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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

D.C. Murder Suspect Captured. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 22, 2015 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[12:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to this Friday edition of LEGAL VIEW.

I cannot say it any better than the commander of the capital area regional fugitive task force did, quote, "great takedown," end quote. Taken down, locked away and on the docket for an afternoon hearing today in a Washington, D.C., courtroom. The person behind all of this, Daron Dylon Wint, the prime suspect in the home invasion murders of an affluent D.C. businessman, the man's wife, that couple's 10-year-old son and the family housekeeper, which happened a week ago yesterday.

But less than 12 hours after the D.C. police announced that Wint was believed to be hiding out in a New York area home, possibly, he was traced instead back to a Maryland hotel. But he slipped out in a white car as the U.S. marshals were arriving. The car was tailing a moving truck and soon enough 20 car loads, 20 car loads of United States marshals, with a helicopter overhead, were on their tail. I'll let the commander pick up the story from there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CMDR. ROB FERNANDEZ, CAPITAL AREA REGIONAL FUGITIVE TASK FORCE: They did a - sort of a strange u-turn and we suspected that they may have thought they were being tailed. We were trying to get to a location where we could successfully take them down without putting anybody in danger. We also called the Prince George's County Maryland Police Department and they had a helicopter in the air in five minutes. Once we reached a location in D.C. where we felt we could take them down, then we did a vehicle pin maneuver on both vehicles and were able to arrest everyone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So everyone includes Wint and also includes two women and three other men, one of whom is reported to be Wint's own brother.

And I want to turn now to my CNN colleague Tom Foreman at the scene of the murders in northwest Washington.

Pick it up from there because, Tom, every time I look at my iPhone, I've got additional details that keep pouring in. What else do we know about Wint right now and those others who have been pulled in?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you're absolutely right, Ashleigh, it is just a jumble of information flying in right now, some of which I will say is unconfirmed. We don't really know what role any of these other people played in any of this, or if they just happened to be with him at the time. We do know that at least $10,000 was found in the possession of this group overall. Don't know if that's connected to the $40,000 taken away from the home back here.

We know the arrest was only about five miles from where we are right now, and now there seem to be even questions as to whether or not he ever went to New York where they were trying to catch him there. But hopefully they're getting toward those answers now. He's going to be in court this afternoon facing arraignment on this charge of first- degree murder involving a weapon, a very serious charge, and then we'll possibly find out more about the disposition of these other folks and whether or not anybody else is actually believed to have been involved in this crime or in the accidents afterward, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: So you said court this afternoon. Do we know if it's just Wint who's going to make that appearance or do we know if the others will be there too?

FOREMAN: Right now, he is the one that I know is going to be there.

BANFIELD: OK.

FOREMAN: I don't know about the other ones. Obviously, there's so many unanswered questions right now.

I will say this, here's one thing that we also know, great sigh of relief in this neighborhood and really for miles around because this really rocked a lot of people here. And the family even put out a statement after this arrest saying, "while it does not abate our pain, we hope that it begins to restore a sense of calm and security to our neighborhood and to our city. We are blessed to live in a community comprised of close circles of friends who have supported us and grieve with us."

And I can assure you, Ashleigh, many people are grieving over just the horrendous nature of what happened to this family in here, the two parents, the 10-year-old son, the housekeeper Veralicia Figueroa, and, of course, the two daughters, who were away at boarding school who really have lost absolutely everything, Ashleigh, and now have to deal with that new reality. It's unbelievable.

BANFIELD: I mean the horrors. Tom, look, your - it is unbelievable to me as well. I live in Connecticut and I lived through that horror with Dr. Petit and his family -

FOREMAN: Oh, sure. Yes.

BANFIELD: And it's so similar. The stories are invoking the same sickness in me that - I mean the housing environment that you're standing in right now and -

FOREMAN: Right.

BANFIELD: And you say they're calmed down. I felt it here. I felt it in the New York area when they said that he was being tracked here.

