DC - Savvas Savopoulos, family & Veralicia Figueroa murdered; Daron Wint Arrested #7

[Inthedetails]

I've wondered the same thing about that manilla envelope. How did he know to bring a red bag AND a manilla envelope? He only needed both if he intended to divide the money.

JMO

I think the final version of the bank scenario is that the other employee handed W1 four bundles of money from his pockets. W1 had to carry them somehow, so he put them in his red-lined bag (which he couldn't resist photographing for his girlfriend). Why the other employee carried the money in his pockets baffles me, but apparently that's what he did. W1 had to have a way to carry the money so he put them in his bag for transport.

It could be that W1 didn't realize he would be asked to leave the money in the car. Maybe he assumed he would hand the cash to SS, but when W1 called SS when he was 10 minutes away from the house he then was told to leave the money in the car. He didn't want to leave his bag so he put the money in an envelope he happened to have in his car. Maybe W1 has various supplies like envelopes in the car for his Assistant to the CEO job? Could be.

I'm still holding out hope that W1 is not involved with the crime. Just testing out ideas.

 

[MyBelle]

But if W1 did take some of the money he would have to be incredibly stupid to take a picture of it and text it to someone else. It has been speculated that W2, who received the text, is the other house keeper. This is so outrageous it is the one act that makes me think he wasn't involved.

I'm also curious about the part of the charging documents that state LE showed W1 texts that indicated SS called W1 Wednesday not Thursday. Were the texts LE saw while looking through W1's phone while they were together going over his phone or did LE have this text from another source? ie did the text go to another employee(s) who had already provided the info that the request was made Wednesday?

LE haven't shared any details about texts between W1 and W2 other than there was dialogue along with the photos. iirc, both handed LE their phones.

JMO

 

[Inthedetails]

But if W1 did take some of the money he would have to be incredibly stupid to take a picture of it and text it to someone else. It has been speculated that W2, who received the text, is the other house keeper. This is so outrageous it is the one act that makes me think he wasn't involved.

I'm also curious about the part of the charging documents that state LE showed W1 texts that indicated SS called W1 Wednesday not Thursday. Were the texts LE saw while looking through W1's phone while they were together going over his phone or did LE have this text from another source? ie did the text go to another employee(s) who had already provided the info that the request was made Wednesday?

It's been confirmed that W2 is W1's girlfriend.

 

[MyBelle]

Maybe SS instructed JW to put money in a Manila envelope... So he stopped at office max on way to work...prepared.

I thought the charging documents said W1 was told to pick up a package and he claimed not to know it was money and the other employee told LE that W1 watched him pull four bundles from his pocket. I sure wouldn't walk out of a bank carrying a bag filled with money.

JMO

 

[birpu]

I think the final version of the bank scenario is that the other employee handed W1 four bundles of money from his pockets. W1 had to carry them somehow, so he put them in his red-lined bag (which he couldn't resist photographing for his girlfriend). Why the other employee carried the money in his pockets baffles me, but apparently that's what he did. W1 had to have a way to carry the money so he put them in his bag for transport.

It could be that W1 didn't realize he would be asked to leave the money in the car. Maybe he assumed he would hand the cash to SS, but when W1 called SS when he was 10 minutes away from the house he then was told to leave the money in the car. He didn't want to leave his bag so he put the money in an envelope he happened to have in his car. Maybe W1 has various supplies like envelopes in the car for his Assistant to the CEO job? Could be.

I'm still holding out hope that W1 is not involved with the crime. Just testing out ideas.

That actually makes some sense out of it. It may have been like that. The "employee" is the one who put the bundles into the red bag that belonged to W-1. Why wouldn't W-1 just put the red bag in the car and ask SS for the bag back later if he wanted it?

