, but this is likely when they were killed. At 1154, Savas' phone pinged off a tower in DuPont Circle, which is a 10-minute drive away from the house.
00:40:32
Speaker
Okay. okay so Okay, so 1026 is the last anyone's heard from him. At 1154, his phone pops up 10 minutes outside of the house.
00:40:43
Speaker
Savas' phone. Mm-hmm. The violence and anger were obvious in what the victims endured in their last few hours on Earth. The perpetrator was cruel and chaotic.
00:40:57
Speaker
This is where things get really graphic. So if you've listened to this point, maybe fast forward a little bit. um There were signs of torture.
00:41:08
Speaker
The victims were suffocated repeatedly with plastic bags, strangled, and beaten violently. They did not die quickly or easily. They were beaten with baseball bats and repeatedly stabbed until they either bled to death or had died some other cause.
00:41:24
Speaker
They were killed one by one, and so the others that were still alive listened as their loved ones were killed. The rooms were doused in gasoline and set on fire, so the investigation unfolded.
00:41:39
Speaker
This seems like... Something is... Something. It's personal or something. Like, they're... who i don't know Just to me. And i may I don't know. I'm just shooting in the dark here. This seems like whoever's doing this is out for revenge.
00:41:53
Speaker
And they want each person to know what's happening to the other. It's very personal. It seems like to me. I'm just... No, I mean, it does. It's not...
00:42:05
Speaker
It's not a ah smash and grab. It's not a, oh, I'm breaking and entering, and then I just happen to have this rich family, and I'm going to ask for, like. this is, somebody knows them because the day before they go into the house, they they're with them. They're making them call people. They're making them seem normal on the phone.
00:42:24
Speaker
Then they're violently attacking one while the other listens and, like, violently attacking Brutally, yeah. Okay. And it's not it's not just, yeah. Like I said, they didn't die quickly. They didn't die easily.
00:42:37
Speaker
So in the living room, investigators found a baseball bat, a black one that was laying on the edge of a beige couch on the first floor. It's unclear what happened or why it's there, but Nellie always recalled that Vera was extremely protective of the kids, especially Phillip.
00:42:54
Speaker
The mud room with Phillip's sports equipment was located between the foyer and the kitchen. The bat on the couch had no blood or DNA from anyone except for Vera's DNA on the handle, as if she had been holding it, possibly trying to fight back or protect Philip when she realized there was someone in the house.
00:43:18
Speaker
And remember, Vera had such limited English, she was stuck and terrified in this home while 22 hours passed of ah assault and torture and she had no idea what was going on. She couldn't understand the phone calls that were going out.
00:43:38
Speaker
She didn't know what was happening. Bedroom one was the room the adults were held in. There was no evidence of fire in there, but there were smoke stains and charring that told enough of a story.
00:43:50
Speaker
The furniture was in complete disarray. There were pools of blood that were in multiple locations. There were chairs that were smeared and covered in blood, then overturned and had duct tape residue on them.
00:44:05
Speaker
Under one of the chairs was a bloody plastic bag, and there was a wooden Louisville Slugger baseball bat laid across the end of the bed and stained with blood.
00:44:17
Speaker
In bedroom two, where Philip was found, the walls were like charcoal and the floor was covered in soot. The bed, where Philip's remains were, was reduced to a web of burnt springs.
00:44:30
Speaker
It was later determined that this was the ignition point of the fire. It burned so hot that it caused a flashover and everything burned simultaneously.
00:44:42
Speaker
The autopsies revealed true horror. The medical examiner was unable to pinpoint a time of death because of the fire. All of the adults had extensive burns simply from the proximity to the heat and then wounds on their wrists where they had been bound, likely caused by attempts to struggle against their restraints.
00:45:03
Speaker
The full autopsy reports are extensive, so i pulled out just the, I don't want to say highlights, but key points of it. Vera, she was covered in bruising head to toe.
00:45:16
Speaker
She had multiple head injuries. She showed signs of repeated asphyxiation She had a deep stab wound to the back of the neck that was so deep that it had severed her spinal cord.
00:45:27
Speaker
Likely considered the cause of death. Savas. He had significant head injuries as well. Three skull fractures, extensive facial trauma,
00:45:40
Speaker
evidence of repeated asphyxiation, diffuse intracranial bleeding, five stab wounds to his back, one of which went completely through his body and exited his throat.