FOREMAN: Everybody has talked about that case, Ashleigh, because the similarities seem so strong. And I heard people in restaurants here days ago, I mean you would hear it across the room, people having ongoing debates about what could have happened, how could this have occurred here and what did it mean that the burning car was found somewhere else? And most of all, most of all, who on earth could do such a thing?

[12:05:06] BANFIELD: Who could do it?

FOREMAN: That was the real question.

BANFIELD: Who could do it?

FOREMAN: And now, if police are correct, we'll find out.

BANFIELD: Well, we called them animals in the Petit crimes and whoever did this is absolutely no different.

Tom Foreman, great work at getting all those details. The jumble, as you called it, together and making sense of it.

FOREMAN: You're welcome, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Thank you for that. Tom reporting live for us.

The takedown is by no means the end point in this story or any other big murder case and you know that. There's so much investigating to do, pristine investigating, because you want that conviction if that guy's guilty.

Joining me now to talk about the manhunt, the capture, the prosecution of Daron Dylon Wint as a starting point, CNN's law enforcement analyst and retired NYPD detective Harry Houck is here, and then live via Skype is Larry Koblinsky, forensic scientist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, and probably one of the best guys in forensics I have ever talked to.

So, start with you, if I can, Larry, and that is this, the DNA that was recovered from that pizza crust presumably inside that house, is that the most significant find at this point, or now that they have several other people under arrest as well, are they going on a matching mission to whatever else they found in that house?

LAWRENCE KOBLINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: Well, I think you're right, Ashleigh, there's got to be a great deal of evidence that the evidence collection team has. But what broke the case clearly was DNA. I mean once they identified the source of the DNA on that pizza crust, the next step is to speak to Wint and find out who his associates were in the commission of this crime, whether he had aiders and abettors.

But clearly the DNA broke the case and a lot of people just don't realize that when you bite into food, you not only leave bite marks, but you also leave your saliva, which is very rich in DNA and is a great way to track somebody. It's like a fingerprint. All you need to do is have an individual who's already a convicted felon and by searching the CODIS database, you've got a hit, and that's what really broke everything in this case.

BANFIELD: Yes. To that end, and that piece of pizza, that seemed to be the linchpin in starting the tracking and now the capture of this lead suspect, there is an attorney who is now putting himself out there named Robin Ficker and he has represented Mr. Wint in prior cases before the justice system. This is what he had to say about this former client, who knows if he's going to be his current client, but his former client and what kind of character he has and a little bit more on that piece of DNA too. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBIN FICKER, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR DARON WINT: I've represented him in six cases in the past. He was not found guilty in any of those six cases. I know him to be a kind, gentle, nonaggressive person, someone you wouldn't mind your grandmother going to lunch with. He's not the guy that did this. His DNA was found on pizza that was delivered outside the home and then later that pizza crust was found in a dumpster. But the murders were committed inside the home. They've got the wrong guy. It's a group grope, rush to judgment. There's a presumption of innocence which is not being mentioned by the police.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: All right, I'll mention it here, everybody has a presumption of innocence and you are entitled to a vigorous defense in the United States of America. It's what makes us superior. You are not entitled to a PR campaign by a former attorney who says things like he's not had these convictions. Put the rap sheet up again, guys, if you can. I'm going to ask our control room to put the rap sheet up. Yes, so we do have a restraining order. We've got a charge in second-degree assault. We've got a charge in a second-degree - oh, oh, wait a minute, we've got a 2009 conviction for second-degree assault. That's not the guy I want my grandmother hanging out with, which was what that attorney, Mr. Ficker, suggested in that live television interview.

Harry Houck, to you. So, yes, let's be real careful about DNA on the pizza.

HARRY HOUCK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Right.

BANFIELD: But if that DNA was on a crust of pizza in that home and you spent, let's say, more than 12 hours in that home terrorizing a family, if the allegations are true, don't you have a lot more forensics in that home too and how do you explain away that kind of stuff, a hair, a skin sample, some skin cells that shed.

HOUCK: Inside - right. This guy's - this guy's pulling on strings. I think he wants to be able to defend him. That's why he's talking the way he is.