 

[emmavoberry]

I agree it would make more sense to us and even somehow be more "comforting" if this were totally random murder and mayhem, in line with DW's previous outbursts, but an escalation. Reasons we entertain the "planned" scenario likely that reports of prowlers, aggressive salesperson floated in media, authorities reported as saying family was "targeted,"and e expect any perpetrator/s managing to access a house in this kind of setting had to know something about their habits, security system, what times others wold be coming and going, etc. so had observed them at some point or had insider knowledge. And yet since none of that fits past DW m.o., we then tend to wonder if the planning or the knowledge contributed to by some other person, a "mastermind"(but obviously no rocket scientist).

 

[Inthedetails]

That actually makes some sense out of it. It may have been like that. The "employee" is the one who put the bundles into the red bag that belonged to W-1. Why wouldn't W-1 just put the red bag in the car and ask SS for the bag back later if he wanted it?

Maybe he used the bag to carry other things of his own - we don't know the bag was empty except for the money, right? And didn't SS instruct him to put it in the envelope? I'll check the Charging Doc again.

 

[jd dickinson]

Yes the bag and the envelope are a huge problem for me. I don't know why he would bring the bag to start with, either.

It makes absolutely no sense unless he was in on it.

C'mon. From the affidavit: "The other employee took four bundles of money from the employee's pockets and placed the money in a red bag which belonged to W-1."

So ... drumroll ... if W-1 happens to have a red bag (later described as a "red lined bag") in his car, he's "in on it"?

I don't know if that's a "red bag" or a "bag with red lining" or a "bag with red stripes," but those descriptions match hundreds of innocent items that might find themselves in a car. This Whole Foods reusable grocery tote, for example:

My wife carries several reusable grocery totes in her car at all times. Should I turn her in?

 

[Inthedetails]

Maybe he used the bag to carry other things of his own - we don't know the bag was empty except for the money, right? And didn't SS instruct him to put it in the envelope? I'll check the Charging Doc again.

Okay, I checked the Charging Document again, and in the second version, W1 says he called SS 10 minutes before he arrived at the house and SS told him to leave the money in the car in the garage. When W1 arrived, he put the money inside an envelope that was in his (W1's) car.

To me this shows that W1 didn't know he would be putting the money inside the car until he was close to the house. He probably assumed he would hand the money to SS in person. He had no idea he was delivering a ransom, imo.

JMO, speculating, willing to be wrong.

 

[Cricket99]

OMG that's what we call our neighbor!!

And he's a guy!

:facepalm:

I hope there is a Gladys Kravitz in my neighborhood - if not, I will volunteer. Hee,hee

 

[emmavoberry]

If employer asked me and a company employ, perhaps way higher up, handed over the money from the bank, I'd think things were copecetic. Yeah, so he's paying out in cash for services. Contractors often take cash for a discount on a job or a car is bought with cash. I'd leave it to company accountants, Mr. S., his advisors, the bank to sort out. If ok with them, ok with me. So that the assistant would not balk I can understand. That Mr. S. would pick driver to make the drop, no. His and three other lies were on the line, so I'd think he would choose someone of longer standing service and more of a professional to deliver. But perhaps the choice was down to the unconventional nature of the drop off and S thinking the driver less likely question than person in more of a formal capacity. I still don't get why driver lied about the phone msg, the money packaging, the car being locked. I've been a "personal assistant," on an informal basis--one is a kind of all around gofer in that position doing whatever is needed that boss or other personnel can't do, different in every case and depending upon type of business serving of course but the "personal" does mean one serves the boss personally; could be by scheduling, running her shop, doing all the mail, pitching in on the laundry, running to the bank...If my boss and family is slaughtered I wouldn't lie about how I carried out her orders though to the investigators unless I had to cover myself in a big way.

 

[bostonstrong]

if this is a conspiricy i doubt there's 'a mastermind'. or someone ordering a hit.

more like the 3 stooges meet dumb and dumber.

 

[Inthedetails]

Let's make some headway on the locked vs unlocked car. Why lie about that?

Since it was UNlocked when W1 first said it was locked, what does that mean? I would assume that the family would normally keep the cars locked. So UNlocked might mean someone opened the car before W1 arrived. Did he see that someone but not question who that someone was?? He doesn't want to admit he saw the perp and missed the chance to save the family so he lied and said he himself unlocked the car?

