Melanie Alnwick FOX 5 DC
20 hrs ·
#MansionMurders Trial, Day 1:
Before the trial got underway one juror who had an issue with being able to complete jury service, was replaced. That means there are now 8 men and 8 women on the jury - eight of them are white, eight are minorities. There are 12 jurors, alternates. Alternates are chosen at random and they will not know who they are until time for deliberations.
The defense also wanted to bring up an issue with chain of custody and possible mishandling of evidence. The prosecution said they had given the defense all the information they needed more than two years ago.
Prosecutor Christopher Bruckman first addressed the jury, saying “This is what nightmares are made of.” The victims “kidnapped, beaten, asphyxiated, stabbed, tortured and killed by this man - Daron Dylon Wint.” Then Bruckman got close to Wint and pointed directly at him - calling him a coward who got $40,000 in cash then fled, dousing the victims with gasoline and setting them on fire.
Bruckman says there is powerful DNA evidence, plus evidence of guilt with Wint’s words and actions in the days after the murders - including internet searches for things like “10 hideout cities for fugitives” and “5 countries with no US extradition treaty”
He told the jury DNA is a powerful witness that can’t be silenced by stabbing it, by strangling it or burning it. “DNA will speak for the dead”, said Bruckman in a raised voice.
He then re-counted five separate pieces of evidence with Daron Wint’s DNA signature:
- a pizza crust
- the handle of a knife found propping open a window in the basement of the mansion.
- a construction vest found in Amy’s burned out Porsche,
- a hair inside construction hat in the garage,
- and a second hair found in betting of the bedroom where Savvas, Amy and Vera were found.
New information included communications during the 19 hours that the family was held hostage, about an in-home security system. When & where does it record? How are the recordings kept? It was all recorded on a computer in a 3rd floor bedroom. Bruckman said a metal case for the computer was found in the bedroom where Savvas, Amy and Vera were killed - but the computer itself was never found.
The motive? Money, greed and revenge.
Bruckman also brought up Jordan Wallace, who he said will testify as Witness #1. He admits Jordan was “stupid”, and will say so.. when he sent, then deleted texts with pictures of the $40k he’d been asked to retrieve and bring to the house on Woodland Drive. Says Jordan loved Savvas, adored Philip, and willingly turned over his phone and DNA samples. Bruckman also said Jordan was seen on a surveillance camera at Lowe’s at the same time that Daron Wint was seen going back under the mansion’s garage door.
There will be graphic testimony and evidence photos, and some jurors looked a little shell-shocked when they realized what they were going to have to deal with.
DC public defender Jeff Stein told the jury that “we all share the urge to punish” someone for those terrible murders, but Daron Wint is innocent and wrongfully accused. Then Stein dropped the bombshell we weren’t sure we’d hear: the names of the alleged “other suspects”: Darrell and Stefon Wint - Daron’s brothers.
Stein said that Darrell & Stefon planned the whole thing, then tricked Daron, taking his prized minivan, and bringing him to the mansion on 5/14. Stein claims Daron walked out in horror at what his brothers had done, then they abandoned him and left him to take the fall.
Stein said Wint was terrified of what his brothers had done, so he panicked and fled - and that his brother Darrell was with him when he came home to turn himself in. He also pointed a finger at Jordan Wallace, saying he was an insider who had the information the brothers would need to commit the crime, and said there were positive hits on Wallace’s car mats and backpack for ignitable fluid.
Stein noted that Stefon lived just across the street from where Amy Savopoulos’s Porsche was torched, and showed phone records that the 2 brothers communicated frequently up until the 13th, the day of the break-in... then silence until after the Porsche was burned on the 14th.
As for the DNA, Stein said, “DNA doesn’t lie, but it doesn’t tell the whole story”. He confirmed that Daron ate the pizza and put on the construction vest, but again contended that his client had no idea what was happening upstairs in the house. He also wondered aloud why Wint’s DNA was not found on the duct tape, the matches, the matchbox, or the blood covered samurai sword and baseball bats.
Stein closed telling the jury that parts of this trial will be painful and bring us to tears.. but that “convicting Daron Wint of crimes he did not commit will not right these wrongs.”
Court recessed for the day, and will get started at 9:45 Wednesday morning.
Fox 5 DC
