DC - Savvas Savopoulos, family & Veralicia Figueroa murdered; Daron Wint Arrested #5

[Inthedetails]

I'm still trying to catch up but everyone keeps saying that W1's father lived close to the burning car? Where was that information reported? Link?

A few of my thoughts....

The pizza: I think AS may have read the same story that's been posted a few times in here regarding the woman who placed the pizza order and got help. I think she may have said "look my child is hungry, he hasn't eaten since 1pm or sometime in the early afternoon (maybe, if they came in around 6, if PS is anything like my 9 year old, they get cranky cranky when hungry. Him having a concussion may mean that he hadn't eaten much that day) and if you don't feed him, he will get loud and make this situation very hard for us all. Please let me feed my child, he likes pepperoni pizza, just let me order a pizza so no one will have to move to do anything" I think she tried giving hints. The Dominoes place said that she gave "unusual directions" which made me think that they may have ordered from there before. She wanted someone to pick up on the hint.

The Assistant: I don't know why he lied but I feel uncomfortable about it. I don't really have anything else to say about him but I don't get why he lied. I understand being stressed but to lie repeatedly? It's weird. I agree with someone else here, if you dropped off 40K to your boss in these unusual circumstances, why wouldn't you call back to see if it was received? Like "hey is everything ok? I dropped the money off in the garage"

UNLESS, this was a normal occurrence.
PS screaming in the voicemail was upsetting but IMO it didn't sound like a child being tortured. Hope that doesn't offend because we know that he was but it sounded like a child screaming having a tantrum. It kinda sounded like "get away! go away!" or something like that which is why SS could remain calm during the call. Sorry but there's no way that you can sound as calm as SS sounded on the phone if someone was stabbing your kid. No way. I don't think they had started the torture of that baby then. Those did that later and in the morning when the money calls started rolling.

This is all my opinion. I haven't really commented, just followed because some users are VERY testy but these are my thoughts.

I'm with you - I'm uncomfortable about W1/driver lying too. I'm inclined to think that he is a flashy kind of guy and tells lies regularly to make himself look good. When questioned by LE, he probably knew the money drop-off was not a normal thing for people to do, even rich people, and he tried to minimize his involvement, even if his involvement was "innocent" to begin with. But....why would police put in the the report unless it was a major aspect of the crime? I haven't figured that out yet.

Glad you joined in the discussion! Keep the ideas coming.

 

[Inthedetails]

I agree. I think it could be that DW found himself in debt. Maybe he owed $5-10K to a drug dealer or from gambling?
He's being pressured for the money and getting desperate. He then remembers the very rich SS. He's loaded and DW is still pissed about being fired several years ago and plans a home invasion to get some quick cash...
JMO, IMO, MOO

This sound reasonable to me. In that case, the $40K might have satisfied his needs to pay off the debt plus have some cash to spare. I think we need to keep this idea in the mix.

However, I still think he was trying for more money up until noon. I haven't let go of that idea yet.

 

[Sparky]

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[OTPTarheel]

Let's say the goal of DDW (and his cohorts) was to extort money AND steal the cars and jewelry and send cars to Miami to put in containers to sell/ ship overseas.
They could have purchased shirts online for each brand(or find one at Goodwill,etc.) and have someone put the shirt on and come to the front door saying...."Mr. S arranged for me to pick up the car and take it to dealer/ mechanic for service" and once inside texted to come get the other cars, one at a time, and get them out of town before crimes/ deaths/ fire were known.
I still believe it was revenge for disrespect to DDW and his family member, who was also fired. Revenge, a dish best served cold.
I don't think that art was the goal- doubt if DDW knew fine art. Hard to fence from what I've been told.

 

[SpanishInquisition]

But , all along from the beginning it has never been mentioned that anything was stolen, etc etc? They would not early on keep that a secret, the tease at the opening of a segment would probably have been something like

Robery gone bad

Affluent robbed

you know

Only targeting a specific item would itself be newsworthy as robbers spending at a minimum overnight in the 10,000 square foot house of a millionaire and not taking any of the valuables but instead just getting a highly specific hard to get item would be something and would point to Wint either being far more intelligent than he's been given credit for or that he was working under someone else. Targeting specific items while ignoring other valuables is something usually done by a specific set career criminals who stage things like intricately planned art heists, not punks who are just out to loot and plunder. I don't rule out that this is something police are keeping mum about and that's one of the reasons why they are so sure that Wint had accomplices. Wint from what I can tell of him doesn't come off like someone who would pass up a mansion full of valuables for a intricate bank transaction that needed multiple players for it to happen and it to be delivered to the house unless Wint was taking orders from someone to leave the jewelry, etc alone and just get the cash.

