1384 Days: 3 Years, 9 Months, 15 Days
All that matters from now and through the verdict, is doing right by Robert.
We regret not knowing him while alive, but even in death he remains a role model and inspiration. There is no consolation for the Wone family in bringing Robert back, but it is a testament...
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Washington Post Profiles Judge Lynn Leibovitz
Keith Alexander of the Post had a crackerjack profile of the presiding judge in the Wone trial, Lynn Leibovitz, in yesterday’s edition.
Profiled in these pages this past January, Alexander draws a good picture of the judge, the daughter of New York State judicial royalty.
She came to this case well...
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The Post Delivers
Two months after Robert’s murder, key pieces of the story were emerging.
Three years ago last Friday, in an October 9, 2006 Washington Post article , we see a rudimentary version of the August 2nd timeline, many familiar elements and some new ones.
Included are details of Robert’s last day, background information from investigators and...
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A Friend is Slain in Your Home? STFU
One of the more unsettling aspects of the then-suspects’, now defendants’ puzzling behavior following Robert’s murder was their complete silence on both their friend’s death and their own innocence.
None of the three Swann Street housemates found it necessary to distance themselves from the crime by way of public...
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First Movement
Three weeks to the day after Robert’s murder, the Washington Post was leaked information about grand jury testimony that was taking place:
Katherine Wone, 35, wife of Robert Wone, testified for more than an hour about “her interaction with the three guys in the house, both immediately after the incident and the days that followed,”...
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Burying the Lede
After the first wave of media coverage hit on August 4th and 5th, the next significant piece was on the 14th by Emma Schwartz of the Legal Times. And she had the goods - the search warrants for Price’s home, his office and computers at Arent Fox, and his BMW 325.
Included is this bombshell: the crime scene, “had...
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Dateline: Swann Street
Legendary muckraker and irritant I.F. Stone is credited with this critique of the Washington Post: “It’s a great newspaper. You never know on what page you’ll find a front-page story.”
On August 4, 2006 they got it right; news of Robert’s murder was front-page of the Metro section. This is where we first...
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Two Weeks Before Robert Wone’s Murder…
Three years ago this week, on or about July 19, 2006, Robert began making plans to stay the night at a friend’s house in Washington, DC.
Last month Paul Duggan wrote in the Washington Post:
Earnest and meticulously efficient, Wone had planned about two weeks in advance to stay in...
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15th And Swann By Way Of 41st and 8th
Our thanks to Tim Arango for his article on the media coverage of Robert’s murder.
Our continued gratitude goes to Paul Duggan for his thorough investigative work and for the time and resources he was given by the Post’s editors.
New readers may familiarize themselves with the case...
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Bye Lines
Only recently have the Washington Post obituaries been signed by its writers; Robert’s did not carry a by-line in August of 2006.
Having read the Duggan series, the man who penned that obit, Matt Schudel, shared his thoughts.
In Post Mortem, the paper’s obit blog he recalled of speaking with a stoic Kathy Wone as he prepared the piece.
“One...
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On August 2nd, 2006, Washington attorney Robert E. Wone was murdered at 1509 Swann Street. Over two years passed before any criminal charges were filed - and then only conspiracy, obstruction of justice and crime scene tampering charges were brought against the Swann Street housemates, all present in the home on the night of the murder: Joe Price, Dylan Ward and Victor Zaborsky.
On May 17, 2010, a DC Superior Court trial got underway and all three defendants were all acquitted in that bench trial on those pending charges.
Nearly four years later, very little seems clear about what happened that night and who murdered Robert Wone. A cloud of suspicion remains over the Swann Street defendants who have denied any involvement in the murder of their friend or in the alleged cover up.
Judge Lynn Leibovitz found a moral certainty in their collective guilt, but not evidentiary certainty. Civil proceedings in a wrongful death suit filed by Robert's family is the next chapter in this tragic story.
We continue to work together seeking answers to the mystery of Robert Wone's murder and in finding justice for his memory and legacy.
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