00:45:52
Speaker
Again, likely the fatal wound. Amy had severe head trauma with skull fractures and a gaping wound to the back of her head. She had eight stab wounds, three to the neck, one that hit the carotid artery and jugular vein.
00:46:07
Speaker
the medical examiner was unable to determine the fatal injury.
00:46:14
Speaker
Philip, the 10-year-old boy, he had two through-and-through stab wounds to his lower extremities from what was later found to be an authentic Japanese katana and such extensive burns that the medical examiner was unable to determine if he bled out before the fire was set on top of him.
00:46:38
Speaker
According to reports, they do believe he was alive oh my when the fire was started. and The Katana was found in Phillip's attached bathroom. Rather, i guess it was Katarina's room, but in the bathroom attached to the room that he was in, leaning up against the like the bathtub wall.
00:46:56
Speaker
After it was used. That's where it was found. Okay. Yeah. And it was the families. like he didn't That's what I was thinking. it probably was the families. Yeah.
00:47:06
Speaker
The full investigation ended with countless, countless boxes and buckets of evidence that were sent to the lab for testing. They dusted every possible surface for fingerprints. And again, this is a mansion, okay?
00:47:21
Speaker
They collected hairs from everywhere and compared each sample to that of the victims. Emily Head, an ATF forensic biologist, arrived on May 16th. She became the lead DNA analyst on the case because the DC lab had just lost their accreditation.
00:47:39
Speaker
She was called to the scene emergently because they needed her to swab evidence and test it quickly. She set up a temporary lab in the library. In bedroom one, the adults room, two Domino's boxes were stacked.
00:47:56
Speaker
There was blood spatter across the boxes. One box contained an untouched cheese pizza. One had a pepperoni pizza with several pieces missing. In that box, there was a partially eaten slice with an obvious crescent-shaped bite taken out.
00:48:13
Speaker
At the time of this crime, DC had a policy that they didn't collect perishable items as evidence, but Emily Head was ATF. So, DC is talking about throwing it out, why would we keep it?
00:48:24
Speaker
Emily decides to save it. like Why not save it? What's it going to do? It's not going hurt anything. Right? Yep. So she tests the bitten end and the crust where the person would have touched it when holding it.
00:48:37
Speaker
It came back with a match. See? Go Emily. On the 14th, the day of the fire, while firefighters were still on scene at Woodland Drive, they reported that a blue convertible 2008 Porsche 911 with DC tags had gone missing from the home.
00:48:55
Speaker
That same car had been photographed by Claudia and shown to her husband at 9.34 in the morning that same day. It was found later in the day, about 45 minutes away from the house.
00:49:06
Speaker
The car belonged to Amy, was occasionally driven by Savas. The car had been set on fire in the back of a church parking lot in Prince George's County. Because of how hot the fire was, the firefighters believed the car had been doused in gasoline.
00:49:23
Speaker
After they put it out, they noted a yellowish-green construction vest crumpled on the floorboard. Initially, they didn't think it was weird because Savas was the CEO of American Ironworks, right? So he had to visit construction sites all the time.
00:49:35
Speaker
He had extra vests in all of his vehicles. However, when they tested the vest, Savas' was not on it. They found DNA belonging to a man named Darren Wint.
00:49:48
Speaker
The church lot where the car was found was less than two miles from where Darren Wint's family home in Lanham was, where he was living at the time.
00:49:59
Speaker
12 years before the fire, Darren Wint, 34 years old at the time of the murders, had worked as a welder for American Iron Works. He had been fired for missing work.
00:50:10
Speaker
Two separate times in the years after his termination, he had reapplied and been rejected. At the time of the murders, his life was a mess and spiraling out of control.
00:50:21
Speaker
He hadn't held a job in years. His green card had expired. His living situation was not ideal. He spent money that he didn't have. The crimes were considered far too brutal and personal to be just related to money or greed.
00:50:36
Speaker
So you said that he worked for American Iron Works. The company that's office was CEO. Okay. Okay. And they fired him a couple of times. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. um So, you know, the other aspect that they brought into this is if this was just about robbery or money or, like, getting something, right?
00:50:56
Speaker
Again, this is a mansion in D.C. So there's um artwork. There's jewelry. There's a an unlocked filing cabinet found with $13,000 cash in it, untouched in the house.
