DC - Savvas Savopoulos, family & Veralicia Figueroa murdered; Daron Wint Arrested #18

[blessedlife]

Her tweets in order

Megan Cloherty ‏@ClohertyWTOP 54m54 minutes agoWashington, DC
Wints defense trying to raise suspicion about Savopoulos' assistant Jordan Wallace, who detectives say delivered $40k to home day of murders


Megan Cloherty ‏@ClohertyWTOP 53m53 minutes agoWashington, DC
Defense: Wallace texted a friend a picture of what looks like half the money 45mins before bank surveillance shows he got it


Megan Cloherty ‏@ClohertyWTOP 48m48 minutes agoWashington, DC
Lead Det. Jeff Owens testifies search found registration for Savopoulos' expensive race car in Wallace's backpack

Hold up......so JW took a photo of the money and sent it to his girlfriend "45 minutes before" bank surveillance shows him picking it up?????? How is that?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[FelicityLemon]

So SW may mean "bookbag" when they say "backpack"?

I remember grade school kids referred to them as bookbags even though we knew they were backpacks. I never understood that, but there it was. Maybe the person who wrote the SW has kidlets.

 

[katydid23]

I

So what car was he driving that day...if his car was parked near the house before the fire was discovered?

I don't think it means he eas parked before the fire was discovered. It means he was parked there before the tape went up. We had a WS local member that told us that he lives in the neighborhood and people were able to park while the fire was being fought.

I think JW got a call about the fire, by peeps looking for SS. And he immediately drove over there. I bet there were others he knew there too. He must have had a good alibi for what he was doing during this time frame or he would be in jail, imo.

 

[facundo]

Wait! So he's called in Virginia after the fire has already been reported to the fire department. He speeds over to the S house, texting AS and presumably SS on his way. When he arrives, police haven't yet put up crime scene tape? He was parked a block from the house, but still inside the tape? When does LE put up the tape? Wouldn't the tape have been put up before the fire department even left? They were still fighting the fire after they found the bodies. I would have thought they did that immediately, before JW could have gotten there. I guess I'm thinking if JW parked his car at the house after the firefighters arrived, he would have had to park far enough away that his car would not have been enclosed in the tape. It would help if we knew what time JW spoke to LE about his car inside the tape, what time the crime scene was cordoned off and the perimeter of the "crime scene as determined by LE and enclosed with tape.

It's possible that JW arrived at the scene before the tape was strung. Firefighters discovered the bodies while still battling the blaze and suspected foul play. They called LE but did not move bodies immediately. Vera was removed first by paramics and driven to GTown Hospital. Police then are examining the scene and declare the house a crime scene. Although people are all moving swiftly, this could have taken 25 minutes or more. Crime scene tape would then be put up but at what perimeter? The house and street? Maybe they need to expand it a little wider as more police get involved. By the time they expand it to a full block, JW could have arrived. I'm not speculating any of this, merely adding a few possibilities. We may not know the answers to these questions until the full trial.

 

[James Bond]

bbm because I agree!

It is so rare, but it did happen this year in Jessica Chambers' murder. One person (Ali) was getting death threats because of his ethnicity that were being taken seriously by LE and they very publicly and unequivocally cleared him; he had to leave the area. The flip side is that JC's dad has not been cleared publicly. But, the sheriff did write a letter in support of him to the insurance company so he could collect on his daughter's life insurance. I guess private vs public knowledge. Interesting.

The ultimate example of being left to twist in the wind: Richard Jewell.

I apologize to those who have gone through this as well and although there must be so many more, this one sticks with me.

Thanks for bringing up Richard Jewell. What happened to him was terrible, but he did not sit on the sidelines and take it. Rather, he sought the assistance of an aggressive lawyer and went public with a denial of any involvement in the bombing which killed numerous people. I only had to listen to him and his attorney one time to begin believing his side of the story which turned out to be true. This might be a good approach for JW to follow.

 

[oceanblueeyes]

I guess this is the first case some people have followed

I am sure we do have newbies, and if so, they picked a very good case to start with.

I am thinking also that may be some who have never followed a preliminary hearing until now.

