Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. In May 2015, Savas Savopoulos finally realized his lifelong dream. He lived a life that could only be described as perfect.
Husband to a wife dedicated to fighting brain trauma, father to three outstanding children, and CEO of his own successful company. But life is never perfect. A house fire exploded in an upscale Washington, D.C. suburb. The Woodley Park mansion engulfed in flames. Terror struck.
Thousands of dollars, 22 horrifying hours, four dead family members, one fire, and zero suspects. Could forensics solve this fiery tale? This is Forensic Tales, episode number one, the D.C. mansion murders. ♪
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell.
Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, bone-chilling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
I've had a passion for true crime and forensic science the day I began college. In college, I stumbled into an intro to criminal justice class. I thought the class served as an elective. I was wrong. The class changed my life. My passion led me to a master's degree in forensic psychology, where I studied violent crimes, mass murderers, and capital punishment.
Now, I can't wait to share true crime stories with you. Each week on the show, we'll cover a new case, a new story. We'll discuss the facts, the victims, the suspects, and the forensics. Now, let's jump right into this week's episode. This week's story begins on May 13, 2015 in Woodley Park.
an upper-class suburban neighborhood in Washington, D.C. Woodley Park is a city where all the houses are perfectly manicured. Neighbors wave as you drive by, and children are out playing in the yards. It's the ideal neighborhood to raise a family in, a community to feel safe. Crime just didn't happen in this part of northwest Washington. And when crime did strike, well, it didn't cross the wealthy.
The Savopolis family was a well-known family in this part of town. Where the Savopolis family lived was practically down the street from President Joe Biden's former residence. It almost goes without saying, Woodley Park was a lovely part of town. Savis Savopolis, or Sav as most people called him, was the CEO and president of American Iron Works, a construction company that had a big hand in the construction of the Verizon Center.
Sav's wife Amy was a devoted wife and mother. Something unique about Amy was her work. She took a special interest in preventing and treating childhood concussions. She was someone who not only dedicated her life to her own children, but to others. Sav and Amy had three children together, two daughters, Abigail and Katerina, and a son, Philip.
Abigail and Katerina were the eldest children who went away to boarding school. Philip was the youngest and stayed home with Saab and Amy. It's no secret that the Savopolis family lived a comfortable life. One of the luxuries they enjoyed was the financial ability to employ several people to work in and out of the home. But this idea isn't exclusive to the Savopolis family. In fact, many families in Woodley Park did the same.
Two of the people they employed were housekeepers, Vera Figueroa and Nalitza Gutierrez, or Nelly. Vera and Nelly were both extremely loyal housekeepers. They were people that Amy and Sav trusted. From the outside looking in, they seemed like they had the all-American family. They were beautiful, lived in an incredible mansion, and were well-connected in society. They just had everything to live for.
But then, over 22 terrifying hours, this family would become forever broken. On May 13, 2015, Sov was cleaning a martial arts studio he owned in northern Washington. With him was one of the family's housekeepers, Nelly Gutierrez.
Around 5.30 p.m. that afternoon, he received a phone call from his wife, Amy, asking if he could come home to watch their son, Philip. She needed Sav's help because she had prearranged plans to go out that evening. Shortly after 5.30 p.m., Sav makes his way back to their Woodley Park mansion, and Nellie, the housekeeper, returns home. A short time later, Sav makes a series of phone calls from inside the home.
The first call he makes is to their housekeeper, Nelly Gutierrez, the same person he was with earlier at the martial arts studio. But Nelly missed the call. She didn't pick up the phone. So Saab leaves her a voicemail. He tells her that her fellow housekeeper, Vera Figueroa, was scheduled to be off at 3 o'clock p.m., but she's volunteered to stay at the mansion and help take care of Amy.