 

[jjenny]

This sound reasonable to me. In that case, the $40K might have satisfied his needs to pay off the debt plus have some cash to spare. I think we need to keep this idea in the mix.

However, I still think he was trying for more money up until noon. I haven't let go of that idea yet.

Could also explain why the whole $40K hasn't been found (if it hasn't been found).

 

[jjenny]

Only targeting a specific item would itself be newsworthy as robbers spending at a minimum overnight in the 10,000 square foot house of a millionaire and not taking any of the valuables but instead just getting a highly specific hard to get item would be something and would point to Wint either being far more intelligent than he's been given credit for or that he was working under someone else. Targeting specific items while ignoring other valuables is something usually done by a specific set career criminals who stage things like intricately planned art heists, not punks who are just out to loot and plunder. I don't rule out that this is something police are keeping mum about and that's one of the reasons why they are so sure that Wint had accomplices. Wint from what I can tell of him doesn't come off like someone who would pass up a mansion full of valuables for a intricate bank transaction that needed multiple players for it to happen and it to be delivered to the house unless Wint was taking orders from someone to leave the jewelry, etc alone and just get the cash.

Bank transactions doesn't mean a sophisticated criminal. Criminals in the Petit case took mother to the bank to withdraw money. They certainly weren't sophisticated criminals. Once they got the money, they killed the mother and her daughters and burned the house down.
Thus, obtaining money through a bank transaction might be something obvious to a criminal. Only in this case, the father arranged for money to be delivered to the home, instead of going to the bank.

 

[popsicle]

Bank transactions doesn't mean a sophisticated criminal. Criminals in the Petit case took mother to the bank to withdraw money. They certainly weren't sophisticated criminals. Once they got the money, they killed the mother and her daughters and burned the house down.
Thus, obtaining money through a bank transaction might be something obvious to a criminal. Only in this case, the father arranged for money to be delivered to the home, instead of going to the bank.

Which would make sense if he did the crime alone. I wonder if there was a safe in the house and if DW thought to empty that.

 

[Just K]

I'm still trying to catch up but everyone keeps saying that W1's father lived close to the burning car? Where was that information reported? Link?

A few of my thoughts....

The pizza: I think AS may have read the same story that's been posted a few times in here regarding the woman who placed the pizza order and got help. I think she may have said "look my child is hungry, he hasn't eaten since 1pm or sometime in the early afternoon (maybe, if they came in around 6, if PS is anything like my 9 year old, they get cranky cranky when hungry. Him having a concussion may mean that he hadn't eaten much that day) and if you don't feed him, he will get loud and make this situation very hard for us all. Please let me feed my child, he likes pepperoni pizza, just let me order a pizza so no one will have to move to do anything" I think she tried giving hints. The Dominoes place said that she gave "unusual directions" which made me think that they may have ordered from there before. She wanted someone to pick up on the hint.

The Assistant: I don't know why he lied but I feel uncomfortable about it. I don't really have anything else to say about him but I don't get why he lied. I understand being stressed but to lie repeatedly? It's weird. I agree with someone else here, if you dropped off 40K to your boss in these unusual circumstances, why wouldn't you call back to see if it was received? Like "hey is everything ok? I dropped the money off in the garage"

UNLESS, this was a normal occurrence.
PS screaming in the voicemail was upsetting but IMO it didn't sound like a child being tortured. Hope that doesn't offend because we know that he was but it sounded like a child screaming having a tantrum. It kinda sounded like "get away! go away!" or something like that which is why SS could remain calm during the call. Sorry but there's no way that you can sound as calm as SS sounded on the phone if someone was stabbing your kid. No way. I don't think they had started the torture of that baby then. Those did that later and in the morning when the money calls started rolling.

This is all my opinion. I haven't really commented, just followed because some users are VERY testy but these are my thoughts.

Nikki, here is the sequence of events that led to a discovery that the first key player's father lived/possibly still lives one block from the address given for the suspect, DW, on 85th Ave.