00:51:11
Speaker
Also, the 10-year-old was... Burned alive. alive yeah This is not about money. That's payback in somebody's eyes.
00:51:22
Speaker
Yeah. Shortly after noon on May 14th, two employees who worked at the residence of the Australian ambassador across the street reported seeing a man matching Wint's description entering the Savopolis' house.
00:51:38
Speaker
He approached the garage carrying a drawspprint drawstring backpack and then slipped inside. At 1.07, the sound of breaking glass alarms sounded in an upstairs room, then again in the upstairs hallway, then the carbon monoxide detectors start going off, followed by more glass breaking alarms in the living room.
00:51:59
Speaker
Smoke detectors start blaring. Within minutes, neighbors started texting Savas and Amy. At the same time, Donald Spence, the wallpaper installer, saw the smoke, jumped out of his truck at a run, and called 911 at 1.24 p.m.
00:52:15
Speaker
As the days progressed, while the investigators were working tirelessly on the crime scene, some officers went to Wint's last known address. So we're about a week after the fires at this point. You know, we're a few days after they found the bodies.
00:52:30
Speaker
By that time, he was hundreds of miles away. Darren's parents allowed the police to search the home. They spoke with his father and stepmother about his routine. They explained that he was typically up before the sun, would go trolling for work for a few hours, get home by 10, and then spend most of his day online or on his cell talking to his long-distance girlfriend in New York.
00:52:53
Speaker
And he's how old at this time? 34. Okay. Sometimes he would go to the gym for hours, and it showed. He had numerous Facebook selfies that showed a very, very fit individual.
00:53:06
Speaker
Unfortunately, because he had no money, He had an old cell phone that didn't use a cellular data plan, so he only used it when he was connected to Wi-Fi, and it couldn't be tracked or pinged, which was fine because he typically was at home on it or something like that, right?
00:53:22
Speaker
On Wednesday, May 13th, Darren Wint was nowhere to be found, and his old blue minivan was gone. He didn't come home all day, and he never returned that night. At 1.41pm, his girlfriend texted him, worried because he wasn't responding.
00:53:38
Speaker
Later that night, she still hadn't heard from him. She reached out again May 14th at 7.43am, checking in. He never responded. He didn't respond to any messages for almost two full days, and his normally overactive Facebook account went silent.
00:53:59
Speaker
At 11.47. I will say this. what i i hate Facebook. Hate it. Why? And what I noticed about Facebook is every issue ah person has in their mind is displayed on Facebook.
00:54:15
Speaker
You know what I mean? yeah So it tells you everything you need to know about somebody. Or, i mean,
00:54:25
Speaker
in this it's telling because... disappeared yeah yeah right like and and they i mean they talk about the the obviously they looked into historically his text message use his facebook message use his facebook like posts or whatever it's called um and i think they calculated that like Typically, he would send at least 200 to 300 text messages a day.
00:54:53
Speaker
and on Facebook, he would be active consistently from like 11 a.m. m on. And he was just silent.
00:55:04
Speaker
At 1147 on May 14th, an hour after Jordan dropped off the money, Darren typed 24 and K into a blank Facebook Messenger chat on his phone.
00:55:17
Speaker
24, right? 24 and K.
00:55:22
Speaker
It wasn't entered in your GPS as though he was searching for directions. It was like a note or a reminder. Ten minutes later at 1154, Savas' phone pinged off a tower in DuPont, a location about halfway between 24th and K and the Woodland House.
00:55:43
Speaker
These timestamps line up with the drive time required to travel from the Woodland house to the 24th and K location and then back to the house when someone matching Wynn's description was spotted by the Australian ambassador's staff.
00:56:00
Speaker
At 1.45 p.m., Amy's Porsche was spotted on camera heading out of D.C. and into PG County. Later that day, the cameras also picked up a tow truck driving from PG County back into D.C.
00:56:16
Speaker
They found the tow truck driver, and they asked Douglas Ventura, and he remembered picking somebody up on that section of Annapolis Road near the abandoned Porsche in that church parking lot, but couldn't recall details.
00:56:30
Speaker
However, his passenger used his cell phone during the drive. He made a number of calls and sent a number of text messages. A call was placed to Darren Wynn's father, his stepmother, his younger brother Darrell, and his sister.
00:56:46
Speaker
His text to Darrell said, quote, It's Farron, period. Call me now, period. Need to talk, end quote. On the stand, Ventura reported that Darren gave him directions to 24th and K, where the old moot blue minivan was.