I mean there's no way you're going to be able to dispute that DNA evidence in that house. There's no way in hell that that's ever going to happen.

BANFIELD: And we're not sure if it ever ended up in a dumpster. We have not had any details suggesting the pizza or the pizza box was in a dumpster.

HOUCK: Exactly. We don't know yet.

BANFIELD: All we know is it was at that scene.

HOUCK: Right.

BANFIELD: And it was real hard, even with transfer evidence and transfer problems in DNA processing, as Larry always points out, it's real hard to extricate yourself.

HOUCK: This evidence is - this evidence is tight.

BANFIELD: It's tight. It's tight. But you know what, everybody gets the presumption of innocence.

HOUCK: Exactly.

[12:10:01] BANFIELD: Thank you, Harry Houck. Thank you, Larry Koblinsky. Always nice to have you with us as well.

A whole new chapter of this drama is going to start this afternoon. You heard Tom Foreman just earlier saying he's going to make a court appearance. And when Daron Wint makes what is first to be of many likely court appearances, we are going to take a look at what perhaps they got against him. We're going to preview the prosecution after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: This afternoon, a former employee of the Washington businessman who was murdered last week in his own lavish home, along with his wife and his 10-year-old son and their housekeeper, well, that guy is due to hear the very serious charges against him in court. And make no mistake, they don't get more serious than this. that is Daron Dylon Wint. He was arrested after a manhunt that stretched from the D.C. outskirts, all the way up to Brooklyn and then back to a hotel in Maryland.

I want to bring back in my legal team, CNN legal analyst Danny Cevallos and HLN legal analyst Joey Jackson.

All right, guys, I want you to weight in right from the beginning here as these details roll in about what they've got, what they found, where they found him, who they spoke with and all of a sudden we have a cast of characters who have now been brought in alongside him. And a little bit of breaking news here, we're just being told he's been charged with first degree murder. We had already heard that it was going to be first degree murder while armed or at least what they call murder one, felony murder. So he's facing the most serious of serious, but I'll get you to weigh in. First court appearance after 3:00 p.m. I'm just hearing. Danny, they have good evidence. This is hard to refute.

[12:14:55] DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's fascinating because this DNA on the pizza crust fascinates me because there really isn't a lot of other explanations. You can't argue that the guy worked at the Dominos because nobody delivers pizza crusts, they deliver full pizza. And it's fascinating, just the subtle difference in whether you're a pizza eater who finishes his entire pizza slice or leaves a crust, had he just eaten that crust, where would we be today? It's a fascinating discussion of sort of forensic evidence.

BANFIELD: Well, I - sure. But if someone is in a home terrorizing a family overnight and into the wee hours of the morning, hours and hours on end -

CEVALLOS: They're going to leave something.

BANFIELD: You're sweating.

CEVALLOS: Yes.

BANFIELD: You hair is shedding. Your skin cells are shedding. You touch doorknobs and you open the fridge and you turn on the water. Somewhere, somehow, hey might have had something. But the database is what led them to find him.

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: CODIS database, that's right, with DNA in it. First of all, the lack of humanity of this crime, whoever - whether - I mean you have a suspect. Police believe that he did it. We'll talk about the DNA momentarily. But the unthinkable. And, I mean, Danny and I, as defense attorneys, certainly represent some people who, you know, are less than -

CEVALLOS: Are accused of terrible things, yes.

JACKSON: Yes, are less than stellar.

CEVALLOS: Terrible things.

JACKSON: But - but when you look at this, it really hits at the core in terms of what he did.

Now, in terms of the evidence, we know that there was a fire set by him in order to destroy it.

BANFIELD: Second floor.

JACKSON: Fire - fire oftentimes - absolutely - fire often times destroys evidence.

BANFIELD: Absolutely.

JACKSON: However, evidence remains intact.

Now, as defense attorneys, what you do in attacking the DNA, is the DNA doesn't explain how it got there, when it got there, and so that's going to be the attack. Where was the actual pizza crust found? You know, could he have been at some other place, other location. Defense attorneys will do whatever they need to do to wiggle out of that. But I think you need more evidence other than the DNA in terms of getting him -

BANFIELD: OK. How about this? How about this? Those people all arrested alongside this guy, could they be squeezed beyond imagination right now?