The first key player's name (W-1) was discovered by members of this forum. (After a MSM article that showed those braggart Instagram photo's of SS's cars.) I suspect someone knew how to find the origin of those pics and that's how they found his name.
That name and bits of his personal bio began to be discovered.
Then his deleted but cached twitter, Instagram, Facebook pages were scoured over.
Once seeing dates and places in his own Bio, a member went to see if there were any crimes/court records, in MD, for this first key player, (W-1)
Lo & Behold, Maryland gives full addresses, DOB, Ht & Wt and Ethnicity
From there it was game on.
From name & DOB it was discovered place of birth and actual full DOB.
Another member found the full names of his mother and father which thankfully had some unique attributes.
From there it was fairly easy to see all of the father's previous addresses and there it was...
his address in the 5300 Block of 85th Ave in a sprawling apartment complex that's far side sits right behind the church where the Porsche was torched.
Later the member who found the ticket for W-1 in Maryland, was informed that the charging documents for DW listed his address on the 5400 Block of the same road. When the two addresses were put into Google maps, they were almost exactly one block apart.

It was a whole lot of teamwork to discover that tidbit!

 

[SpanishInquisition]

I agree. I think it could be that DW found himself in debt. Maybe he owed $5-10K to a drug dealer or from gambling?
He's being pressured for the money and getting desperate. He then remembers the very rich SS. He's loaded and DW is still pissed about being fired several years ago and plans a home invasion to get some quick cash...
JMO, IMO, MOO

If you're looking to get quick cash by robbing a millionaire due to some spur of the moment reasons, you'd steal their valuables and fence the items instead of having the millionaire put together an unusual transaction involving half a dozen people including non-employees of the millionaire (unless that transaction was in the works and you had inside information to know the millionaire was going to be getting the cash rather than transaction being done at your direction). Just knowing someone is rich is different thank knowing they can have wads of cash brought to them without having to leave their house to go into the bank to sign papers.

 

[corundogs]

Which is exactly what I think that he had valuable stolen merchandise in the area, which would be the only reason he'd return after knowing there was a national APB out on him. If you've got something in storage worth $10Ks-$100Ks there would be a reason to go back to the area, but not for some old sofa. He/they had hours and hours to plunder the home of valuables and there would be many high value items like electronics, jewelry, etc. and it wouldn't really make sense to ignore all those valuables in the home if you're doing this kidnapping at least in part to profit off it.

Just jumping in...

This is a thought that really turns my stomach...

Do you think that the investigators would need to have the girls go into the house to see what else might be missing? Would they do that to those poor kids???

 

[BellaVita]

Go-karting leads to F1 racing? Seriously? If he lied to one of the federal agents, he did break the law. Working for a go-kart business is no more high end than working for a bowling alley. It isn't exactly a career path I would want my son to take.

JMO

Well, it IS a career path. A path that starts at 10 years old or younger. Jeff Gordon, former multiple NASCAR champ started in go-karts. But not at the age of 25 or 30. IMO, this assistant is delusional about possible fame and fortune. Everything I've read/seen about him is tacky, tacky, tacky. Involvement with crime or not, don't know why SS wanted him around. If PS wanted to pursue racing, I'd think with their resources there'd be lots better avenues than this assistant go-cart driver.

 

[corundogs]

If he walked into the home invasion at 5 or 6, he could have called the bank manager and set it up for the next morning. My brother in law is a big developer and he has the home numbers of his bankers on speed dial. Sometimes they need cash at weird hours for foreign companies and sudden supply issues etc. All kinds of financial emergencies come up when building a development. You might have a steel shipment coming in early and need the cash moved from one account to another. The bankers are happy to help because they want the accounts to stay with them.

And in that same thought, he could have called/text the assistant (aka W1) to tell him to be prepared to do this first thing in the am. There could have been a standing time (or prearranged sometime on Wednesday before this happened) for the assistant to come pick him up in the am. He would NOT have wanted the assistant to come to the house. Much like they sent a text to NG to stay away. I think he really did try to keep more people from getting involved.

Or SS knew that the assistant had plans that morning that didn't involve coming to pick him up, but to do other work. So he made arrangements for him to be free at ANY TIME that Thursday morning, since at that time, SS wouldn't have known exactly what time he would be able to get the cash together.

This is why I don't think it is suspicious that the assistant didn't respond to the 11:54am call...he had done what his boss told him, and then his boss gave him other tasks to complete, or he went about his regular day...not worried about SS. He had completed what his boss asked him to, and was just on about his day. I don't believe for one second that just because he missed a call from his boss after having been in touch with him that morning, that it makes him complicit.