00:57:07
Speaker
He asked the tow truck driver to take that back to the PG County lot. This lot was familiar to Darren because not only was it near his home, the walkway through the thick brush behind the lot leads to an apartment complex where he had previously lived with his sister and her boyfriend, Godfrey.
00:57:26
Speaker
30 minutes after Amy's Porsche was found at 6 p.m., Darren's activity picks back up and returns to normal on Facebook and his phone. He begins sending streams of messages.
00:57:37
Speaker
Later that evening, he sends a picture message to his girlfriend. It was of two white iPhones that were identical to Savas and Amy's missing white iPhones.
00:57:50
Speaker
He asked her if he thought that they could be traced, and At some point later, he deleted the photo. His sudden disappearance and then reappearance was considered circumstantial at best, and his attorneys attempted to have it suppressed from the trial, claiming that it wasn't relevant.
00:58:06
Speaker
The judge disagreed. Well, I mean, how could that be irrelevant if you disappear for the same amount of time this exact same amount of time? Yeah, come on. yeah Right?
00:58:18
Speaker
So the judge disagrees and he's like, nah, pound sand. This is all admitted into the court. Okay? So more damning evidence came in the form of pages and pages.
00:58:29
Speaker
Something like a thousand pages of Darren's search history. Okay? Shortly before 7pm on May 14th, he searched for how to master reset an iPhone 6, the same type as the Savopolis is, and if they have memory cards.
00:58:48
Speaker
the term or the The phrase, how to beat a lie detector, was searched at 8.08 p.m. He began looking up news stories specifically about the fire and murders.
00:59:01
Speaker
At 12.33 a.m., m he searched, quote, tonight, news fire on Woodland Avenue, end quote, and, quote, channel 9, news last night house fire, end quote.
00:59:16
Speaker
And then, quote, video of four people died in house fire tonight, end quote. One minute later, he searched, quote, Channel 9 News, savage vocalist die, end quote.
00:59:36
Speaker
They think that this is likely an autocorrect. At the time of the searches that Darren was performing, the names had not been released to the media.
00:59:48
Speaker
So if, quote, Savage Vocalist was an autocorrect when he attempted to write Savopolis, how did he know the names? yeah At 9.14 a.m. the next day, he obsessedly obsessively searched for more news.
01:00:05
Speaker
On May 15th, he exchanged messages with Godfrey, his sister's boyfriend. Later that night, they went to work out. While there, Darren pulled out a wad of cash and showed it off.
01:00:17
Speaker
After parting ways at approximately 11 p.m., he then told Godfrey that he needed a favor but couldn't talk about it over the phone. Godfrey insisted that ah that he just spit it out.
01:00:28
Speaker
Darren caves and tells him that he needs help setting his van on fire. He claims that it was because he had sideswiped a car and thought the police were looking for it because he left the scene.
01:00:41
Speaker
Godfrey flat out refused. The van was not out front of their home when Darren's father and stepmother woke the next morning. Darren said he wasn't worried and didn't intend to call the police.
01:00:54
Speaker
They didn't know that the night before, it had been found near an industrial park engulfed in flames and was now at an impound lot. Two days after the killings, Darren used some money he now suddenly had in excess When he disappeared from Facebook, just saying.
01:01:13
Speaker
To pay for an expensive lawyer to get his immigration paperwork back on track. Okay. In order to complete this process, he had to agree to fingerprinting. So he did.
01:01:25
Speaker
Three days after the Savopolis murders, Wint hops on a bus and heads to New York. When he got to New York, he continued spending money. He bought gifts for his girlfriend and he paid for her rent for a few months.
01:01:39
Speaker
On May 18th, Darren began searching the DC news stations for updates on the mansion murders. He then searched, quote, 10 hideout cities for fugitives, end quote, and five countries with no U.S. extradition treaty and first 48 DC.
01:02:01
Speaker
On May 20th, in the apartment in Brooklyn, Darren Wendt was lying next to his fiancee, Vanessa, The evening news came on. It described an event from six days earlier that was becoming national news.
01:02:14
Speaker
he hadn't His name hadn't been released to the public. Vanessa knew him as Dylan, which was his middle name, and she understood that he was going through a rough time with work and family. Two days after his searches of all of those sketchy things,
01:02:32
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A major break in the case of the D.C. mansion murders resulted in Darren's face popping up on the screen as the couple laid in bed and watched. Vanessa was mortified, but Darren convinced her to run away with him.
