Suspected quadruple murderer Daron Dylon Wint captured without incident in D.C. after massive manhunt
The hunt for the suspect wanted for a sadistic slaughter in a posh Washington D.C. family home ended late Thursday when cops nabbed the fugitive in northeast D.C.
Federal marshals tracked Daron Dylon Wint, 34, to a Howard Johnson Express Inn at College Park, Md. and found him in a white Chevrolet Cruze in the parking lot, authorities said. They tailed him as he traveled to D.C. with two women in the car, one of whom was driving. The vehicle was following a white moving truck with three men inside.
Authorities pulled over both vehicles near 10th St. and Rhode Island Ave. where they found at least $10,000 cash in the truck. All of the people with Wint were taken into custody and he has been charged with first-degree felony murder while armed.
One of the men is Wint’s brother, sources told MyFoxDC.
“Just got him,” Washington Police Chief Cathy Lanier said around 11:30 p.m.
Earlier she’d said “just about every law enforcement officer across the country” was hunting the suspect.
Wint was wanted for killings of Savvas Savopoulos, the 46-year-old CEO of American Iron Works, along with his wife, Amy, their 10-year-old son Philip and a housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa.
Daron Dylon Wint, 34, is wanted on a warrant for first-degree murder while armed in connection to
The Savopouloses were survived by two teen daughters, who were away at boarding school at the time of the slayings. The family thanked law enforcement in a statement released Friday morning.
“While (the arrest) does not abate our pain, we hope that it begins to restore a sense of calm and security to our neighborhood and to our city,” the statement said. “We are blessed to live in a
“Our family, and Vera’s family, have suffered unimaginable loss, and we ask for the time and space to grieve privately.”
The doomed foursome were held captive for a day, and then the family’s $4.5 million home in a ritzy section of the nation’s capital was torched, authorities believe.
The dead businessman’s blue Porsche was found in a Maryland parking lot about two miles from Wint’s listed address.
Wint, who has ties to Queens and Brooklyn, worked for American Iron Works as a welder, although it’s unclear how long he was there.
Investigators just missed catching Wint in New York City Wednesday night, Robert Fernandez, commander of the U.S. Marshal Service’s Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, told reporters.
When investigators began following the cars out of the motel parking lot, they took a U-turn and a strange route as though trying to shake off anyone following them, Fernandez said. But authorities managed to get between them.
“We had overwhelming numbers and force,” Fernandez said. “They completely submitted immediately.”
Wint “was stoic” during the arrest, according to Fernandez.
Fernandez said he did not know if the group had weapons in the vehicles.
The massive manhunt landed Wint’s girlfriend in police custody in Brooklyn and had the NYPD on edge as authorities believed he might try to hide out with her.
Wint’s girlfriend, who hasn’t been identified, added to the chaos by claiming that Wint planned to give himself up, sources said.
Washington police pinged Wint’s girlfriend’s phone and tracked her down Thursday, sources said. She was picked up at a Brooklyn fast food joint and brought to the 69th Precinct stationhouse, where sources described her as cooperative.
NYPD sources said Thursday afternoon that Wint was department’s “No. 1 priority” and cops did not know if he would go down “in a blaze of glory or just quietly call up and surrender.”
“We’re preparing for every eventuality. We don’t think he’s mentally fit,” a source said.
Lanier called NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton on Thursday morning to report that Wint had made his way to Brooklyn.
Philip Savopoulos, 10 Washington D.C. police identified as Savvas Savopoulos, 46, and his wife, Amy Savopoulos, 47, found dead in a house fire. Two other bodies found in the house are believed to be the couple’s son, Philip, 10, and housekeeper Veralicia Figueroa, 57.
A task force of U.S. marshals that includes NYPD officers was leading the search for the suspect, said city Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce.
“We do believe the person was in Brooklyn at some point,” said Boyce. “He has some relatives and some friends here.”
But after his arrest, a police source said the NYPD was never completely sure if Wint was ever in New York City.
Wint was linked to the murders by DNA found on the crust of a pizza that was delivered to the house on May 13 while the victims were kept captive inside, authorities said.