Sov told Nellie that Amy decided not to go out after all because she wasn't feeling well that night. Then, Sov hangs up the phone. Sometime later, Nellie realizes she missed a call from Sov, her boss. She opens her phone, retrieves her voicemail, and listens to Sov's message. After listening to the voice message, nothing seemed unusual or off. That's because it wasn't uncommon for either of the housekeepers to work overtime.
and it wasn't unusual for them to stay the night. In fact, neither Nellie or Vera minded working overtime for the money. The Savopolis family was incredibly generous towards them. A little while later, Sav phones Nellie again. Just like the first time, Nellie didn't pick up. This time, he leaves a voicemail telling her not to come into work tomorrow. He said they didn't need her at the house after all.
He told Nellie to just go enjoy her day off, and then he hung up the phone. This time, when Nellie listened to the voicemail from Sav, she started to become a little worried. After listening to Sav's second voicemail, she thought he sounded flustered. Something was just off. He didn't sound like the person she spent all of these years working for.
After getting this second phone call from Sav, Nellie decided to call her friend Vera, the other housekeeper. But when she picked up the phone to call Vera, she didn't answer. The phone just kept ringing. So she called again, then again, but still no answer from her friend. Finally, Nellie calls Vera one last time. This time, the call goes straight to voicemail. The phone was dead.
But Saab wasn't the only one making phone calls from inside the house that night. At 9.14 p.m., Amy made a phone call to a local Domino's pizza restaurant. After ordering a couple pizzas, Amy requested that the food be left at the front door. She didn't want anyone knocking on the door. She told the worker that she was taking care of a sick child and didn't want the doorbell to wake him up.
So, as instructed, once the pizzas were ready, the Domino's worker arrived at the Savopolis home. He left the pizzas at the doorstep and then walked back towards his car. The following day, on May 14th, Amy sends a text message to the family housekeeper Nellie. In the text, she reminded her to not come into work that day, just like Sav had told her the night before.
Nellie immediately calls Amy and tries to reach her, but her phone calls go unanswered. This text message from Amy worried Nellie. She couldn't get a hold of Vera the night before. Sav already told her not to come in that day. Something weird was going on. Growing ever more anxious, she tries calling Amy again. She gets no answer. She tried texting Amy. She gets no answer.
Nellie becomes so worried about her friend Vera and the family that she sends her husband over to the home. She wants her husband to make sure that everything is okay. Nellie wasn't just worried because no one was answering her calls. She was also worried about Vera. Even though it wasn't entirely uncommon for either housekeeper to work overtime or spend the night, Nellie always spoke to her friend Vera about it.
Even more worrisome was that Vera didn't speak English very well. She relied on Nellie, especially when they worked together. Nellie was the one who usually communicated with the Savopolis family. Once Nellie's husband got to the house, he parked his car and went directly to the front door. He knocked, he rang the doorbell, but got no response.
But something about being on that front door gave him an eerie feeling in the pit of his stomach. Even though nobody came to answer the front door, it seemed like someone was still inside. After getting no answer at the front door, Nellie's husband got in his car and returned home. A few minutes after he arrived home, he received a phone call from none other than Sav. That's weird, he thought.
He just went to go check on them and now he's calling. On the phone call, Sov said he wanted Nellie to know that her friend Vera is perfectly okay. He said she just decided to spend the night to take care of Amy who wasn't feeling well. After they hung up the phone, Nellie's husband thought something was off. He knew how close his wife Nellie was to Vera. He knew it was entirely out of character for Vera not to tell Nellie about staying the night.
But something about Sav's tone of voice put Nellie's husband at ease. Something about Sav's phone call told him not to worry, that everything was fine. After Sav makes the phone call to Nellie's husband, he makes a second phone call to one of his extremely close assistants slash friends, Jordan Wallace. He's not calling his friend to say hi. He's calling to make a request.
He tells Jordan Wallace to go to the bank and withdraw $40,000 in cash. After withdrawing the money, he tells him to drive to the house and dump the money off in the garage. At face value, this seems like an insane request to ask someone to go to the bank for you, take out $40,000 in cash, and then just leave the money in the garage. Well, to you and me, this might sound like an insane request.
