Neatness and Originality Count
More than likely within the 4,000 comments posted here lies the key that may unlock the mystery behind the night of August 2, 2006.
We’re still trying to configure the ideal theories page here that will allow ongoing discussion, dissection and debate. WordPress has some limitations we need to work around, but it remains a goal to have a page or discussion forum dedicated to the many theories up and running later this summer.
It was a dark and stormy night
Until then we’ll take the opportunity to highlight and showcase some of the more thorough and well thought out scenarios and theories offered by readers new and old alike.
Reader CFPS became interested in the case following Paul Duggan’s Post series. He shared this a few days after.
Robert comes over to the house, chats with Joe and Dylan Ward for a few minutes, and then everyone gets ready for bed. Victor goes to bed, Robert takes a shower, meanwhile Dylan and Joe are together, getting ready to engage in sex play and doing some drugs in Dylan’s room. Meanwhile, Robert gets out of the shower, gets ready for bed, puts in his mouthguard, and goes to sleep.
At some point during the evening, either Dylan or Joe has decided it would be fun to sexually assault Robert, and gets the other to go along with it. Victor is asleep. Joe and Dylan go into Robert’s room, where Robert is also asleep. One of them holds a pillow over Robert’s face to prevent him from screaming while the other injects him with some kind of drug.
During this time, in my theory, Robert wakes up and emits the “low, breathy grunts” Victor would later describe – Robert is trying to scream, but his noises are muffled by the pillow.
This, and not a scream, is what actually wakes Victor up in the first place, but Victor, perhaps assuming that the noises are just Dylan and Joe having sex, does not get out of bed and tries to go back to sleep. The noises stop, perhaps because the drug has taken effect or perhaps because Robert has passed out from lack of air.
Now, the drug injected into Robert, the men use the electro-ejaculator machine on Robert, perhaps engaging in some sexual activity with each other as they bring him to climax (as with this whole thing, this part is pure conjecture). In the heat of their sexual passion, they don’t think anything is wrong with Robert.
Perhaps after one or both of them have climaxed themselves (and in a clearer state of mind that often comes after climax, when one is no longer focused exclusively on sex), one or both of them realizes that Robert is not just paralyzed/incapacitated, but appears to have died, or stopped breathing, or anyway something just isn’t right – or they just realize the whole thing was a terrible idea.
In any case, at this point, either because they believe he is already dead and need to fake some kind of story, or because their post-climax clearheadedness is allowing them to fully see what a terrible plan this was, they decide the only option is to stab his already “dead” body/kill him with a knife.
Dylan runs to his room and grabs the knife from his cutlery set, returning to the guest room, where one or both of them stabs Robert. Joe and Dylan then go about cleaning the mess, with Victor still in bed and asleep. At some point, once everything is mostly cleaned up,
Joe realizes that he will not be able to keep Victor totally out of the loop on this. He goes upstairs, explains to him that something has happened, and together they go back downstairs to the guest room and the newly cleaned crime scene.
This is when Victor emits the scream that the neighbor hears. In the roughly twenty minutes between then and the time 911 was called, Joe explains to Victor that he doesn’t know what happened; an intruder must have killed Robert, but that because he (Joe) and Dylan are both on drugs, the police will never believe that they didn’t do it.
Therefore, he tells Victor, Victor needs to say that Joe was in bed with Victor all along, and that they both only came downstairs upon hearing suspicious noises from the guest room. He also spends some time going over with Victor what he will need to say to the 911 operator.
The story that Joe feeds Victor is that an intruder killed Robert, but to protect Joe and Dylan from false murder charges, Victor will need to lie for them. This explains his believable hysteria on the 911 call (he really believes an intruder may still be in the house), as well as his weird compulsion to interject or emphasize certain facts on the call. So this is my best theory as of right now. I am a long way from being Sherlock Holmes, so perhaps this thing is full of holes that I don’t see.
