Fire in NW: Facts Only

[Anonymous]

This is a “New Topic” to consolidate and post information reported/confirmed by the media or police in the case. Please post confirmed updates here. If I have missed any key confirmed details please add them.

This new forum will only be allowed to remain active if posts are only to new information released by the media or the police. Only confirmed information, please, no speculation or personal theories. Please leave the personal theories on this forum: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1935/471170.page



Key Individuals
Savaas Savopoulos (SS): 46 y/o CEO of American Iron Works
Amy Savopoulos (AS): 47 y/o wife of Savaas, active in St. Albans community and St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral
Phillip Savopoulos (PS): 10, in 4th grade at St. Albans (in DC) living at home
Nelitza (Nelly) Gutierrez (NG): Savopoulos family housekeeper of 20 years, has established a GoFundMe page for Figueroa’s family
Veralicia (Vera) Figueroa (VF): 57 y/o housekeeper working for/with Nelly Gutierrez, with the Savopoulos family for 2 years, from El Salvador and planned to retire next year
Abigail Savopoulos: 19, in 12th grade at boarding school at Mercersburg Academy (in PA), set to graduate this week
Katerina Savopoulos: 16, in 11th grade at boarding school at The Peddie School (in NJ)




Prior to Wednesday
Neighbors report prowler, aggressive vacuum salesman, and person banging on the doors in the neighborhood

PS injured in go-kart accident, home with a concussion



Wednesday
VF texts NG that she plans to work at the family home and will be done by 3pm

SS talks to his sister

Family’s Porsche (later found burned) seen speeding up the street

SS takes NG to Chantilly to the soon-to-open dojo with him, plans to stay until 7pm. NG had been asked to work at the dojo Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday instead of going to the house on Thursday.

SS tells NG he has to leave early (around 5-6pm) to go home because he has to take care of PS because AS is going out

SS leaves voicemail for NG telling her that VF is spending the night because AS is sick and they are dealing with a situation with PS (NG has commented that VF never stayed over with the family). The message is not received until Thursday morning.

Domino’s makes pizza delivery to the house just before midnight – two pizzas left at the door, envelope with cash left out for delivery man



Thursday
VF’s husband (Bernardo Alfaro - BA) comes to the house, knocks on the door, no answer but senses someone is inside

Shortly thereafter (or as BA is going around to the back of the house – reports vary) SS calls BA to say VF spent the night & needed to stay because AS might need to go to the hospital (another source says they were currently at the hospital) because she was sick (BA thinks this is odd because VF does not drive)

SS calls AIW to have assistant deliver $40K – some sources say it was for the dojo opening some that it was requested for “art”

Assistant leaves $40K on the front porch ($40K not recovered by the police) and then drives to Chantilly

Just before 10am, AS texts NG confirming she will not come to the house. NG is at another client’s house at the time.

NG calls AS to make sure everything is OK but no one answers the phone

10:30am Porsche is reported to be near the family home

Fire & rescue personnel arrive at 1:30pm to respond to the fire

Three adults found in one room in chairs, doused with gasoline

Three of the victims had been beaten and stabbed prior to the fire being started

PS found in his bed, burned beyond recognition, lacerations to the body

One adult (a neighbor reports Amy) removed from the house on a stretcher and EMTs perform CPR

SS’s mother calls NG to ask if she is at the house and does she know anything about the fire

Family’s Porsche found on fire in the parking lot of St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Lanham, MD at 5:15pm

Man seen running behind banquet hall near the parking lot where the Porsche was found (Police release video of person of interest running away from area where burning car was found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh8egOuX4rc)



Police/Additional Notes
The family’s dogs were outside the house in the backyard. So far no reports of them making noise during the ordeal.

Police have taken bloodhounds to the lot where the car was found and have spent days analyzing evidence from the home.

Police have stated they think there was more than one person involved and that that person knew the family’s routine.

Police have stated the family’s extensive alarm system was disabled and there was no evidence of forced entry to the house.

Police have indicated that the perpetrators “made mistakes.”