But it wasn't for Sav. He had a lot of money. He did a lot of business deals. It wasn't out of the ordinary for him to make these types of requests. It didn't seem like Jordan Wallace gave Sav's request too much thought either. As directed by his boss, Jordan went to the bank, took out $40,000 of Sav's money, he left the bank, and drove to the house.
parked his car, and left the cash inside the garage, just like Sov requested. During this exchange between Jordan Wallace and Sov, Jordan thought his boss sounded completely normal. After Jordan Wallace left the cash in Sov's garage, things were pretty quiet around the house. Sov and Amy don't make any more phone calls. Then at 1.30 p.m., a construction worker in the neighborhood makes a shocking discovery.
A discovery that would turn out to be the most horrifying event this community has ever witnessed. At 1.30 p.m. on May 14th, a construction worker noticed something troubling as he was driving. He saw vast clouds of thick black smoke coming from one of the mansions. The worker immediately called the Washington Fire Department to report the flames coming from the second floor of the home.
The house that was on fire was that of the Savopolis family. After a struggle, firefighters were eventually able to contain the fire and begin the initial investigation. They needed to find out what caused the fire. Nobody knew what occurred or why the fire started in the first place. No one even thought that the Savopolis family were home. Once the fire was contained, firefighters entered the home.
As one firefighter made his way from room to room, he stumbled right into something that stopped him in his tracks. He couldn't see what it was, but he could feel it. The smoke was so thick and so heavy throughout the house, making it almost impossible to see. He reached down to see what was in the way and quickly realized it was a body.
He radioed to his partners that there was a body inside of the house. This wasn't just a routine fire. This was a crime scene. A few minutes later, as he made his way throughout the upstairs of the house, he radioed again that there was another body. Then another. And then another. The last body was the body of a small child. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.
What are some of your self-care non-negotiables? Maybe you never skip leg day or therapy day. When your schedule is packed with kids' activities, big work projects, or podcasting like me, it's easy to let your priorities slip. Even when we know it makes us feel good, it's hard to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever.
Therapy can help with things like how to set healthy boundaries or find ways to be the best version of yourself. So if you're thinking about starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist or switch therapist anytime for no additional charge.
Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash tails to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash tails. The discovery of four bodies meant that the Savopolis family was home. The bodies were identified as 46-year-old Sav Savopolis and
47-year-old Amy Savopoulos, 10-year-old Philip, and 57-year-old Vera Figueroa. When firefighters first entered the house, Vera was clinging to life. But after paramedics transported her body to the hospital, she was pronounced dead. The bodies were so severely burned in the fire that it took medical examiners hours to properly identify them. And determining a cause of death was even harder.
The medical examiners determined that Sav, Amy, and Vera died of blunt and sharp force trauma. Philip's injuries were slightly different than his parents' and Vera's. That's because medical examiners noted thermal injuries to the 10-year-old's skin. This indicated that he was likely still alive when the house was set on fire. The medical examiner also found evidence on Philip's body that he'd been stabbed.
The only Savopolis family members who weren't killed inside of the home were Katerina and Abigail, Sav and Amy's older daughters. The sisters were not at home at the time because both girls were away attending boarding school. But that didn't mean that Katerina and Abigail didn't suffer. After the family and Vera were positively identified and their manner of deaths were discovered, law enforcement knew they needed to quickly find their killer or killers.
After all four deaths were classified as homicides, the police began their initial murder investigation. Inside of the burnt home, investigators found two possible murder weapons, a bloody bat and one of Saav's samurai swords. The bat and sword discovery indicated that the family and Vera were tortured before they were killed. One thing that the police observed was that the house had surveillance cameras installed throughout the property.
But when investigators went to go view the tapes, the SIM cards were missing. Someone didn't want the police to see what happened on those tapes. On May 15th, the Washington police formally announced the start of a multi-agency homicide and arson investigation. Early on, the police suspected that the murders were more likely to be personal than a random home invasion.