CEVALLOS: Oh, yes.

BANFIELD: I get it, accessory after the fact is an easy one if you're spiriting this guy away or hiding him or helping him get anywhere. But what if they can put something else on these five and say, you're going down for a first degree felony murder, you're going down for the most serious of serious, talk now.

CEVALLOS: Yes. Cases like this demonstrate that crimes rarely happen in a vacuum. Normally if you're carrying out something like this, fleeing or trying to get away, you're going to enlist the aid of other people. And common law enforcement technique is to squeeze those outer peripheral persons.

BANFIELD: Those concentric circles and to squeeze them in to - to the center.

CEVALLOS: Yes, those concentric - right. Right. Absolutely. And threaten them with what they - what they thought was maybe just giving a friend a ride, turn that into an accessory type case, and you would be surprised. Some people still refuse to speak, but many people are going to talk.

JACKSON: And, of course, there will be - or should be surveillance that's connected to the home to see whether or not he was going into the home, whether he came out of that home. There's some indication that the Porsche of the family was torched.

BANFIELD: Torched. Yes.

JACKSON: Some location away. There's surveillance from that. Can't exactly pick up, according to reports, whether it's specifically him, but it certainly looks to be him. And there's the - you see it right there. There is -

BANFIELD: There's the fire. The vehicle fire. Just incredible video. And I'll just add this to the story as well. Whomever was in that car, you could bet your bottom dollar they're taking DNA samples of every other strange - foreign DNA that they may have gleaned from that crime scene -

CEVALLOS: Yes.

BANFIELD: And seeing if they can match it to whomever was in that car, and the clothing and the products that they are able to extract from every single search warrant they get. Those people in the car and Daron Wint himself. They will try to match any DNA. Because if you had no business being in that home but your DNA says you were there, I don't think any amount of explaining is going to get you out of that.

JACKSON: There - right, there has to be a viable explanation.

BANFIELD: Yes.

JACKSON: And, remember, DNA, Ashleigh, is used to get you there and also to exclude people who may not have been there.

CEVALLOS: Yes, that's true.

JACKSON: Which is very important.

BANFIELD: One hundred percent. And there are problems with DNA, don't get me wrong. Presumption of innocence, you get a robust defense, but you do not get a PR campaign from whoever your attorney may have been or be in the future.

Danny and Joey, thank you for that. I do appreciate it.

The D.C. murder suspect Daron - or Daron Dylon Wint expected in a federal courtroom as we said round 3:00 or so this afternoon. CNN is going to continue breaking this story, getting you every detail as it comes to us. And it's just about every five to 10 minutes that we hear something remarkably new in this case.

You're going to hear a lot about this suspect in the coming days, in the coming months, but I want to focus right now on something very important and it is the victims in this case. Savvas Savopoulos was 46 years old. He was the president and CEO of the American Ironworks Company. This was a multimillion-dollar building materials manufacturing company. He was ambitious, certainly, and he was very generous. He and his wife were philanthropists. They gave at least $100,000 to the National Cathedral School. In his spare time, Mr. Savopoulos loved martial arts. He was about to open a martial arts studio.

His wife Amy, pictured, 47 years old and, according to "The Washington Post," she was a deeply involved mother who volunteered regularly at her children's schools. A neighbor told "The Post" that he often saw Amy walking the family's dog while her son raced around on his bicycle.

Now that son, this is Philip, Philip Savopoulos, just 10 - 10 years old. A child. "Washington Post" reporting that he went to school at Saint Albans, which is a prestigious all boys school.

[12:20:13] Their housekeeper, 57-year-old Veralicia Figueroa. She was also murdered in this horrible crime. "The Washington Post" says that she was working to support her two children back in her home, El Salvador, and she was preparing to go back home to those children. Thanks to her hard work, her children made it through college. She fell in love and she married a man in the United States and was in the next few years the plan was for that entire family to be together.

