Robert Wone

On the night of August 2, 2006, Robert Eric Wone, a 32-year-old attorney at Radio Free Asia, stayed overnight at the Dupont Circle townhouse of his college friend Joe Price, rather than commute to his home in Oakton, Virginia. Price shared the house with his partner Victor Zaborsky and their friend Dylan Ward. Sometime that night, Wone was stabbed three times in the chest with a knife and killed.

The three housemates called 911 at approximately 11:49 p.m. When paramedics arrived, they found Wone's body neatly positioned on a guest bed with a clean towel placed on his chest wounds. There was almost no blood at the scene—far less than would be expected from three stab wounds to the chest. The scene appeared to have been meticulously cleaned and staged before police arrived.

Investigators found numerous inconsistencies. The knife presented as the murder weapon appeared to have been wiped clean and came from the kitchen, but the wounds suggested a different, longer blade. Toxicology showed a paralytic drug in Wone's system that could have incapacitated him. The 911 call came approximately an hour after Wone likely died, suggesting the scene had been cleaned during that time. Despite these red flags, no physical evidence directly linked any of the three housemates to the stabbing.

Price, Zaborsky, and Ward were acquitted of murder charges in 2010 by a judge in a bench trial, who found the prosecution had not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt while acknowledging the evidence was 'deeply troubling.' In 2011, a civil jury found all three liable for wrongful death and awarded Wone's wife Kathy $8.5 million. The identity of the person who actually stabbed Robert Wone has never been legally established.