PH are just the bare bones because the burden is much lower when achieving probable cause to send it to trial over proving the case at trial BARD. And most DAs hold back their best evidence until trial where it counts. Here it would just be something added that wasn't necessary to achieve the DAs goal anyway.

There is no need for the DA to thoroughly explain or expound on evidence entered. The more questions left unanswered ......the better. I have even seen some lead detectives say' "I" don't know' but knowing all along that someone in his/her department does know the answer. There are always ways to get around answering the question and LE are taught very well how to do that.

Now I have seen some PHs that were more like mini-trials and a lot of evidence was entered. I remember in the Scott Dyleski case in CA when he murdered Pam Vitale the PH was three weeks long. I think in that case the DA did want the public to know they had a lot of evidence against SD. The internet was at full chatter at that time suspecting Attorney Dan Horowitz, her husband. But its always the DAs call on how much they want to release.

And more and more because so many DTs complain/wail/moan and accuse the DA of trying to taint the potential jury pool against their clients the DAs are putting in less and less nowadays. Bare bones PHs also has stopped a lot of change of venues from happening.

Its obvious today the defense was on a fishing expedition and really didn't have much bait. The very idea that Wint may have been shortchanged from getting all of his blood money is actually bolstering the position that he is very much guilty of these four murders. This isn't a fraud or theft case. This is a horrific quadruple murder case. Even if they can convince the jury that he was scammed how in the heck does that save or help him? It doesn't. I highly doubt they would care if a mass murderer was scammed. So the DT needs to think long and hard before going down that slippery slope.

Whether he got all of the money or not is really irrelevant to the four murder charges. Its his DNA on the pizza crust. Its his DNA on the vest in the burned out car and it was his kin's truck that held over 30K when he was arrested. And we already know where some of the other money was spent.

IMO

 

[katydid23]

For starters they already haven't held up well in court on whether or not there was forced entry where they have already used what turns out to be a firefighter's boot print as evidence to go to the court to get search warrants. It sounds like they're still going around in circles by apparently saying their basing the home invasion time in part based on a broken window at 6 PM. To have a case you have to stick to a story and so for they're not getting their story straight on multiple things as they've changed the cause of death for two people, can't explain the text (that itself may be explainable, but it's not only that I'm looking at) and they used a firefighter's boot print to obtain search warrants saying that showed signs of forced entry that expressly had been determined not to come from first responders.

I think some of the above is nitpicking. There was broken glass in one of the frenchdoors, and it showed up on the burglar alarm system at 6 pm. So just because the bootprint was eventually ruled out, it does not negate the fact that there was a forced entry. At trial it does not matter if some of the assertions in the SW's are found to be incorrect. That is why you do the searches---to find out what happened.

The jury will not expect that the prosecutors had ALL of the facts perfectly together when the investigators were obtaining the search warrants. That makes no sense.

 

[Bootsctr]

Per Ted Williams on Greta: The defense is going with SODDI (Some Other Dude Did It).

Re the footprint:

Megan Cloherty ‏@ClohertyWTOP · 3h3 hours ago  Washington, DC
Detective testifies the boot print found on #Savopoulos' door police initially thought was from suspect was in fact from a DC firefighter

 

[Peliman]

So it sounds to me like the Defense is using the information in the charging documents to create doubt on JW. And the Prosecution corrected the fact that the text was actually 9:57am and didn't happen the way the Defense portrayed it to the Investigator, per the charging docs.

Right?

Yep, it was corrected with time stamps and phone records.

 

[TexMex]

To clarify, the video shows $40K withdrawn all at that one time - not $20K or some other amount? That would mean whatever was in the allegedly 9 AM photo would be in addition to the $40K from BoA withdrawn then, if the 9 AM time is actually correct?

The photo of the money was sent at 9:57am per testimony today

 

[katydid23]

IMO if one is concerned about deportation, killing someone to pay for an attorney is a stupid solution.

Well, it worked. Now he does not have to worry about being deported, ever. :wink:

 

[MyBelle]

But then wouldn't LE know that? Wouldn't they have had sufficient time to interview the accountant. Why would LE say "I don't know."

