A Domino's pizza delivered to a handsome brick mansion on Woodland Drive in Northwest Washington became the key to solving one of the city's most horrifying crimes. On the evening of May 13, 2015, someone entered the home of Savvas and Amy Savopoulos, took the family and their housekeeper hostage, and held them for nineteen harrowing hours. By the time firefighters arrived the next afternoon to find the house ablaze, four people were dead. The break in the case came from an unlikely source: a discarded pizza crust, left behind by the killer, carrying a DNA profile that matched a former employee of the family's business.
The Savopoulos family lived in one of the most affluent corridors of Northwest Washington, D.C. Savvas Savopoulos was the CEO of American Iron Works, a prominent construction materials company. He and his wife Amy were active members of Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral. Their ten-year-old son Philip was home that evening, along with Veralicia Figueroa, the family's housekeeper. Beginning on the night of May 13, all four were held captive inside the house. Philip was tortured to coerce his parents into producing $40,000 in cash, which a family assistant, Jordan Wallace, delivered to the home. The victims were bound with duct tape. All four were killed by blunt-force trauma and stab wounds before the house was deliberately set on fire.
While the family was being held captive on May 13, a Domino's pizza was delivered to the house. Investigators recovered the crust and extracted DNA that led them to Daron Dylon Wint, a Guyanese immigrant who had come to the United States in 2000. Wint had briefly been a Marine Corps recruit before being medically discharged, and he had worked as a certified welder at American Iron Works, the Savopoulos family business. That connection led police to conclude the crime was not random. Wint already carried a lengthy criminal record, including a 2009 conviction for second-degree assault in Maryland and a 2010 guilty plea for malicious destruction of property. He was arrested on May 21, 2015, in Northeast Washington, just one week after the murders. Prosecutors believed Wint did not act alone, though he was the only person charged.
The trial of Daron Wint began with opening statements on September 11, 2018. On October 25, 2018, a jury found him guilty on all twenty counts, including kidnapping, extortion, and first-degree murder. He was sentenced to four consecutive life-without-release terms. His former defense attorney, Robin Ficker, expressed disbelief, telling reporters that Wint "wouldn't hurt a fly." Ficker also relayed the peculiar claim from Wint's family that he "doesn't like pizza and never eats pizza" -- an ironic protest given that the pizza crust DNA was central to his identification. Wint appealed in December 2020, arguing the judge improperly blocked an additional defense witness. In December 2022, the D.C. Court of Appeals largely upheld his conviction, acknowledging a minor evidentiary error but finding it inconsequential against the overwhelming weight of evidence.
The Woodland Drive neighborhood sits in the leafy, well-heeled section of Northwest Washington, blocks from Embassy Row and the National Cathedral. The violence of the Savopoulos case reverberated far beyond the immediate community. It raised uncomfortable questions about vulnerability in the capital's wealthiest enclaves and the dangers that can follow when a disgruntled former employee targets the family that once employed him. The Savopoulos home, once a symbol of the family's success, became an emblem of tragedy. The case remains one of the most notorious crimes in modern Washington history, a reminder that proximity to power and privilege offers no immunity from violence.
Coordinates: 38.927N, 77.064W. The Woodland Drive neighborhood sits in upper Northwest Washington, D.C., roughly 3 nautical miles northwest of the U.S. Capitol. Nearby airports: KDCA (Ronald Reagan Washington National, 5 nm south), KIAD (Washington Dulles, 22 nm west). Best viewed at 2,000-3,000 ft AGL. The neighborhood is identifiable by its tree-canopied streets near Rock Creek Park.