Sources of information:
https://twitter.com/BruceLeshan

https://twitter.com/Fox5Wagner

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3089981/Killers-ordered-Domino-s-pizza-tortured-CEO-wife-son-DC-mansion-emerges-assistant-dropped-40-000-package-murdered.html

http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/29114637/savopoulos-fire-deaths

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Mansion-Murder-NW-DC-Woodley-Four-Dead-Savopoulos-Housekeeper-304439421.html

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Victims-in-Woodley-Park-Slayings-Were-Held-Overnight-304161751.html

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Two-Victims-in-Burned-DC-Home-Identified-303943171.html

http://www.wusa9.com/story/news/local/2015/05/20/savopoulis-10-year-old-boy-tortured-before-murders-and-fire-in-dc/27643991/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/housekeeper-of-dc-couple-found-dead-wondered-if-something-was-amiss/2015/05/16/08140154-fbf7-11e4-9030-b4732caefe81_story.html?tid=hpModule_99d5f542-86a2-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/police-investigating-package-filled-with-cash-dropped-off-at-door-of-slain-family/2015/05/20/a100af9e-ff07-11e4-8b6c-0dcce21e223d_story.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/slain-housekeeper-planned-to-join-kids-in-el-salvador-after-years-of-support/2015/05/18/bc205826-fd84-11e4-8b6c-0dcce21e223d_story.html

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/20/politics/dc-house-fire-money-motive/

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/4-found-dead-home-suspicious-fire-fd-article-1.2222874

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/several-dead-at-house-in-upper-northwest-washington/2015/05/14/9d4df8ee-fa6f-11e4-9ef4-1bb7ce3b3fb7_story.html

[Anonymous]

Left off the lawn crew - unclear on what time they arrived and left from the family property.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for this, the other thread has become unreadable and I didn't know what was fact and what was fiction.

[jsteele]

Just to stress, this thread is for posting information updates. If you want to discuss, offer an opinion, etc., please use the other thread. I will be remorseless about removing posts that don't adhere to that guideline.

One exception: it is absolutely permissible to thank the OP. So, thanks OP!

[Anonymous]

Wow thank you OP. I was so confused and appreciate these factual updates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow thank you OP. I was so confused and appreciate these factual updates.

+1

[Anonymous]

OP here - I can't get back that hour+ of my life ... actually maybe I can by stopping reading the other thread.

If there are questions about confirmation for certain points stated above, please check the links I posted first and if you can't find it there I'm happy to see what I can find.

[Anonymous]

On the way home, I heard Pat Collins report that the 40k had been requested on Monday...has that been confirmed elsewhere?

[Anonymous]

Is the gokart story about Phillip true or something they told the housekeeper so she wouldn't come to the house?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On the way home, I heard Pat Collins report that the 40k had been requested on Monday...has that been confirmed elsewhere?

NP here -- the only question I had about the OP's excellent summary pertained to the request for 40 k. I do not recall reading that that happened Thursday am.

On the other thread, I found this excerpt from a recent Washington Post article -- a flurry of telephone contact on Thursday morning. Despite the dcum poster's "strong inference", Mr. Savopoulos' objective not explicitly defined.

'Anonymous wrote:
Newest update Washington Post:

"The documents show a flurry of phone calls among Savvas Savopoulos, a bank, an accountant, the personal assistant, a construction company executive and Savopoulos’s American Iron Works company in the hours before the fire. The calls started shortly after 7 a.m. May 14 and ended just before noon. The fire was reported at 1:15 p.m.

The assistant, who did not return messages left on his cellphone Wednesday, tried to call Savvas Savopoulos about 1:40 p.m. but got no answer, the police documents show. Savvas Savopoulos had called the assistant at 11:54 a.m. — the last incoming or outgoing call he made or answered before the fire."

To me, there is a strong inference that Savvas was still desperately trying to raise MORE money for the killers after the assistant had dropped off the package of cash. I've always thought these people simply killed to eliminate witnesses. They killed brutally because they are brutes (and may not have wanted to risk carrying a gun or, if they had a gun, have shots heard -- silencers are spy story stuff). However, this makes me think that some of the brutality was anger and frustration by the killers when they realized they couldn't get more money in a short time period.

[Anonymous]

I think he was home from school that day for that reason but I can't find anything that clearly confirms it.

[Anonymous]

OP here - to clarify, I thought it was confirmed that the request was for the assistant to bring the package ($40K) to the house and leave it on the porch. I also am unclear as to when the $40K actually became an amount of money he was planning to have around that week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the gokart story about Phillip true or something they told the housekeeper so she wouldn't come to the house?

I feel ghoulish posting this, but someone posted this on the other thread:

http://ekartingnews.com/2015/05/04/ekn-trackside-2015-superkarts-usa-fikse-wheels-pro-tour-springnationals-sunday-report/

If you scroll down and read carefully, you can see the little boy Philip was in fact injured in early May. Whether this was a pretext or not -- with our children, it's always a judgment call, isn't it?

[Anonymous]

I just want to confirm if the statement that the alarm was "disabled" can be understood to mean it was just off or does it mean that it was deliberately tampered with/deactivated by someone?

[Anonymous]

My understanding from the reports is that they had an extensive and sophisticated alarm system the likely had to be more than turned off. But I am unclear if they have explicitly said that it was disabled in a technical way vs. having the code punched in.