D.C. Police: Suspect in quadruple murder captured
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Police in Washington, D.C., say they a man suspected in the brutal murders of a Washington, D.C. family and their housekeeper has been captured.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier confirmed to CBS News in an email late Thursday that 34-year-old Daron Dylon Wint was in custody. CBS D.C. affiliate WUSA-TV reported Wint was arrested around 11 p.m. in northeast Washington and charged with first-degree murder while armed.
Wint was wanted in the killings of Savvas Savopoulos, 46; his wife, Amy Savopoulos, 47; their 10-year-old son, Philip; and the family's housekeeper, 57-year-old Veralicia Figueroa.
Commander Rob Fernandez of the U.S. Marshals Service said members of the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force located Wint at a Howard Johnson hotel parking lot on Route 1. Wint was a passenger in a white Chevy Cruze vehicle that left the hotel parking lot following a box truck, he said.
Authorities tailed the vehicles until they were able to block them in, and"multiple people" were taken into custody along with Wint, Fernandez said.
Fernandez said Thursday night after Wint's arrest that investigators had tracked him to New York City on Wednesday night, but they "barely missed him."
The victims' bodies were found May 14 in the Savopoulos family's mansion, which is just blocks from the Vice President's residence. The $4.5 million mansion had been set on fire and at least three of the victims suffered stab wounds or blunt-force injuries before the arson took place, according to police.
Police identified Wint, a native of Guyana whose last known address was in Lanham, Md., as a suspect in the murders on Wednesday. Sources told CBS News a pizza delivered to the house the night before the bodies were discovered linked Wint to the crimes.
CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports investigators took DNA from skin cells left on the pizza crust. The ATF matched the DNA to Wint, who has a lengthy criminal record. Maryland takes DNA samples from every suspect arrested in a violent crime and from those convicted of serious crimes, including burglary.
While authorities have not commented on a motive in the case, Lanier said previously that Wint, a welder, worked at a business owned by the family he is accused of terrorizing: American Iron Works, a steel company headed by Savopolous.
CBS News has also learned that hours before the Savopoulos mansion went up in flames, an assistant to Savvas Savopoulos was instructed to drop off a package carrying $40,000 in cash and leave the money outside.
Investigators think it's possible the family was held captive overnight and that the money delivered to the home was extorted from Savvas Savopoulos to stop the physical abuse of his family, including the torture of 10-year-old Philip.
On the same day the deaths were discovered, the Savopoulos family's Porsche was found in a parking lot in New Carrollton, Md., about 13 miles from the the house. It, too, had been set on fire.
Earlier this week, authorities released a surveillance video of a man believed to have left the car in the lot. Lanier said Thursday that Wint is believed to be the man in the video.
According to the Associated Press, the car was found about two miles from a home in Lanham, Md., tied to Wint.
Online court records indicate Wint has a criminal history that includes a conviction in 2009 for second-degree assault in Maryland, for which he was sentenced to 30 days in jail.
He also pleaded guilty in 2010 to malicious destruction of property. A burglary charge in that case was dropped, court records show.
Robin Ficker, a defense attorney who once represented Wint, told Crimesider he doesn't think Wint would "hurt a fly."
"I think he's a very nice person, a gentle guy. Anyone who believes he had anything to do with killing another person is completely wrong," Ficker said.
CBS News has learned Wint attended military boot camp for approximately two months in 2001, but did not complete the training.
Public records indicate Wint worked for Home Depot. A manager at a Home Depot in D.C. said he could not comment on whether Wint ever worked there. He instead referred all questions to the company's corporate offices, which said no one with Wint's name could be found in their records.
Amy and Savvas Savopoulos have two surviving teenage daughters who were away at boarding school when the murders took place.
Before the arrest but after Wint was named as a suspect, former FBI profiler Mary Ellen O'Toole told CBS News, "What they'll find in this person is that he's very psychopathic."
She said the ordering of pizza while holing captives in the state of terror fits the pattern of a diagnosable psychopath: someone without remorse.
"Their ability to do this, order a pizza, you have to imagine that the victims are crying, they're scared, they may even be having a physical reaction, these offenders continue to do what they're doing," O'Toole said.