Fire in upper NW?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The father's voice is very tense and distracted in the audio voicemail released. Clearly there was chaos around him. I would not give interviews if I were the housekeeper, I would be too scared.

I agree. this is so awful; clearly call made under duress. I know hindsight is 20/20, but why the fuck didn't the housekeeper call police or otherwise investigate if things seemed so off to her? And that b.s. at the end of the interview with her that "God saved my life." No he didn't! The person holding that poor family hostage "saved" your life. So selfish.

Yes. And the million dollar question is: why were they so interested in giving the other housekeeper an alibi? Why would the killers go to such lengths to make it seem like she had nothing to do with the scheme?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they really did transfer money to the killers, or somebody associated them, the police would have them identified by now using the transfer records, no? They just need to know which routing numbers the transfer went to and subpoena the receiving bank for the account holder's information.

Isn't the victim known to do business in the caymans? I would think untraceable transfers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they really did transfer money to the killers, or somebody associated them, the police would have them identified by now using the transfer records, no? They just need to know which routing numbers the transfer went to and subpoena the receiving bank for the account holder's information.

Isn't the victim known to do business in the caymans? I would think untraceable transfers.

People bank in the Catmans for tax avoidance. The transfer would not be untraceable. What movies are you watching?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't typically watch Fox News, but they had an interview with a former DC detective who said the blunt force trauma / knives was highly unusual and typically used by Latinos. Combine that with the links to the threats Savvas made on the Google group dedicated to martial arts, and the DCist commenter who posted that a fellow contractor said Savvas was the worst client ever and most likely to be murdered. Note that they were having contracting work done, yet he was also asking a housekeeper to help out at his new martial arts studio ... seems to suggest he had money problems with an angry contractor or subcontractor. And the impending move to PR seems strange too. This is a sad case. No one deserves this. I hope they catch the killers very very soon.

This description of the violence of Latino criminals reminds me of the more disturbing episodes on Breaking Bad. Cruel and sadistic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My first thought, upon reading the Washington Post article, was that this was unfortunately a case of familiscide, in which the housekeeper Mrs. Figueroa, was a collateral victim.

Why, I thought, would Mr. Savopoulos supposedly have told the other housekeeper, Mrs. Gutierrez, in advance, to come to a work site on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday of that particular week, instead of coming to clean his house on Thursday, as was her regular schedule. If that request was indeed simply for business-related reasons, then Mrs. Gutierrez is very fortunate.

A previous poster asked if anyone saw Savvas at work on Wednesday morning. The housekeeper who was not in the house, Mrs. Gutierrez, reported that she allegedly spoke to Savaas in person on the Chantilly job site on Wednesday morning. It was there that Mr. Savopoulos supposedly mentioned to Mrs. Gutierrez that his wife had plans to go out that night.

Then there is the fact that Mr. Savopoulos, assuming the contents of the alleged voicemails and text are confirmed, is the only person we know for certain was still alive in the house on Wednesday evening.

Finally there is the speculation regarding Mr. Savopoulos's extensive martial arts training and experience. Someone with that experience and traing could presumably take down a person or persons, particularly if they confronted those persons one by one throughout the day. And the may well have sustained blunt force injuries themselves in the ensuing struggle.

Of course, there is the loose end of the burned out vehicle discovered burning at some remote location more than five hours after the firefighters found the bodies in the house. It is possible that Mr. Savopoulos could have retained someone he knew to be capable of unorthodox jobs, to take the car away and torch it. The person might have known not to ask questions, thinking perhaps it was part of an insurance scam, but in no way knowing that the vehicle was related to the murders until later. (Why do this? For life insurance reasons, or to save your reputation among surviving family and friends.)

That last paragraph would require so much advanced planning by Savvas, and is just so forced into the narrative, that I no longer believe this was familicide, but rather a more common, amateur theft gone terribly awry.

You realize that Savopoulos was one of the victims, right?

I know that now, of course, as the police have determined that all four were victims.

Imagine a man is assaulted on the street by an assailant with a knife. The victim also carries a knife, and he fights off the assailant to the death. You come run across the two men dead on the street, both have sustained numerous knife wounds and other injuries. Initially, how do you know which one is the assailant and which one is the victim?

The assailant in this case got away. Are you reading about the same case? Whoever killed them took the car.

The point I am hung up on is this. There was allegedly a repeated emphasis that week on NOT having Mrs. Gutierrez come to work at the Savoloupos house that fateful Thursday.

