Pizza crust led police to murder suspect
Wealthy family killed in home
WASHINGTON — The critical clue that led District of Columbia police searching for a suspect connected to the deaths of four people at a home in an upscale Washington neighbourhood was a leftover pizza crust.
Daron Dylon Wint, 34, was arrested in Washington late Thursday for the slayings of a wealthy Washington family and their housekeeper a week after authorities said the family was killed and their mansion was set on fire.
Police have not detailed why Wint would want to kill 46-year-old Savvas Savopoulos, his 47-year-old wife, Amy, their 10-year-old son, Philip and the family’s housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, 57. Three of the four victims had been stabbed or bludgeoned before the fire.
Police said Thursday that Wint, a certified welder, worked for Savopoulos’ company, American Iron Works, in the past. Savopoulos was the CEO of American Iron Works, a construction materials supplier based in Hyattsville, Md., that has been involved in major projects in downtown Washington.
Three law enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation told The Washington Post on Wednesday that Wint was a match for DNA evidence left on the crust of a Domino’s pizza delivered to the home on May 13.
They believe that the victims were held captive overnight in the multimillion-dollar home, then killed before the house was set on fire the following day.
Despite the fact that the home had been burned, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said Tuesday that investigators had been able to collect quite a lot of evidence from the scene, including a video and several DNA samples.
Hunger and perhaps an oversight may have caused the suspect to leave a critical clue in this growing murder mystery that has captivated and terrified Washington.
“It’s not unusual for criminals to leave their evidence behind,” Lawrence Kobilinsky, an expert on DNA technology, said Thursday. “In fact, it’s quite common.”
During home break-ins, criminals are often known to do something very simple: Eat.
“They usually do strange things,” noted Kobilinsky, chair of the forensic sciences department at the City University of New York. “They’ll eat food from the refrigerator and thereby leave their DNA. Or they’ll leave their cigarette butts and leave their saliva. They just seem to go out of their way to leave their calling card behind.”
Four years ago, police arrested a man they suspected to be the elusive East Coast rapist after collecting one of his discarded cigarette butts and making a DNA match. That man, Aaron Thomas, was eventually sentenced to life in prison.
From a forensic standpoint, finding a partially eaten piece of pizza — or a spent cigarette butt — is like stumbling upon a pot of gold.
And in the case of the quadruple homicide, the task of determining when the DNA had been left was made infinitely easier because police were able to quickly learn that a Domino’s driver had delivered the pizza to the home around the time the crime was being committed.
A law enforcement source noted that the suspect appeared to have eaten the pizza with gloves on, not realizing that his saliva was being left behind.
“THEY’LL EAT FOOD FROM THE REFRIGERATOR AND THEREBY LEAVE THEIR DNA. OR THEY’LL LEAVE THEIR CIGARETTE BUTTS AND LEAVE THEIR SALIVA.” LAWRENCE KOBILINSKY