NYSD: The Woodley Park Murders Through A Social Lens

SAVVAS SAVOPOULOS IN A 2007 PHOTO

They haven't even been buried, and yet some of Washington's social gadflies are piling on Savvas and Amy Savopoulos, the couple who were tortured and murdered in their Woodley Park home along with their 10-year-old son, Philip, and the housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa. There's nasty whispering among the NOK crowd, complaining that they weren't social enough, or to the manor born, or rich enough, that it was only their money and skin color that made their deaths a news story. No! Not true. 

I say this because I've heard it, and I've received email messages with that point of view.

Perhaps Savvas and Amy were not into the society thing, but that is hardly a negative. I go into that in my New York Social Diary column of yesterday, The Darkness and The Light. Being obsessed with "society" is usually an empty pursuit; there are people who prefer to focus their social life on their children, community, school, church, sports, that sort of thing. 

Certainly the murders got attention because of the high-priced neighborhood in which they happened, and that Savvas was CEO of a successful family business, but the horrifying nature of the crime is what made news. Had they been any other color or nationality, or had the crime occurred in the suburbs, or another part of DC, it still would have been news. Home invasion, ransom, torture? News, sadly, wherever it happens. 

There is an interesting story in looking at the whole family, the patriarch, the work he's done, what he owns, and the family's roots in the Washington area. I'm told they did the scaffolding for CityCenter and also the scaffolding that is now shrouding the Capitol dome. All of that is interesting.  To whine that they didn't measure up to some phony social standard is heartless.