01:02:49
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They left the apartment and got to a hotel minutes before and NYPD officers swarmed her apartment. Vanessa.
01:03:00
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Come on, girl. Right. Come on, girl. Right. Come on. So the next morning, he's a little flustered. She's a little flustered. So he tells Vanessa that he's going to go. He's to turn himself in.
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So he takes the taxi back to D.C.
01:03:15
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That's where we're going end for right now. everything that follows is more of a whirlwind and it's about the trial and how everything unfolds from there.
01:03:29
Speaker
So, okay. Questions I have like, why that day? Like out of, you know, it was years before that he was fired a couple of times, like 12 years before.
01:03:43
Speaker
so why that day? I don't know. The reason for the money, the 40,000 bucks for the money. What did it, what was $40,000 that he was looking for? Right? Like, cause when people hear an exact amount like that, cause you know, you can say like, give me half a million dollars. Right.
01:04:00
Speaker
That's not a very specific amount. You know, you're not, you don't have something in your mind that you're picking, but right? They're rich. That's a reasonable number. Yeah. 40,000. What costs $40,000 that he was trying to get? immigration thing.
01:04:13
Speaker
That's what he, the lawyers for the immigration thing. But then like, okay, but it was 12 years before when he was fired from that company.
01:04:24
Speaker
But he had applied two more times. And they didn't hire him. But that day and all that rage. that's another thing I'm wondering like that's a lot of you burned the baby I mean killed the baby burned him alive and and and you the the stabbing of the people yeah rage so that the other one would know what was happening to their loved one and it was said that he took that plastic bag and would suffocate them release it suffocate them so there you can hear the people around you like trying to get that bag off their head and struggling but they don't their hands are duct taped their legs but their chairs were upside down their chairs were turned over they fought they were struggling they fought like why what's the fucking purpose of it man just to be a horrible monster just to be a monster yeah and don't know maybe we'll find out next week oh that was good
01:05:25
Speaker
Good job.
01:05:29
Speaker
The shit that goes on in this trial. And that's why when you asked me if I left it on a cliffhanger or something, right? You know, there was part of me that wanted to leave it at like, Oh, don't reveal Darren Wint yet. Right.
01:05:43
Speaker
But there's so much more to the story because of what happens in the trial. The trial lasted like a couple months. Okay. And, um, and
01:05:55
Speaker
It's mind boggling. Where did you hear this story from? ah So this story came about ah one of the times that i was driving home from my contract in Boston, driving down late night, roads are dark and I'm going from Boston back home to Virginia and I'm listening to murder podcasts whatnot. And this one popped up. It's WTOP's American Nightmare.
01:06:24
Speaker
And it stuck with me. I mean, all these years later, because that was. 2015. That was years ago. i think it was 2018 when the podcast came out. 2019 maybe. I don't know. But it was years ago that I heard it. And I hadn't, I had thought about it before and talked about it with other people because of
01:06:49
Speaker
they're like There were five things that put this guy there. And the big thing that really struck the news was the pizza crust, right? So they called it the pizza crust killer.
01:07:01
Speaker
And it was the first time that DC had ever used perishable, like a food item to get DNA. you know Just makes common sense to me. Well, it's wild. i mean, but if you think about it,
01:07:18
Speaker
We know that DNA has progressed, right? So people could potentially be like but it's a perishable item. Like what if the the item itself has something in it? Like there's bacteria on it. There's all this stuff that maybe is degrading the sample.
01:07:36
Speaker
But still it gave them Darren's DNA. It did. Think about all the ones that they didn't use perishable. So many. And the only reason they did was because ATF came in. And the only reason ATF came in was because the DC lab had just lost their accreditation.
01:07:50
Speaker
So like all of these things. Oh, yeah. good job. So the cliffhanger is that he is now in the cab on the way back to d c to turn himself in.
01:08:02
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And next week we'll find out how it unfolds. I can't wait. Well, that was good. That was a different kind of It was weird, right? I liked it. I enjoyed it. I was like taking notes. know. I was seeing that. well It's good. I mean, like I said, it's a very convoluted.
01:08:17
Speaker
Yeah. And there is so much back and forth because... it' Have you ever seen that movie Vantage Point? Vantage? Yeah. Where like they show the assassination attempt from or the bomb that goes off from all these different peoples.
