A housekeeper for a wealthy Washington, DC family that was held hostage and then brutally murdered in their home in 2015 said on Friday that there were signs something was wrong in the weeks leading up to their deaths.
Nelly Gutierrez worked for business executive Savvas Savopoulos and his wife Amy for nearly two decades, and was working elsewhere on May 14, 2015 – the day the couple, their 10-year-old son, Philip, and another housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, 57, were all murdered.
Authorities arrested one suspect in the case, Daron Wint. His trial is set to begin in September 2018.
Nelly Gutierrez worked as a housekeeper for a wealthy Washington, DC family that was held hostage and then brutally murdered in their home in 2015
Gutierrez worked for business executive Savvas Savopoulos (left) and his wife Amy (right) for nearly two decades
Slain: The couple’s son, Philip Savopoulos, 10 (left), was also found dead, along with housekeeper Veralicia Figueroa, 57 (right), who later died in hospital
Gutierrez said on Friday that she saw signs of stress on Amy Savopoulos, which she believes suggests that she knew trouble was imminent.
She said that Figueroa, her friend and colleague, called her and told her that Savopoulos ‘locked [her] out [of the home] with the dog’ because she had ‘left to get flowers with the niece.’
Savopoulos was ‘so distracted, how can she lock Vera out with the dog,’ Gutierrez told News 4.
A month before the murders, Gutierrez said she received an email from Savopoulos after she had misplaced emails and phone numbers.
‘Can you forward Vera’s phone number tonight?’ the email reads.
‘Can you ask her to stay at my house until the dogs arrive and then make sure they go out for a walk?’
Gutierrez said on Friday that she saw signs of stress on Amy Savopoulos, which she believes suggests that she knew trouble was imminent
A month before the murders, Gutierrez said she received an email from Savopoulos after she had misplaced emails and phone numbers. ‘When you do things like this it’s because you’re not focused,’ Gutierrez said on Friday
Savopoulos was constantly changing her housekeepers’ schedules.
One week before the murders, she left a voice mail on Gutierrez’s phone asking her to rearrange her schedule.
‘Hey Nelly, it’s Amy,’ Savopoulos said in her message.
‘I am calling to see if I could get you and your crew two days next week… either Monday Tuesday or Tuesday Wednesday.’
Gutierrez says this was unusual behavior for her boss.
‘When you do things like this it’s because you’re not focused,’ she says.
‘It’s because you’re distracted.’
Gutierrez believes Savopoulos knew that her family was being targeted.
Last year, Gutierrez gave her first interview to NBC 4.
She said that on the day of the murders she received a text message from Amy asking her not to come to the home, which likely saved her life.
‘I think about what happened that day, every single day,’ she said.
Stay away: This is the text message that Gutierrez received from Amy Savopoulos on the morning of May 14. Just hours later Mrs Savopoulos, her husband, son and housekeeper would be found dead
Gutierrez also revealed that, weeks before the murders, Figueroa told her that she often saw men watching the house.
‘That’s what she told me. But I never paid too much attention, because I was busy,’ Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez said that, on May 13, the day before the murders, she received a call from Amy asking if she could clean a martial arts studio that Savvas had bought in Chantilly, which was due to open.
Amy said they were ‘down to the wire’ and desperately needed it cleaned.
Figueroa was meant to go with Gutierrez to help, however chose to stay to work at the house – a decision investigators said may have cost her her life.
According to NBC, Savvas drove himself to the studio on the day, which was unusual because his assistant usually drove him around.
At around 5pm he received a call from his wife, asking that Savvas return home.
Gutierrez was there when he took the call, and believes Wint – the man charged with the quadruple murder – was inside the house at the time.
Gutierrez also suspects that Wint entered the house believing Savvas was home, because he had taken his wife’s car, and his remained in the driveway.
Gutierrez said Savvas quickly left the studio and asked her to lock up.
‘That was the last time I talked to him,’ she said.
Daron Dylon Wint (left and right), who was charged in the slayings of the three family members and their housekeeper, pleaded not guilty to the crimes last year. His trial is set to start in September of next year
A final text message was sent to Gutierrez from Amy’s phone the day after, on May 14.
‘I am making sure you do not come today,’ the text message said.
It was just hours later that police and firefighters arrived at the house, which had been set on fire.
Gutierrez says she understands how close she came to being involved in the tragic events that happened that day – and that she thinks about it constantly.
‘It’s so painful. Sometimes its too hard for me,” she said.
In February of last year, Wint, 35, pleaded not guilty after being indicted on 20 felony charges including murder, kidnapping, extortion and arson.
Wint, a resident of Lanham, Maryland, was arrested a week after the fire at a $4.5million mansion.
The three family members were dead inside, while Figueroa was found unconscious, but later died in hospital.
The four were held captive inside the home for at least 18 hours while they arranged for $40,000 in cash to be dropped off at the home for their captors, authorities say.
After the money was delivered, all four were killed, court documents said.
According to court documents, Savvas, Amy Savopoulos and their housekeeper were beaten with a baseball bat and stabbed.
Philip, their 10-year-old son, was stabbed and burned, according to the indictment.
Wint, a welder who once worked for Savvas Savopoulos’ company, American Iron Works, was linked to the crime scene by DNA, according to documents previous filed in the case.
His DNA was found on the crust of a partially-eaten slice of pepperoni pizza in a pizza box in the home near where the three adults were found, the documents said.
The pizza was one of two ordered by Amy Savopoulos the night of May 13 while the group was ‘being held against their will,’ the documents said.
A fire at the $4.5 million Savopoulos home was set on fire back in May 2015, and lead emergency services to where the bodies of business executive Savvas Savopoulos, his wife, Amy, and their 10-year-old son, Philip, were found dead inside
Investigators inspect the fire-damaged multimillion-dollar home in northwest Washington home back in May
And CNN reported that forensic analysis also matched traces of blood on Wint’s shoe to at least one of the murder victims, two law enforcement officials have said.
Prosecutors said Wint’s charges include 12 counts of first degree murder while armed, all with aggravating circumstances.
The grand jury charged Wint with ‘aggravating circumstances,’ including a finding that the murders were especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, prosecutors said.
If convicted, Wint could face a mandatory 30 years up to a life sentence without parole for each of the 12 murder charges.
Authorities said in a previous court document that they believed the killings ‘required the presence and assistance of more than one person’ but no one else has been charged.
Wint’s father spoke out at the time of his arrest back in May and said ‘We hope that whoever committed these heinous crimes – my son included – will suffer the consequences of their actions.’