WASHINGTON — The man who tortured, beat, stabbed and burned alive a DC family and their housekeeper will never again live among free people.
A DC judge on Friday sentenced Daron Wint to four consecutive life terms with no possibility of parole in the murders of Savvas and Amy Savopoulos, their 10-year-old son, Phillip, and Vera Figueroa, their housekeeper.
Wint is appealing his conviction, and convincing an appeals court to throw it out would be the only way he'll ever get out of prison.
The courtroom was packed with survivors, who wept softly throughout. Daughter Abigail Savopoulos told the judge she still hears her mother's voice in her head, calling to her, "Hello, sunshine!" That she still stares at a phone, hoping somehow her mother will call. That when she recently got engaged, she picked up the phone to call her mom to give her the joyful news, before realizing she would never talk to her again.
Her sister, Katerina, was about to graduate from high school when her mother, father, and brother were killed. She wrote the judge that she had to visit cemeteries instead of colleges, shop for coffins instead of a prom dress. And yet, she wrote, she forgives Wint.
"Hate cannot drive out hate," she said.
Wint stared expressionless at the defense table throughout the victim impact statements. When the judge asked him if he had anything to say, his only response was, "No, your honor."
Prosecutor Laura Bach called the mansion murders the most heinous crime ever in DC.
She said Daron Wint, "Has a quick temper, holds a grudge, and likes to use a knife."
She played a phone call he placed to a friend in which he promised to shoot his own mother, father, and brother in the head.
Judge Juliet McKenna called the murders, "heinous, violent, and cruel." She said it was beyond comprehension that someone could inflict such suffering on a fellow human, especially a child.
Wint held the four for almost 24 hours in the home on Woodland Drive in May, 2015, extracting $40,000 in ransom, and killing them anyway. He was convicted in October 2018 of 20 counts of murder, kidnapping, extortion and arson.
Wint was a welder at the Savopoulos family company, American Iron Works, in Prince George’s County, Md. until he was fired.
He tied up Phillip and Figueroa with duct tape and zip ties, and then captured Amy and Savvas as they came home. He held the four overnight until Savvas' assistant left a bag of cash in the garage, and then murdered all four and set the house on fire.
Firefighters found the murder victims in two different rooms after responding to calls for flames shooting out of the windows of the stately home.
Detectives found Wint’s DNA on a pizza crust and a knife inside the house, and a hair that matched him in the bedroom with Phillip Savopoulos’ badly burned body.
He will serve four consecutive life sentences in prison in DC.