Five People Arrested With Wint Released Without Charge?

I am going to intrude upon our weekend bloggers to post a story on the aftermath of the arrest of Daron Dylon Wint, 47, for the savage murder of f Savvas Savopoulos, 46, his wife Amy Savopoulos, 47, their 10-year-old son, Philip, and housekeeper Veralicia Figueroa, 57 in the family’s Northwest Washington home. According to CBS News, the five people arrested with Wint in two vehicles have been released without charge. Come again? Five people are found to be traveling with a fugitive sought by a dozen different police agencies and are found to have $10,000 cash in one of the vehicles. And they are released?

According to Wint’s girlfriend, he was returning to D.C. from New York in the midst of overwhelming television and other media stories about his being the most wanted fugitive in America. Police spotted him to a Howard Johnson Express Inn in College Park, Maryland and watched as two vehicles left together from the motel parking lot. They were stopped and discovered Wint in one of the vehicles. Two other men and three women were also taken into custody. They also found the 10 grand (a suspicious finding since 40 grand had been taken from the witnesses).

Generally, an accessory after the fact includes (to use the federal standard) “whoever, knowing that an offense . . . has been committed, receives, relieves, comforts or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial or punishment, is an accessory after the fact.”

Now, on its face, these people would seem to be conspiring to hide a fugitive or constitute accessories after the fact. Unless this was a complete coincidence and that they had no knowledge of Wint or his alleged heinous acts, there would seem ample reason to hold them. I am honestly confused. The release of the people seems odd and there must be more to this story. Perhaps some of our readers can find any explanation because if they, like most of humanity, were aware of Wint’s alleged crimes (including the murder of a 10-year-old boy), they would appear to be criminally involved, at a minimum, after the fact of the murders. If they simply taken to leave a motel at coincidentally the same moment as an alleged murderer and coincidentally drive in the same direction, they are clearly the most unlucky human beings on Earth. They could be precisely that. Either way, there should be some explanation from the police.

CBS may be wrong or there are additional facts to explain what on its face is a curious development.