01:08:33
Speaker
That's kind of what this story developed into. yeah I'm just so interested in why he tortured the family. Yeah.
01:08:45
Speaker
That's crazy. That's horrible. Yeah.
01:08:49
Speaker
You know, the other question I have is like, at first I was thinking, what's the man's name? de Darren. Just like a bad egg, you know, couldn't hold down a job.
01:09:02
Speaker
Didn't work for years, right? Like, he's not really a mastermind of a crime in my mind, of a criminal in my mind, right? Yeah, it doesn't really strike you that way. But the the thing that's striking about this is they were doing everything he said.
01:09:19
Speaker
And they were doing it while pretending like nothing was happening. They were that afraid of Darren. Yeah. Well, and so there's like a few things that I think that we as crime junkies are, are tend to think is that, you know, you like you watch an episode of Criminal Minds, right? And they describe like the disorganized killers and the and the rage killings and all those different types of things that seem almost spontaneous, right?
01:09:55
Speaker
um And a lot of this seems like that. But then there's some aspects of it that seem well thought out no i i think it's the opposite i think most of it to me seems very well thought out like this man in my mind i don't know obviously you're going to tell me the rest of it next week but in my mind this man knew exactly what he wanted to do he had goals that he wanted to accomplish he knew that it was going to be this family that he viciously murdered again in a very vengeful way
01:10:33
Speaker
To get what he wanted. And he made them do it exactly like like he made them call people and get the money and drop the money off and leave the pizza outside. All of that stuff he made them do with without any hesitation, it seems like.
01:10:49
Speaker
Yeah. He covered all of those bases, you know? Over $40,000. I keep coming back to that because... Just $40,000. I mean, to me and you, a bag of $40,000 is way more than it is to a millionaire. Exactly.
01:11:05
Speaker
And he knows they're millionaires because he's worked for the company that they own. And he sees their house and he like, there's definitely some, there's definitely some weird about all of these little details.
01:11:21
Speaker
Where did it come from? You know, He was fired 12 years earlier. Yes, he had applied ah couple of the times, right? You you had pointed that out. And it just seems random, but also very calculated. Yeah.
01:11:34
Speaker
it's It's very contradictory. And then, you know, he calls his friend Godfrey to ask him to help him burn his van, but he's already burned a Porsche and he's already burned a house. So, like, why did he need to get Godfrey involved? Why? Like, some of these some of these things are And it, again...
01:11:56
Speaker
Yes, this the murders and the fire were striking, and that grabbed the attention of the public, right? But then the the idea of the pizza crust DNA...
01:12:07
Speaker
that grabbed the attention even more. But then what happened three years later during the trial, which is what we're going to cover next week, is what really shocked a bunch of people and confused people and then clarified it all as well. You know, there was just a lot to it. There was so much that went into getting us to where we will be at the end of next week's episode.
01:12:36
Speaker
And the questions, some of them aren't answered. Okay. Some of them are, some of them aren't. And I think that's, it leaves a little bit of an uneasy feeling. you know, we've talked about people being wrongfully accused in the past.
01:12:50
Speaker
There is no doubt in my mind that this guy was. No, I mean, every everything adds up to him. Exactly. And so. just like, Is it because of the immigration attorneys?
01:13:03
Speaker
Like, that's $40,000 maybe. $40,000, right? Yeah. And then, you know, don't know. I mean, he's spending money. I don't know. He paid rent for his girlfriend in a New York apartment. Like, there's things that are weird. Yeah.
01:13:19
Speaker
But.
01:13:22
Speaker
Not everybody a criminal mastermind, you know? Some people are just rageful fucking psychos. Some people are petty. Some people are just angry, you know? So there's a lot that develops. It just doesn't seem petty.
01:13:43
Speaker
It seems so... vindictive and petty is not the word i think of depraved depraved yeah yeah okay interesting i got more questions but yeah we've gone on long enough and now want to hear part two okay but that is not until next week next thursday next thursday okay we a whole trip between now and then you're going to new york and i'm going to nashville Good job. Thanks. See you next week. It was a different kind of different for kind of show for you, but Alan, you're our overqualified, underpaid master publisher extraordinaire.
01:14:22
Speaker
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Speaker
Together, our first and forever fans. Bye, everybody.