The murders just felt personal, not random. Just hours after the investigation began, the police announced that they need the public's help in locating Amy's missing blue Porsche. They revealed to the public that they believed the missing vehicle might somehow be involved in the murders.
The police asked anyone to come forward if they thought they saw the blue 2008 Porsche any time between 10.30 and 5.30 p.m. the previous day. Within hours, traffic cameras locate the stolen car. The blue Porsche had been set on fire in New Carrollton, Maryland. On May 16th, the police released a video of a person observed walking away from the Porsche's location.
The tape was pulled from surveillance cameras of a nearby business. Now, the quality of the tape isn't great, but when you watch it, you can still see an individual walking away from the direction of the parked car. The police released the video in hopes that someone would see it and help them identify the person seen in the video. The police didn't wait for the public's help.
After investigators released the surveillance tape, they interviewed everyone who knew the Savopolis family and their housekeeper. Because they believed the murders were personal. They knew they needed to question those closest to the family. Some of the people police interviewed were individuals who worked inside of the home, as well as employees of American Iron Works, Saab's company.
These interviews led police to Sov's assistant, Jordan Wallace, the same Jordan Wallace who Sov called to withdraw $40,000 in cash and dump it in the garage. When the police first heard about this transaction involving Sov and Jordan Wallace, red flags were raised. The police were suspicious about Jordan Wallace's involvement in the murders.
But as the police interviewed more of Saab's employees, the police learned that this type of money transaction wasn't atypical. So the police cleared Jordan Wallace as a possible suspect. The police also interviewed Nellie, the family's other housekeeper. Nellie told the police about the strange and contradictory text messages and phone calls she received from Saab and Amy.
She told the police that she knew something was wrong that night. On May 18th, the police got a huge break in the case. A key piece of forensic evidence was found that changed the entire course of the investigation. Inside the burnt Savopolis home, investigators recovered several vital pieces of forensic evidence.
The evidence included several pieces of hair and leftovers in a takeout pizza box. Investigators found several half-eaten slices of pizza. Some slices only contained the crust. The half-eaten pizza slices were sent to the crime lab for testing. The police were hopeful that their suspect liked pizza.
When the pizza crusts were tested, the test revealed a complete DNA profile. The DNA profile was run through CODIS, the FBI's national DNA database, and it came back with a hit. The DNA profile belonged to Darren Dylan Wint. Darren Wint was a 34-year-old former Marine from Guyana. Wint was no stranger to the criminal justice system.
When the police ran his background, they learned that he had a lengthy history of violence. Offenses, including multiple stabbings, and one incident, involved Wint threatening a toddler. But it wasn't just Wint's criminal record that interests the police. Wint was also a former employee of American Ironworks, Sov's company.
Arrest records revealed that in 2015, just months before the murders, Wendt was arrested outside of American Iron Works. When he was arrested, he was carrying a BB gun and a machete. The court ultimately dropped the weapon charges after Wendt agreed to plead guilty to possessing an open alcohol container.
A moment of leniency by the criminal justice system that allowed Darren Wint to become a murderer. Darren Wint's DNA found on the pizza crust inside of the Savopolis home proved that he was at the scene. Domino's Pizza that was called to the house by Amy. Now, the police just needed help arresting him. The police reached out to Wint's father.
He agreed to call his son, and when Wint answered, detectives jumped on the phone line. The police informed Wint that his DNA was found inside of the Savopolis home. They told him to turn himself in. He can either walk into a police station himself or simply call 911. But Wint didn't do either. He ran.
The police assembled a fugitive task force to track down Darren Wint. Wint was now the prime suspect in a quadruple murder, so the urgency to locate him was high. On May 21st, Darren Wint was arrested at a Howard Johnson Hotel parking lot in Maryland. In his possession, he had over $10,000 of cash.
