I don't see why. I don't mean he would have been rescued successfully but that it would have been received as a message for help. He had several phone conversations with people who knew him. Can't we all think of ways we could secretly send a clear message? Plus I don't that he needed to come up with excuses about Amy being sick, which was believable. I don't see anything that in retrospect is a clear signal. He though police intervention would put his family under increased risk.
Yes. I would think DW gives the impression that he's capable of anything . He was probably proving that fact to SS as he made the calls.
It is possible that they were threatened with instant immolation the whole time.
SS's only hope was that they would get the money and go. He worked hard to make that happen and not to ruffle the perp/s.
I believe he also hoped for the slightest chance he could get any physical advantage over DW. He could not gamble with his son's life though, even in the hope of saving him.
I wonder if, at the end, he managed to escape his restraints and go for it. I do think he put up a fight and this explains the seeming "overkill."
Had DW (or whomever in charge) intended to kill all of them all along, no matter what happened? Police, no police. 40 K or a million?
If so, does this intention show a "hit" with money as a secondary gain? Or was the killing so as to leave no witnesses? Or was the killing unplanned and the result of a sudden fit of rage?
I had a professor who said there are those who rob the clerk at the till, get what they want and leave, and those who get what they want and then shoot the clerk in the face before fleeing. What does that say about the two types of perpetrators?
The fact that despite getting the money, the Savopoulos's and Veralicia Figeroa were murdered doesn't argue that a hit had been ordered. It can only tell us for sure what we already know about DW: killing was rewarding to him. The bloodier, the better.