It is very possible this is a detail that detective failed to notice and the defense figured it out by analyzing evidence received in discovery. It is a HUGE detail. If the detective was aware of it, he's not about to admit it at a preliminary hearing for Wint.

The only explanation is that the money was taken from the SS home PRIOR to JW's trip to the bank. It may have been in the home vault.

If JW isn't indicted, I will be very surprised.

JMO

 

[katydid23]

I think it's possible that JW got to the scene in his BMW before LE taped it up, but it seems sort of weird that he left the scene and then came back several hours later. I don't think I would be able to tear myself away from a scene like that involving people I knew, even if I wanted to.

I think he ran into other AIW employees there. He probably hung with them and got dropped back off later. JMO

 

[Willow Knight]

Quote Originally Posted by stmarysmead I'm interested in what will happen next. Maybe those of you who are much more experienced in watching these cases can comment.

Will LE formally or through leaks "clear" JW if indeed they know for a fact that he is innocent. Or will they just stay silent until this gets to trial, leaving JW twisting in the wind till then?

When I posted that I thought after releasing the SW that, if they had found nothing incriminating that surely they would have ended the very intense media speculation, many here said they never do that.

Okay.

So now in addition to all the media hype about JW, we have the defense making "a case" of sorts against him.

Will there still be silence? I mean if they have "moved on" and know JW was not involved?

I think it would be a smart move from LE to allow the defense to spend its' resources on this theory. I'd be like, 'yeah, yeah, you guys are good'.

 

[rkf]

:ufo::ufo:

In your theory...who or where does he get the additional $20K? Because the AIW employee who actually took the money out of the BofA would have surely told LE "Well, I gave him $20K while we were at AIW then the additional $40K from the bank". Or do you think the AIW employee is involved as well, and lied about this additional $20K? Maybe the AIW employee and JW split the first $20K? Is that your theory?

And of course, your theory doesn't explain why he actually sent the text of the amount, which was $40K. The amount that has been stated was in question. That they have accounted for over $30K.

I said earlier today that this is rank speculation, but given that the prelim really only showed us how much we don't know, I'm willing to entertain some outside the box thoughts.

We don't know that the accountant didn't tell LE that he gave JW $20,000 at AIW. We know from the affidavit that the accountant "stated the money it withdrew from Bank of America was wrapped in money wrappers from the bank and the money was separated in four bundles that totaled ($40,000.00) forty thousand dollars."

For argument's sake, let's say LE withheld the information about the earlier transfer of $20,000 in a manila envelope, which is why they knew JW wasn't telling the truth about what happened at the bank. They had the attorney's whole story and the bank footage to back up at least what happened at the bank. LE believed that $40,000 was delivered to the S house, one way or another. If there was additional money given to JW, but not left at the house as ransom, would they need to include that information in charging docs for DW? At some point, LE obviously thought JW might be involved in the murders, as stated in the SW for his car, but if he was not involved with DW and the murders, would his "theft" of the $20,000 need to be included in the murder warrant/affidavit/SWs? Or if LE believed JW did something fishy with some of the money, could they leave that part out at the time of the affidavit to avoid bogging down the requests for SWs and AWs related to DW's involvement?

I don't think the accountant is involved. I do think LE has not disclosed all the information they have, including that gleaned from interviews with the accountant.

At some point, JW tells LE that he" was told by the other employee the package contained $40,000.00 in cash." This seems to be before LE asks to see JW's phone and asks him about the text to W2. Did the accountant for some reason tell JW that they were going to the bank to pick up the $40,000 when JW met him at AIW? If JW didn't have that $40,000 when he took the photo he sent to W2 at 9 am, but had $20,000 that he found when he opened the original manila envelope, all the different stories start to make sense. With more than one money drop, the different stories aren't lies. If JW thought that because he delivered the amount to SS' house confirmed by the bank, LE might not know about the other $20,000 (or whatever amount), JW might have told LE he lied about how he got the money, rather than he received money under two different circumstances and kept some of it. I think in the interview(s) JW tried to figure out what LE knew and then tried to make his story match. IF the accountant gave JW more than the $40,000 retrieved from the bank on Thursday morning, why would JW think DW/SS were only expecting $40,000 and why would he think he could take the extra $20,000 without ramifications?

