Thirty-two-year-old lawyer Robert Eric Wone was originally from New York City. A graduate of the College of William & Mary and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, he had established a respected legal career, working at Covington & Burling LLP before becoming general counsel at Radio Free Asia, based in downtown Washington D.C. Robert was known by friends and colleagues as thoughtful, reliable, and dedicated to his work and community service.
On August 2nd, 2006, Robert stayed overnight at the home of his longtime friend Joseph Price, an attorney who shared the residence on Swann Street Northwest with his partner Victor Zaborsky and roommate Dylan Ward. Robert had told his wife he would crash there after a long day of work rather than make the commute back to his home in Oakton, Virginia.
Around ten thirty p.m., Robert arrived at the townhouse. Less than eighty minutes later, at eleven forty-nine p.m., Zaborsky placed a 911 call reporting that Robert had been stabbed. Emergency responders found Robert Wone in the guest bedroom with multiple stab wounds to his chest. He was pronounced dead at George Washington University Hospital shortly after midnight on August 3rd.
The details uncovered by police raised immediate questions. Investigators later found signs that Robert may have been restrained, incapacitated, and sexually assaulted before he was killed, and noted the absence of defensive wounds and an unusually clean crime scene with little apparent blood where one would expect more. Some evidence suggested the scene had been disturbed or cleaned prior to investigators’ arrival.
Paramedics and police expressed that the behavior of Price, Zaborsky, and Ward at the scene was unusual, and there were no clear signs of a forced entry or an unknown intruder, despite the trio’s claim that an intruder had broken in through an unlocked back door.
In late 2008, after police alleged that the crime scene had been tampered with, Price, Zaborsky, and Ward were charged with obstruction of justice, conspiracy, and related offenses tied to alleged interference with the investigation. However, in June 2010, a D.C. Superior Court judge acquitted all three men of those charges, finding that prosecutors had not met the burden of proof.
No one has ever been charged with Robert Wone’s actual murder. In a civil wrongful death suit filed by Robert’s widow, Katherine Wone, the three men agreed to an out-of-court settlement in 2011 for an undisclosed sum.
The strange and disturbing circumstances surrounding Wone’s death—the tight timeline, questions about what occurred inside the townhouse, and unresolved forensic issues—have fueled public intrigue and speculation for years. But despite nearly two decades of scrutiny, the identity of Robert Wone’s killer and the motive for his murder remain unknown.
Crime Immemorial 