Investigators believe that the Washington, D.C., house fire that claimed the lives of a CEO, his wife, their 10-year-old son and a housekeeper was no accident.
Sources familiar with the investigation told NBC Washington that Savvas Savopoulos and the three others were likely taken captive on Wednesday evening. They were “bound and threatened” until Savopoulos gave the killers what they wanted sometime on Thursday afternoon.
There was no sign of forced entry into the multimillion-dollar home, meaning the killers had knowledge of how the family lived and of the complex security system the family had in place – and always left on, according to another housekeeper, Nelitza Gutierrez.
Over the weekend, police identified a person of interest in the case, releasing surveillance video that shows a hooded individual carrying a large bucket.
Gutierrez has said that the family was acting strangely in the days before they died. On Wednesday evening, she received a call from Savopoulos telling her to stay home because his wife Amy was sick.
“It was something very suspicious because I felt his voice was really tense,” Gutierrez told The Washington Post in Spanish. “And it was different than what he had said to me before.”
She said she called Amy on Thursday to see how she was doing, but Amy never answered. The family’s bodies, as well as that of the other housekeeper, identified as Veralicia Figueroa, were found later that day.