For example, I don’t know where the laundry room is in relation to Victor’s room, but if he heard the laundry going (the killers presumably washed sheets or something, as the cadaver dog identified something in the lint trap), it seems likely he would have come down to see why someone was doing laundry so late at night. But maybe he didn’t hear it. Or maybe he just assumed that Joe had forgotten to run it earlier in the day. I don’t know. Anyway, anyone’s thoughts?
Given this scenario, how much time would have elapsed between the “low, breathy grunts” and Victor’s scream? Would that be enough time for the rape/climaxing/murder/clean-up/cover-up/showering, especially if the perpetrators were using drugs? Or, in a slight revision of this version, did Victor help with the clean-up/laundry between his scream and his 911 (curtain) call?
Given this scenario, how much time would have elapsed between the “low, breathy grunts” and Victor’s scream? Would that be enough time for the rape/climaxing/murder/clean-up/cover-up/showering, especially if the perpetrators were using drugs? Or, in a slight revision of this version, did Victor help with the clean-up/laundry between his scream and his 911 (curtain) call?
“low breathy grunts”……pfffft……I don’t believe they heard “low breathy grunts”. Probably just another piece of their story.
I believe someone screamed because someone OTHER than Joe et al. said they heard one.
“One of them holds a pillow over Robert’s face to prevent him from screaming while the other injects him with some kind of drug.”
I’ve often thought that perhaps they attempted to suffocate Robert before they stabbed him. It may have been too difficult to kill him in this way, so they resorted to stabbing him as a second thought. That’s why the stab wounds were so neat and deliberate.
What bothers me is not the how but the why…
Even given a horrifying sexual encounter gone awry — why stab in the heart a long-time friend from college? Surely there were other alternatives, no matter what had gone wrong.
Panic? It must take a lot of really insane panic to drive a knife into the heart of an old friend. I just can’t wrap my brain around that decision. These were three (four) successful, professional men with everything to live for. Surely there was a less lethal way out.
All I can think is that meth was involved. Tweakers are insane.
Hi Laura,
I’m in total agreement. Assuming the best possible scenario (it was consensual play gone awry, which I doubt), then WHY and HOW could a sane man decide it was a “good idea” to mortally stab a friend three times? And if more than one made that decision, even harder to comprehend. Even if he was in a coma, they had to know he was breathing and had a pulse. How does anyone think “oh yeah, just stab him to death so no one will think badly of us”? If they were too drugged to think clearly, assumed he was dead or dying, in what world would one see stabbing as a logical next step?
I think you’re right – either chock full of meth crazy OR one/more is a total sociopath and was unwilling to face questions/charges of sexual assault and decided to kill Robert. If ‘meth crazy’ was the reason, how can they sleep nights? I think Joe “thinks” for all of them and he’s a true sociopath. I hold out hope (I know all are sick of my theme) that Victor or even Dylan decides that to continue is a moral wrong on top of another moral wrong – one can’t be undone, but the second one can.
I’ve often thought Wone’s death was a “tweakers gone mad” scenario.
However, I get stuck on the police questioning. Certainly, in all the reports we’ve read, one of the police would have mentioned that one, two, or all three of the roomies exhibited signs of drug use (incoherency, falling asleep, slurring words, etc.)
Certainly this would have been obvious?!
Any meds to reverse the most damning of symptoms and side effects? I simply don’t know.
The tweaked out theory is totally plausible. Even if they had been high on Meth, they would have been fine by the time the cops arrived. The high wears off very quickly. Not to mention the sobering effects of having just witnesses/performed the killing of a man (not to mention close friend) in your home
Yes, they must have been tweakers who subscribed to the New Yorker and who loved Shakespeare (dead). What a lethal and unlikely combination of manias that that is!
What if he wasn’t stabbed by a “long-time friend from college?” What if Dylan stabbed him alone, and then brought in Joe to help with the cover-up? I don’t think there is any indication that (a) Dylan and Robert were more than acquaintances or (b) Robert was aware of Dylan’s “family” status (=a slighted angry Dylan taking it out on Joe’s friend).
My confusion with every theory I’ve heard so far is “why clean up?” If you’re claiming that an intruder came in, wouldn’t you want the blood everywhere? It would be more plausible for Joe and Dylan to be covered in blood from having tried to save Robert’s life than for everything to be so neat and tidy.