And now that I think about it - WHY leave the money in the car at all? Why not on a shelf in the garage or at the doorway in the garage. Why did Wint want the money in the car??

The lie about the locked vs UNlocked must mean something or why would it be called out in the doc as a lie?

????

 

[birpu]

C'mon. From the affidavit: "The other employee took four bundles of money from the employee's pockets and placed the money in a red bag which belonged to W-1."

So ... drumroll ... if W-1 happens to have a red bag (later described as a "red lined bag") in his car, he's "in on it"?

I don't know if that's a "red bag" or a "bag with red lining" or a "bag with red stripes," but those descriptions match hundreds of innocent items that might find themselves in a car. This Whole Foods reusable grocery tote, for example:

My wife carries several reusable grocery totes in her car at all times. Should I turn her in?

I carry those too. I believe I was the first poster to suggest W-1 simply had a special racing bag that he didn't want to part with , so no - I don't think the fact of the red bag by itself is necessarily a problem. His original statement in the charging documents is quite detailed, though. He said he watched the employee enter into a transaction with the bank manager, who handed the employee a manilla envelope which the employee then gave to W-1.

Why would he think the money being in a manilla envelope vs the red bag (which the employee saw and put the money in) was something to make up on the spot like that? Why wouldn't he just say he put the money in a manilla envelope when he got to the garage? That's not suspicious. But lying is. So, then I wondered about the red bag. If he already had a manilla envelope, why didn't he just use that to start with if his bag was special to him?

 

[birpu]

Let's make some headway on the locked vs unlocked car. Why lie about that?

Since it was UNlocked when W1 first said it was locked, what does that mean? I would assume that the family would normally keep the cars locked. So UNlocked might mean someone opened the car before W1 arrived. Did he see that someone but not question who that someone was?? He doesn't want to admit he saw the perp and missed the chance to save the family so he lied and said he himself unlocked the car?

And now that I think about it - WHY leave the money in the car at all? Why not on a shelf in the garage or at the doorway in the garage. Why did Wint want the money in the car??

The lie about the locked vs UNlocked must mean something or why would it be called out in the doc as a lie?

????

The only innocent explanation I have for this is that maybe his default position is to lie, first of all. CYA and distance yourself from knowing anything.
He may want to pretend he did not know what was in the envelope. But that would just be stupid because the employee knew he knew. Car, locked. Sounds safer. Another automatic CYA? It's possible.
Lies are always trouble for this very reason! It raises suspicion.

 

[MyBelle]

C'mon. From the affidavit: "The other employee took four bundles of money from the employee's pockets and placed the money in a red bag which belonged to W-1."

So ... drumroll ... if W-1 happens to have a red bag (later described as a "red lined bag") in his car, he's "in on it"?

I don't know if that's a "red bag" or a "bag with red lining" or a "bag with red stripes," but those descriptions match hundreds of innocent items that might find themselves in a car. This Whole Foods reusable grocery tote, for example:

My wife carries several reusable grocery totes in her car at all times. Should I turn her in?

Also from the charging documents:

W-l stated IT received a call from Mr. Savopoulos on Thursday morning, May 14,2015, and IT was directed to report to the main offices of American Iron Works, in Hyattsville, Maryland, to pick up a package and deliver the package to Mr.
Savopoulos at his residence.

W-l stated IT responded to the Hyattsville office and met another employee. W-l and the other employee responded to the Bank of America located in Hyattsville, Md. W-l and the other employee walked into the bank at which time W-l watched the other employee enter into a transaction with the bank manager.

At the end of the transaction, W-l witnessed the bank manager give the other employee
a manila envelope which contained currency (now known to your affiant to
be $40.000.00).

W-l stated the other employee gave him the envelope.....

...W-l admitted that IT had lied when lT stated the money was in a manila envelope when lt received the money from the other employee.

It goes on to say that W-1 claimed he found the manila envelope in the car and transferred the money into it.