The Domino’s deliveryman dropped off two pizzas, which were ordered online, at the front of the house, where money was left outside in an envelope, according to MyFoxDC.
An employee at the same Domino’s told the Daily News that management instructed staff not to talk to the media.
The same night, a personal assistant to Savopoulos dropped off $40,000 in cash to the house, police said.
The money was designated for the opening of a martial arts center in Chantilly, Va., another housekeeper said, noting Savopoulos’ enthusiasm for the sport.
Police said the money was gone by the time they arrived at the burning home.
Days after the killings, police said the house in a well-secured neighborhood showed no signs of forced entry, and authorities speculated that the killer could have been familiar with the family’s routines.
Wint goes by multiple names, including Dillion, according to his Facebook page. He is listed as self-employed and living in New York City.
The 5-foot-7, 155-pound man has been in trouble with the law before, with arrests ranging from assault, domestic violence, theft and alcohol violations, according to court records.
“He doesn’t listen,” his stepmother, who was not identified, told ABC News. “You try to tell him and guide him the right way, but he thinks he knows the law … more than anybody else. He was very argumentative. Everywhere he goes there’s an argument … very arrogant.”
He lived in Oswego, N.Y., near Syracuse, between 2006 and 2008, and was booked in the county jail on three occasions, but each time the charges against him were dropped, the Syracuse Post-Standard reported.
Wint has threatened to kill his own family and two other families over the years, according to records.
Robin Ficker, a defense attorney who represented Wint for minor criminal and traffic cases, said he doesn’t think Wint is violent.
“My impression of him — I remember him rather well — is that he wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Ficker said. “He’s a very nice person.”
Lanier, while saying police have not ruled out other suspects, confirmed Wint was the person of interest captured in blurry surveillance video released earlier this week.
She did not release a possible motive. Authorities had offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
Lanier declined to comment on whether authorities had been in contact with Wint between the murders and his arrest.
He was last seen wearing blue jeans, a blue hoodie and white tennis sneakers, she said. There is no vehicle information associated with him, and he may have fled in a bus, she said.
Wint, born in Guyana, immigrated to the United States 15 years ago and joined the Marine Corps that same year, according to court records in Maryland.
He received an honorable discharge for medical reasons, but never finished boot camp. He soon ran afoul of the law. Wint was convicted of second-degree assault in 2009 and pleaded guilty a year later to malicious destruction of property — both times in Maryland.
In 2010, he was arrested outside the American Iron Works headquarters in Maryland with a BB pistol and a 2-foot-long machete, but the weapons charges were dropped when he pleaded guilty to possessing an open container of alcohol.
In their final hours, the Savopouloses called their other housekeeper, Nelitza Gutierrez, to make sure she did not come to work.
“This is a nightmare for me. I can’t believe they’re gone,” Gutierrez said. “I loved this family very deeply and the little boy and my friend Vera.”
IMAGES:
Daron Dylon Wint, 34, was arrested Thursday night in Washington, D.C.
Wint during his time living in Oswego, N.Y., where he was booked in jail three times.
Wint was arrested on Rhode Island Ave. in Northeast Washington, according to cops. AP
Savvas Savopoulos and his wife Amy were two of the four victims. Facebook
Veralicia Figueroa was one of the victims.
A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigator walks out of the fire-damaged multimillion-dollar home Wednesday. Investigators say they could continue to collect evidence at the house for another week. Smashed windows and heavy fire damage scar the $4.5 million home. Washington police secure the vicinity around the fire-damaged multimillion-dollar home in northwest Washington, Wednesday. D.C. Firefighters discovered the bodies of Savvas Savopoulos, 46, his wife Amy, 47, their 10-year-old son Philip, and the housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, 57, last Thursday afternoon when they responded to a blaze at the house. District of Columbia Metropolitan Police maintain a perimeter around the house on the 3200 block of Woodland Drive. Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
For more on this story go to: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/quadruple-murder-suspect-believed-brooklyn-article-1.2230906