Up next, 170 bikers who are behind bars in Waco, Texas, in a jail, but it's their hundreds and maybe thousands of friends that police are really worried about. Are the gangs really arming themselves now with grenades and C 4? We have the documents to say this is not a joke and it sure ain't a rumor either.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: In Waco, Texas, about 170 members of a various different biker gangs are still sitting there in their jail cells, but now police think that they are in danger potentially from other bikers, angry that the police got involved in that big, deadly shoot-out last weekend. The state of Texas put out an urgent bulletin to all police departments warning them that, quote, "Bandidos and other motorcycle gangs are arming up for a war against the police."

[12:25:11] An informant says the gangs are plugged in to, of all things, the military as well. And this is what the informant is telling the police, that they're getting grenades and plastic explosives and making plans to shoot, burn, and run over police officers. And, get this, their families as well. Police officers' families as targets. The informants say the hit orders have gone out and that it is all about revenge, revenge for the deaths of their brothers in that melee. Harry Houck is back with me.

So here's my - my question. When they say informant, what about all of those undercover bikers who ride with these guys, how much more dangerous has their job just become?

HOUCK: Oh, it's very dangerous. I mean I take my hats off to those guys because I would not do that. Those guys got to have a certain set of guts on them to be able to do something as dangerous as that, because if they get found out, these guys are going to be tortured.

BANFIELD: Yes.

HOUCK: And I mean - so I think - I think here, as far as this is - these threats are concerned, I've locked up a lot of these biker gang guys in the past. I don't think that the leadership is that stupid to order an attack against the police. But -

BANFIELD: Well, listen, the Texas DPS has put out the bulletin -

HOUCK: No, I understand that.

BANFIELD: And they have said that they have information. And this is what's so devastating, because I am a big supporter of the military, of our veterans, but they're saying that ex-military members are -

HOUCK: Right.

BANFIELD: And I'm going to quote them - I'm quoting them, the Texas Department of Public Safety, that the military, quote, are supplying - "members of the military who are Bandidos members are supplying the gang with grenades and C-4 explosives." This is really devastating information, Harry.

HOUCK: No, I'm not - I'm not say - I'm not saying that the police should not be vigilant and they should be looking out for this, OK, but I don't see the leadership of these gangs making an order like that, all right, because anyone -

BANFIELD: Where are they getting that? Where would they be getting that?

HOUCK: Anyway -- anyway, they do not want the war with the police.

BANFIELD: The DPS is not going to make that up.

HOUCK: Because they will lose it in the end. OK? That's the bottom line here. Now, I'm not saying police officers shouldn't be vigilant. If they're getting this from an undercover, all right, and the undercover's saying that he's seeing all this preparation going on, that we need to be worried about. Definitely need to be worried about, right? But I don't -

BANFIELD: Especially if they're targeting these police officers' families. If that's true, I mean it's just (INAUDIBLE).

HOUCK: Oh, yes. Well, I've seen these guys follow district attorneys -

BANFIELD: By the way, how fast can you - if there's an undercover who's spotted this stuff and knows the source of these orders, how quick -

HOUCK: They'd be executing warrants already.

BANFIELD: How - right away.

HOUCK: Right away.

BANFIELD: That's what I was thinking. But then you give up the undercover right away.

HOUCK: Well, then - and he's got to be pulled out because -

BANFIELD: Yes.

HOUCK: Here we're talking about the lives of police officers and their families. So if that information was really true, and I'm not saying it's not or it is, all right?

BANFIELD: Yes.

HOUCK: Then they'd be executing search warrants right now to get all that explosives and things (INAUDIBLE).

BANFIELD: Harry Houck, thank you for that. Have a good weekend. Good to see you.

HOUCK: You too.

BANFIELD: Appreciate it, as always.

Coming up just ahead, how bad is that oil spill on the southern California coast? We're going to check in on the cleanup. And let me give you this hint - is that a live picture we just saw? This is a live picture. We just saw the seal jumping right in our live picture. I mean I hope that seal's OK, but there have been residents who have come out by themselves to help clean up because it is so incredibly disgusting. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)