First, Mr. Savoloupos allegedly orders Mrs. Gutierrez - earlier that week, or perhaps the previous week - to NOT come to the Savoloupos house on Thursday, but instead to work at the Chantilly work site on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Why did Mr. Savoloupos order Mrs. Gutierrez NOT to come on Thursday (if, in fact, he did so)? Was it simply a lucky coincidence for Mrs. Gutierrez? Did Mr. Savoloupos know something about that Thursday in advance? Or is the story not, in fact, true?

Second, Mrs. Gutierrez - while she is at work cleaning another house on a day she would otherwise be working at the Savoloupos house - receives a text from the phone of Mrs. Savoloupos to make sure she will NOT come to work at the Savoloupos house that day.

Before I read that all of the victims were in fact dead before the fire began, I wondered (as in an Agatha Christie mystery) if Mr. Savoloupos had planned the murders (For what purpose? Escape from financial problems? Insurance for his survivors? Anger at an affair?), thus his instruction re-arranging Mrs. Gutierrez's schedule to keep her away from the house on Thursday. He would have sustained blunt force trauma in the struggle to kill three other people, of course, and then subsequently set the fire to kill himself and cover up the evidence.

And the vehicle found hours later? Well, it could have been a pre-arranged diversion. Hire someone you know is willing to do an "ethically questionable" job, to take your wife's vehicle on Thursday and torch it. That person might suspect it is for an insurance scheme, but certainly not to cover up a murder. If the person you hire to do the job is here illegally, or on parole, or even of a certain race or ethnicity, they might be scared to come forward later, for fear of being accused of the murders.

All this over-the-top, Agatha Christie-type speculation and conjecture was, of course, before I learned that everyone was dead before the fire was set.

it is possible. i remember reading about a man who hired someone to kill him so his family would get insurance money. and maybe they were not all dead before the fire was set. i think 3 or more had blunt force injuries, but they did not specifically say that was the cause of death. in fact, one person was receiving aid at the scene.

i think all the trouble to give the maid an alibi makes her look very suspicious. don't come to work (even though you are not supposed to come to work) don't come to work and then just making sure you are not coming to work. unless that was supoosed to be a clue to her that something was amiss and she was too dumb to pick up on it. also, she doesn't seem distraught enough standing in front of the home where a little boy she knew well was just murdered and where she was, but for the repeated messages!!!, supposed to be.

[Anonymous]

Will you guys stop slandering the poor woman already?

People with money constantly have things being fixed and updated on their homes. I had a neighbor like that. There was constantly someone over there fixing or updating something. It could be anyone. I seriously doubt if its a 20-year female employee. You reach a certain maturity/perspective at that age. Yes, maybe the older maid knew the perp(s), but only let them in out of naivete. The Latinos particularly develop a quick comfort and familiarity with each other because of the common language and often other communal ties, such as country of origin, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they really did transfer money to the killers, or somebody associated them, the police would have them identified by now using the transfer records, no? They just need to know which routing numbers the transfer went to and subpoena the receiving bank for the account holder's information.

Could the extra time have allowed for the withdrawal of wire transfer money by a third party in another country or USVI, and the perps to get on a plane to another country? Leaving the car with another "associate" to dispose of....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't typically watch Fox News, but they had an interview with a former DC detective who said the blunt force trauma / knives was highly unusual and typically used by Latinos. Combine that with the links to the threats Savvas made on the Google group dedicated to martial arts, and the DCist commenter who posted that a fellow contractor said Savvas was the worst client ever and most likely to be murdered. Note that they were having contracting work done, yet he was also asking a housekeeper to help out at his new martial arts studio ... seems to suggest he had money problems with an angry contractor or subcontractor. And the impending move to PR seems strange too. This is a sad case. No one deserves this. I hope they catch the killers very very soon.

Many in the Latino community regularly wire money back home, which may lend creedance to his theory. They may have been very comfortable and knowledgeable about this method of payment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, if wire transfer traceable. I think surviving housekeeper not in on it...she just seems dumb.
In terms of arm chair sleuth I agree with many of his points. The racial profiling thing on Fox was that knives are often a preferred weapon of Latinos. Black men more likely to use guns. This is based on years of experience and facts of criminal cases.
The knife thing also connects to the husbands strange interest in martial arts using swords. If you look at who he followed in various chat rooms this is weird. No way around it. Maybe some think violent martial arts using weapons is norm but it is anything but for woodland drive and the cathedral...curiouser and curiouser...down the rabbit hole we go.....