People really do miss calls from their bosses, and call them back a couple of hours later. Especially if he had been told he wouldn't be needed the rest of the day. Which I can see SS telling him, to make sure again, that he stayed away.

I am pretty sure that unless SS left a message, we will never know why he called.

If like many of us believe, that the assistant was not involved, it is terrible the guilt he must feel (even if he shouldn't)...and the fact that he is being called a suspect could really traumatize him!!

 

[Just K]

Well, it IS a career path. A path that starts at 10 years old or younger. Jeff Gordon, former multiple NASCAR champ started in go-karts. But not at the age of 25 or 30. IMO, this assistant is delusional about possible fame and fortune. Everything I've read/seen about him is tacky, tacky, tacky. Involvement with crime or not, don't know why SS wanted him around. If PS wanted to pursue racing, I'd think with their resources there'd be lots better avenues than this assistant go-cart driver.

Exactly, so how did this guy get inside this family? The answer to that question is key, IMO.

 

[Just K]

Just a thought, who hires a personal assistant/driver who lives in Annapolis? On a good day, that is at least an hour away from Upper NW DC.

 

[Inthedetails]

Nikki, here is the sequence of events that led to a discovery that the first key player's father lived/possibly still lives one block from the address given for the suspect, DW, on 85th Ave.

The first key player's name (W-1) was discovered by members of this forum. (After a MSM article that showed those braggart Instagram photo's of SS's cars.) I suspect someone knew how to find the origin of those pics and that's how they found his name.
That name and bits of his personal bio began to be discovered.
Then his deleted but cached twitter, Instagram, Facebook pages were scoured over.
Once seeing dates and places in his own Bio, a member went to see if there were any crimes/court records, in MD, for this first key player, (W-1)
Lo & Behold, Maryland gives full addresses, DOB, Ht & Wt and Ethnicity
From there it was game on.
From name & DOB it was discovered place of birth and actual full DOB.
Another member found the full names of his mother and father which thankfully had some unique attributes.
From there it was fairly easy to see all of the father's previous addresses and there it was...
his address in the 5300 Block of 85th Ave in a sprawling apartment complex that's far side sits right behind the church where the Porsche was torched.
Later the member who found the ticket for W-1 in Maryland, was informed that the charging documents for DW listed his address on the 5400 Block of the same road. When the two addresses were put into Google maps, they were almost exactly one block apart.

It was a whole lot of teamwork to discover that tidbit!

As I think about the proximity of those locations, I'm less inclined to think it necessarily means anything. At first I thought it was a huge clue, but looking at the apartment complexes, they are huge. You could easily live in one end of the complex and never encounter anyone living at the other end. Then again, the complex is near the burning car location....hmmm.

It could mean something....or not. Great sleuthing, though!



JMO

 

[jjenny]

Just a thought, who hires a personal assistant/driver that even who lives in Annapolis? On a good day, that is at least an hour away from Upper NW DC.

Why would that be a consideration? As long as employee can get to work on time, why would employer care how far away the employee lives?

 

[Just K]

This may have been answered...but that is the actual perp, not his brother - I am pretty sure anyway!

It is not the perp. It is his 28 or 29 year old brother.

 

[corundogs]

Has anyone done any research on the average age one would be when he/she makes the transition to real cars? The driver/assistant is 28 years old. That seems a bit old to be entering the real racing world. Also, how does one get a job with one of the richest guys in the world, on paper, and yet constantly be traveling for a week or two at a time. Finally, one article I read said that SS had intentions to move his family and business to Puerto Rico. If this were true...wouldn't the driver assistant be jobless again? How might he feel about that news?

BBM

Really?? SS was not even close to being that wealthy!!

Seems to me there is a very good reason this guy got a job with SS...to be a mentor to Phillip. And from things I have read, he is not just some go-kart racer. He actually taught people how to race. And was apparently really good at it.

Why wouldn't SS give him a job? He could help him out when he was around with whatever work he had (seems they did this with a lot of those involved with them) and help Phillip at the same time.

ETA - and I don't think that a part of that $40K would be worth what he could have earned while working for SS and family. It just doesn't ring true to me at all!!!!!

 

[Just K]

Why would that be a consideration? As long as employee can get to work on time, why would employer care how far away the employee lives?

Because, as we have seen from this case, the assistant may need to be available on a dime.

Just posting my ponderings.