W-1 has lied to cops and you might want to believe he's a honest recycler who shops at Whole Foods but I sure don't. If he did not know what the package contained BEFORE he arrived at AIW that morning, he had no reason to take any bag at all. Yet he produced the red bag for the other employee to place the cash in and lied about both the red bag and the manila envelope to cops a day later.

JMO

 

[Cricket99]

Question to everyone...................
if you were a new employee and your employer asked you to get a large amount of CASH and deliver it with the description of putting it in a car..............would you do it? would you question why?
this bothers me.
would you think something was wrong? would you ask for help? Thanks for answers

I would not - but I have a lot of years on young W1 and have had a lot more experience in the Corporate world, not to mention I am a long time member of Websleuths.

 

[1&2&3]

This may seem like a silly question - who locks their car in a garage?

The keys are not left in the car. With all these luxury cars did he have a locked key box or just a rack for the keys?

Having three kids, there were probably bicycles, scooters, and numerous other toys in the garage. This would mean kids would be in and out of the garage during the day. SS probably felt his family, home, cars, etc., were perfectly safe in that neighborhood. So having the alarm system on while people were in the house was not needed. I did read that Wint had SS erase parts of the video on the security system. No link.

 

[rkf]

i am not trying to be snarky (disclaimer)

but i really dont get when stuff like this happens and all the monday morning quarterbacks come out of the woodworks. 'he should have done this, he should have done that. he should have fought back. he should have run away when he saw what was going on!" (what??!?!)

mrs petit should have done something (well she did folks, she alerted the bank teller. the bank and the cops screwed up, not her)
elizabeth and jaycee and the cleveland 3 should have escaped! (easy to say when your not in that situation either, captive for months or decades and trapped behind walls that are not just phsyical)

i just dont get it. sorry. its easy for us to sit here in the comfort of our homes with our computers in front of us and say 'well we would have done this or that!"

but we cant say that nor should we judge what other people did/didnt do.

ALL JMO

Thank you so much for saying this.

Also, I would like for people to stop insinuating that the victims brought the crime on themselves by having nice things (cars). Automobiles are insured. What's the point of having nice things if you can't enjoy them? Someone saw what the S family had, whether it was money, cars, a loving and stable home... and wanted to take it away. Most of us live in a society where just because we admire or covet someone else's things, we don't feel we have the right to take them. Whoever committed this crime wasn't willing to spend three generations building up a business and the lifestyle that followed those efforts and sacrifices. They wanted the fruit of the labor without putting in the labor.

The only people responsible for this tragedy are the perpetrators. Disorganized criminals like this are not predictable. I don't believe you would find a criminologist or profiler who would throw out statistics/probability of survival as is being done on this forum. There are too many unknown variables. Even if most of the variables were known, the one that can NOT be known is how a perpetrator will behave/react in any/every situation. Human beings are complex. Sociopathic torturer-murderers, no less so.

 

[birpu]

You are conflating morality with sanity. Wint knows that it's wrong to kill people, but doesn't care about the wrongness of killing people from a moral or empathetic perspective. It's not a "problem" for him in that way. However, it is a problem for him if he kills these people and is caught, or if killing them delays his escape.

This is narcissistic personality disorder. An absence of empathy. But not, I think, insanity or irrationality.

It's easy for you to say that he should have worn a mask. But, how would he get in the house? The pretext was apparently acting like a workman coming to the door. So, what does a workman look like? Neon-green vest, work gloves and no mask. That's what he wears in order to get the door opened when he rings the doorbell.

As he thinks through the crime, he realizes that he can be identified later if he shows up without a mask. "So I kill them after I get my money," he thinks. Then he wonders if he will leave physical evidence that will incriminate him in their killing. "So I burn the house down after I kill them."

These are all rational deliberations by someone who couldn't give a rat's *advertiser censored* if people need to die in order for him to get and keep his money. I think there are a lot more of this sort of criminal than you might think. They just don't typically do it on such a grandiose scale. More typically, they're shooting convenience store clerks over $100.

I think this really nails Wint's personality/mental makeup. That's how I see him, too.