By the way I am "the arm chair sleuth" and I am a she not a he! A DCUrbanMom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just saw this posted on another forum..some audio from the voicemail left for housekeepr:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/mansion-fire-mysterious-voicemail-latest-clue-dc-blaze/story?id=31121535

In the voicemail it sounds like you can hear a child cry out at one point..

I really wish they didn't release that.

It seemed like the housekeeper handed over her phone to the reporters?

Wouldn't the phone and its message be considered evidence? Why wouldn't the police have confiscated it? Why would the housekeeper still have the right to the message?

I am not a lawyer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The father's voice is very tense and distracted in the audio voicemail released. Clearly there was chaos around him. I would not give interviews if I were the housekeeper, I would be too scared.

I agree. this is so awful; clearly call made under duress. I know hindsight is 20/20, but why the fuck didn't the housekeeper call police or otherwise investigate if things seemed so off to her? And that b.s. at the end of the interview with her that "God saved my life." No he didn't! The person holding that poor family hostage "saved" your life. So selfish.

Yes. And the million dollar question is: why were they so interested in giving the other housekeeper an alibi? Why would the killers go to such lengths to make it seem like she had nothing to do with the scheme?

I think this is so easily explained - in hindsight she says something seemed off, but at the time would you have called the cops? What reasonable person could possibly have construed texts saying not to come in as - gasp - a life or death hostage situation? Wouldn't a thousand other explanations be a million times more probable? They really were sick. The husband was cheating on the wife and wanted his mistress around. The couple was fighting. They were looking at hiring someone else and didn't want her there. Who knows. Any number of reasonable explanations.

There's also a cultural angle being heavily ignored; those of you with hired help, do you really see them ever calling the police to your house on a flimsy hunch? How many of them would be worried of embarrassing you? So many of them are taught to defer to their employers they wouldn't even buck if the thought something was amiss. The whole "God saved me" thing is also cultural: Latinos are die hard religious, they attribute a lot to the hand of god. Her comment was almost certainly a reflection that the text happened through the good grace of divine intervention - not a callous comment not recognizing the father for his role. Just cultural.

All this talk of going to a bank, stealing the artwork, etc seems super fanciful. The simplest explanation is someone broke in, the maid confronted them, she was killed, things escalated and the robbers panicked until, eventually they set the house on fire. See 1999 Starbucks triple murder commuted by a barber.

[Anonymous]

This tragedy reminds me of that horrifying movie -- Funny Games.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The father's voice is very tense and distracted in the audio voicemail released. Clearly there was chaos around him. I would not give interviews if I were the housekeeper, I would be too scared.

I agree. this is so awful; clearly call made under duress. I know hindsight is 20/20, but why the fuck didn't the housekeeper call police or otherwise investigate if things seemed so off to her? And that b.s. at the end of the interview with her that "God saved my life." No he didn't! The person holding that poor family hostage "saved" your life. So selfish.

Yes. And the million dollar question is: why were they so interested in giving the other housekeeper an alibi? Why would the killers go to such lengths to make it seem like she had nothing to do with the scheme?

I think this is so easily explained - in hindsight she says something seemed off, but at the time would you have called the cops? What reasonable person could possibly have construed texts saying not to come in as - gasp - a life or death hostage situation? Wouldn't a thousand other explanations be a million times more probable? They really were sick. The husband was cheating on the wife and wanted his mistress around. The couple was fighting. They were looking at hiring someone else and didn't want her there. Who knows. Any number of reasonable explanations.

There's also a cultural angle being heavily ignored; those of you with hired help, do you really see them ever calling the police to your house on a flimsy hunch? How many of them would be worried of embarrassing you? So many of them are taught to defer to their employers they wouldn't even buck if the thought something was amiss. The whole "God saved me" thing is also cultural: Latinos are die hard religious, they attribute a lot to the hand of god. Her comment was almost certainly a reflection that the text happened through the good grace of divine intervention - not a callous comment not recognizing the father for his role. Just cultural.

All this talk of going to a bank, stealing the artwork, etc seems super fanciful. The simplest explanation is someone broke in, the maid confronted them, she was killed, things escalated and the robbers panicked until, eventually they set the house on fire. See 1999 Starbucks triple murder commuted by a barber.

Yes and the problem with your simple scenario is that if the maid was already dead why would they think another maid would be coming the next day that they would have to cancel?

[Anonymous]

It's true about all the art/money talk. Anyone who had hoped to obtain international wire transfers would certainly have planned this crime better. Seems like disgruntled employee or possibly robbery gone wrong.

[Anonymous]

That housekeeper is fishy as hell.