Yes, it would be ridiculous and crazy if JW thought he could take some of the money and the accountant wouldn't tell LE. But it is equally crazy that JW tells LE that the accountant gave him the $40,000 in two different ways, only one of which can be correct, and thought LE wouldn't check out his story with the accountant/bank. He sent a photo of money to W2 and didn't think LE would see it. Otherwise, why wait until further questioning from LE to admit he knew what was in the package?

The information we have so far does not make logical sense. There are too many contradictions. I have been fascinated all along by JW's "lies". They have always made NO sense and the idea that he thought he could tell them without being found out is really interesting to me. If there was more than one money delivery, both stories could be true and rather than telling a whole bunch of lies, he could have just told one - which is that he lied to begin with (if he didn't.)

I am not saying this definitely happened, any more than I'm saying a UFO came down and replicated the money, then dropped JW off at Lowe's before heading out to Kansas to make crop circles. :ufo: I'm just trying to fit the few pieces of the puzzle together in a way that could make sense, even though I am probably 100% wrong. The pieces we got today don't seem to have made the job an easier.

 

[Bootsctr]

I think it would be a smart move from LE to allow the defense to spend its' resources on this theory. I'd be like, 'yeah, yeah, you guys are good'.

I think that is exactly what is happening! I expect Wint will be charged for the other 3 murders. Prosecution is lining up the deck against Wint.

 

[oceanblueeyes]

So it sounds to me like the Defense is using the information in the charging documents to create doubt on JW. And the Prosecution corrected the fact that the text was actually 9:57am and didn't happen the way the Defense portrayed it to the Investigator, per the charging docs.

Right?

Imo, he is trying to taint the potential jury pool. All of this is not impressing the presiding Judge who will decide whether this is forwarded on to trial. It isn't hard to figure out this is going to be placing the blame elsewhere.

What he is actually doing though is saying that JW is a part of the money deal but that doesn't help Wint one iota. It doesn't matter if there were five of them with JW being one of them. It doesn't eliminate DW own accountability. In fact if the attorney is going to imply that JW took some of the money then he is also saying that Wint was involved up to his eyeballs in all of this too since most of the blood money was found when he was arrested.

I bet they haven't found one piece of evidence that JW was inside the home when Wint murdered all of them. The attorney can try to blow smoke but the facts are going to eat Wint for lunch.

IMO

 

[oceanblueeyes]

I think that is exactly what is happening! I expect Wint will be charged for the other 3 murders. Prosecution is lining up the deck against Wint.

I was wondering about that. Every article that I have read lately has said he has already been charged with all four murders. Has the indictment been shown online? tia

 

[Bootsctr]

Well, it worked. Now he does not have to worry about being deported, ever. :wink:

Quote of the day!! Hear! Hear!

 

[mk4osu]

I think I might have been misunderstood, with that post. I had post that I thought there could only be $40,000 in total (delivered), because today at the hearing, there was testimony that over $30,000 of the $40,000 had been recovered. My thinking is that if JW got other money beforehand (or if LE believed he had), they wouldn't have testified that they recovered 30 out of the 40K, since it would have been more. Someone replied to my comment, and I was just trying to say that was my point (the part about the 30 and 40K, not about others speculating), but I was trying to be nice about making my point. I haven't really said anything about the times, other than I saw in an article that stated that JW actually picked the money up before 9:00, before bank opened. I'm going to have to find the article. I just haven't had time...too busy trying to keep up with this thread, Lol. I thought things would be much clearer today, after the hearing...boy, was I wrong...more questions than ever. I have a garden to water, but I can't seem to tear myself away from this thread, Lol. I apologize if there was a misunderstanding, with that post, or if it appeared I was responding negatively toward anyone.

I guess "apparent" is subjective. The reason is totally apparent to me. There was a tweet from a MSM journalist that said that JW texted a picture of money before he got it from the bank. The charging docs have the text coming in a little before 9 AM, when the money was withdrawn after 9:00. An article linked to above corrected (or had a different) time for the text that would have made it after the money was withdrawn. That's the reason If I can be of further assistance, please let me know.