While Darren Wendt was in police custody, investigators had a difficult time believing that Wendt could have pulled this off on his own. Throughout the investigation, there was no other physical or forensic evidence that suggested anyone else was inside of the Savopolis home. Three years after the murders, Darren Wendt's trial began in October 2018.
At trial, prosecutors painted a picture about what they believed happened back in May 2015. Prosecutors believed that sometime on May 13, 2015, Wendt entered the Savopolis family home. He likely encountered Vera, Amy, and Philip. Once they were subdued, he instructed Amy to call her husband, Savv.
She told him to leave the martial arts studio and come home. Once Saav arrived home, he was also subdued. Wint tied all four of them up, threatened to kill them. Darren Wint then held the family and housekeeper hostage inside of the home for nearly 22 hours.
During those 22 hours, Wint instructed Amy and Sov to make those phone calls to Nellie, the other housekeeper, to keep her away from the house. Wint made Sov call his business associate, Jordan Wallace. He instructed Wallace to go to the bank, withdraw $40,000 in cash, and drop it off in the garage. Once Darren Wint got what he wanted, the money, he killed every single one of them.
tortured them, killed them, and then set the house on fire. According to the prosecution, the motive behind this quadruple murder was simple. Money. $40,000 of it. Money that Darren Wint thought would solve all of his problems. The prosecution presented their crucial piece of forensic evidence to the jury. Darren Wint's DNA was found on a slice of pizza inside the home.
Sometime while holding his victims hostage, he became hungry, instructed Amy to order two pizzas from Domino's, a decision that ultimately led to his identification. Darren Wint's defense attorney presented a much different story. According to Wint's attorneys, he was inside of the Savopolis family home, but he wasn't the killer himself.
In fact, according to the defense, Wendt didn't even know the family and housekeeper were home. He said it was his brother and half-brother who invited him over to the house. He told the jury that he didn't ask whose house it was or what they were doing there. He said his brothers asked him to come over and he did.
And when it came time for the prosecution to ask him about his DNA found on the pizza crust, well, he admitted he ate it. He just didn't like to eat the crust. After a six-week-long trial, the jury deliberated for two days. After two days, the jury came back with a verdict. Guilty. Darren Wendt was found guilty of 20 criminal charges, including four counts of first-degree murder.
On February 1, 2019, Darren Wint, a former employee of Saav, was sentenced to four life sentences without the possibility of parole. The D.C. mansion murders were solved after forensic scientists successfully swabbed a pizza crust for DNA. The crime lab extracted a full DNA profile. The DNA profile was run through CODIS and matched Darren Wint, a convicted felon.
Without the technology of DNA swabbing, Darren Wendt may have been able to get away with a quadruple murder. In a February 2019 interview, Abigail, one of Sav and Amy's daughters, told reporters, quote, Words cannot describe the pain that is in my heart. I think about it every day. I will forever carry their love in my heart. Her sister, Katerina, said, quote,
Collateral damage is more than just physical. It's emotional. She said this when describing what it was like to return to the house after the fire. To share your thoughts on the DC mansion murders, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at Forensic Tales. Also, to check out photos from the case, be sure to head to our website, ForensicTales.com.
Don't forget to subscribe to Forensic Tales so you don't miss an episode. We release a new episode every Monday. If you love the show, consider leaving us a positive review or tell friends and family about us. You can also help support the show through Patreon. All right, you guys. Thank you so much for joining me for the very first episode.
Please join me next week. We'll have a brand new case and a brand new story to talk about. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.
Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio Production. The show is written and produced by me, Courtney Fretwell. For a small monthly contribution, you can gain access to bonus content and be one of the first to listen to new episodes. Or, if you simply want to support the show, head over to our Patreon page, patreon.com slash forensic tales.
You can also help support the show by leaving us a positive review and telling friends and family about us. For a complete list of sources used in this episode, please visit ForensicTales.com. Please join me next week. We release a new episode every Monday. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪
Thank you.