NBC News
June 16, 2015
A weeklong manhunt for the killer of a wealthy Washington, D.C., family and their housekeeper has ended with the arrest of a welder who once worked for the family’s patriarch. The arrest doesn’t answer all the unanswered questions, but here’s a timeline of what’s known so far.
May 13
Savvas Savopoulos, the 46-year-old CEO of American Iron Works, is cleaning a martial-arts study he owns in Northern Virginia. Nelitza Gutierrez, a housekeeper for Savopoulos and his family, is there helping.
Savopoulos gets a 5:30 p.m. call from his wife, Amy, 47, telling him to come home to watch their 10-year-old son, Philip, because she has plans to go out. They live in a $4.5 million mansion on Woodland Drive in the Washington neighborhood of Woodley Park, not far from Vice President Joe Biden’s official residence.
Later that night, Savopoulos leaves Gutierrez a voicemail saying that her friend and fellow housekeeper Veralicia “Vera” Figueroa, 57, scheduled to get off work at 3 p.m., is going to stay with his wife, who has fallen ill and hasn’t gone out.
He tells Gutierrez not to come in to work the next day. Gutierrez later tells The Associated Press that he sounds flustered in the voicemail, and that he says Figueroa’s phone is dead.
At this point, authorities later come to suspect, the Savopoulos family and Figueroa are being held captive inside the mansion.
Amy Savapoulos orders two pizzas from Domino’s at 9:14 p.m. and gives unusual instructions: She says she is nursing a sick child and asks Domino’s to leave the pizzas on the front porch, ring the doorbell and leave.
May 14
Amy Savopoulos sends Gutierrez a text message confirming that Gutierrez isn’t going to report to work that morning. Gutierrez calls back and sends a return text but doesn’t receive a response, Gutierrez later tells the AP.
Gutierrez’s husband visits the Savopolous home and knocks on the door. No one answers. Not long after, Savvas Savopoulos calls the husband to say Figueroa is OK and has spent the night there.
That morning, Savvas Savopoulos’ assistant drops off a package containing $40,000 in cash.