• Black thug brutally tortures, murders loving family in D.C.

By Pete Papaherakles —

Over a thousand people packed Saint Sophia’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, D.C. on June 1 to attend the funeral of the Savopoulos family, brutally murdered two weeks earlier. All the major news networks were lined up across the church’s entrance waiting for the three coffins to be taken out of the hearses and up the church steps.

At exactly 12 noon, the hearse doors opened and the pallbearers carried the two adult coffins followed by a small child-sized coffin, all covered with white flowers, up and into the church as dozens of camera shutters filled the solemn silence of the moment.

The Savopoulos family—Savvas Savopoulos, 46, his wife Amy, 47, and their 10-year-old son Philip, along with their housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, 47—were all found dead by firefighters in the family’s burning home on Woodland Drive in Northwest D.C. on May 14, only blocks away from Saint Sophia Church and the National Cathedral.

On May 18, Daron Dellon Dennis Wint, a 34-year-old black career criminal, was arrested for the quadruple murder by police after his DNA was found on a Domino’s pizza crust and box on the scene by police detectives. It was determined that Wint held the family and the housekeeper captive for 19 hours while he beat and tortured them before murdering them and setting the house on fire.

During that time he got hungry and had a pizza delivered. He also forced Savopoulos to have $40,000 in cash delivered to the house by one of his assistants before massacring the family. After setting the house on fire, Wint took Savopoulos’s Porsche and drove away to nearby Prince George’s County, where he torched the Porsche also.

The gruesome murders sent shock waves through the posh Woodley Park neighborhood where the Savopoulos family lived in their 8,000-square-foot mansion and were well known and loved by the neighbors. They were described as “a model family.” The story made newspaper headlines across the nation as well as news around the world.

Savopoulos was not only a very successful businessman but a very intelligent, gifted and generous man. The family donated money to charities, especially for children’s foundations and orphanages, both in the United States and overseas. The Savopoulos family also volunteered much of their time for charities as well as being very active in the Saint Sophia community, where Savopoulos was once an altar boy and where young Philip was baptized.

The eulogy at the funeral was delivered by Archbishop Demetrius, the Greek Orthodox archbishop for all of North and South America, who also performed several of the funeral liturgy rituals, including escorting the three-casket procession from the altar to the hearses out on the street, while chanting funeral hymns and swinging the incense censer over the caskets. The National Cathedral Choir was also part of the ceremony and sang “Good-bye Brother, Good-bye Sister.”

Savopoulos was the president and chief executive of American Iron Works, which played a role in building the MCI Center and City Center in Washington as well as the Washington Nationals Stadium. His company also provided the steel to repair the Pentagon after the 9-11 attacks.

Savopoulos graduated from law school but chose to help his father in the family business. He took American Iron Works from a small local iron fabricator to a multimillion-dollar steel company providing steel for high rises in the U.S. and even internationally.







Many Greeks in the Washington area who knew Savopoulos had nothing but praise for him and his family. Pete Gouskos, the owner of Parthenon Restaurant in Chevy Chase, said Savopoulos and his family frequented his restaurant often.

“They were a beautiful family. Always happy, polite and always left a generous tip,” he said.

Marinos Triantos, president of Triantos Electric said he knew the family for many years. He knew Savopoulos’s father, Philip, when American Iron Works was just a small shop in Hyattsville.

“The old man used to make iron railings and small steel projects. He always had time for me even when the company started getting bigger,” said Marinos. “After his son joined the family business he really took it to another level. He was brilliant. What a terrible loss this was. What horror.”

Mrs. Savopoulos was widely known as a deeply involved mother who spent much of her time volunteering at her children’s schools or fundraising for them.

The couple also had two daughters, Abigail, 19, and Katerina ,17, who survived the massacre because they were away at school.

Young Philip was described as a very intelligent, precocious child who loved go-cart racing.

Savopoulos, who also enjoyed fast cars and owned a Bentley, a Porsche and a Range Rover, loved NASCAR, and was the only American elected as a judge in the Paris auto racing federation. He and young Philip traveled to many car races across the U.S. and Savopoulos had hired a top-notch racing coach for Phillip.

Ten days before the family was murdered the two had traveled to Phoenix where Philip would compete in his final race.

It is unclear why Wint murdered everyone other than pure savagery. He got the $40,000 he asked for, yet he still killed them all. Not only that, but he beat and tortured them for 19 hours. It was reported that Wint was an employee of American Iron Works 10 years ago. Police suspect that he might not have acted alone and that others might have also been involved in order to carry out a crime of this magnitude. The media did not even mention the fact that Wint is black and the Savopoulos family were white.

Brutal black-on-white murders are at epidemic levels in America today. Many blacks feel it’s “payback time” for whitey due to slavery. Black rappers sing about “killing whitey” in their songs. Hollywood movies like “Jango Unchained” glorify blacks killing whites. Black leaders are constantly advising blacks to kill whites.

Blacks “need space to destroy,” said Baltimore’s mayor after the recent looting riots there.

“White privilege,” a recent myth, is cited as yet another perceived exploitation of blacks by whites.

Perhaps Wint justified his savagery on the Savopoulos family as some type of revenge for white privilege since they were successful.

Wint’s lawyer argued that his client could not have committed the crime because a pizza was ordered and Wint doesn’t even like pizza.