Again, why clean up?
oh, yeah. that’s gone through my mind a million times.
my only thought is that Joe, saavy attorney/sociopath, knew that if the crime scene were diluted/altered enough they may not have been able to pin anything on them. Or in their possible drugged state, they mistakenly thought it would be a good idea to clean. In any event, it’s a strange move.
maybe they had to clean up because there was other evidence (like semen of someone other than robert) on his body or around the body?
at any rate, shouldn’t there have been a LOT of blood around? wouldn’t it have soaked through the sheets onto the mattress? i don’t know much about it, but would the stab to the heart have killed him before he bled out too much?
It makes sense if they intended to remove the body and dump it on the far side of town, and say he never showed up — until Victor walked in on the cleanup, freaked out and said he was going to call 911.
If you murder somebody in your own house, I would think your first plan is to get rid of the body.
I’ve given much thought to the “cleaning” and why……at frst I thought it was to muddle the crime scene. Bea suggested it was because they were going to remove Robert’s body from the house.
I have come to believe that it was simply to bolster their claims of an intruder.
The defendants claim that Robert was killed by an intruder IN THE GUESTROOM “while sleeping.” If this truly happened, it’s unlikely that there would be blood anywhere else in the house. The blood would be contained in the guestroom.
If there was blood anywhere else (i.e., hallway, bathroom, stairwell, etc.) this would possible weaken their claim.
I still think the clean up is more consistent with at first thinking they were going to “move” the body and it seems plausible that when VZ came home, things had to change…..that is likely the scream that was heard. They would not have cleaned up “to the extent” that they did in the room using solely the intruder theory. They all live in the house – so their DNA is to be expected throughout the house. Sometimes when people say things when telling “their story” their are components of the truth that are more important than the details the teller is “trying” to relay – VZ said he came home unexpectedly. I think this is more telling than it initially seems on its face.
I, too, toyed with the idea that they cleaned to baffle the investigation. I honestly do not think they were thinking this clearly at that point – reflect on what happened and how it all transpired and unraveled in a compounding way. There was little “control” in most aspects of how it evolved.
Perplexed says: “I honestly do not think they were thinking this clearly at that point – reflect on what happened and how it all transpired and unraveled in a compounding way.”
Agreed. And if so, it seems to make the entire crime much more premeditated, which I don’t think it was (premeditated as in days before). I do believe, however, that sexual overtures were planned in advance. I think Joe wanted to include Robert in a sexual scenario with himself and Dylan. That part….was planned in advance.
They cleaned up b/c their DNA was in places that would be inconsistent with their story. The clean up is easy to explain.
What is not so easy to explain is why and how this all got started. Without Robert’s consent? Hard to believe. With Robert’s consent?
Yes, hard to believe without evidence of drug use. But with the evidence of aphyxiation and needle marks, one must consider that Robert was incapacitated somehow.
Robert’s consent to anything of this nature is much, much more far-fetched.
By all accounts, Robert was straight AND a very honorable man. “Consent” to have sex outside of his marriage would have been extremely out of character.
Robert wasn’t like Joe.
I don’t think they were cleaning DNA. They were cleaning blood.
I think they cleaned up because they thought they would transport Robert’s body elsewhere but the plan got changed (scream? Victor wouldn’t agree?) and they couldn’t ‘un-clean’ so they did the best they could: say little and force the prosecution to prove a negative.
Hmm….I like that theory, Bea. I wonder if that’s where that odd NE address comes in.
That address would have had been laying around the house for the police to connect it to the threesome.
I don’t know that there was much to clean up in the room where he was found. I still think he was killed in another room – maybe Dylan’s – and a tarp was down. Also, b/c there was no struggle (b/c of incapacitating shots), there was not a lot of blood spilled to begin with. I think they were mostly frantically trying to get up small bits spilled in moving him back to the guest bedroom and any evidence on his body of their contact. Since he was already dead by the time of the move, there probably was not that much spillage.
So, I am now of the opinion that:
Robert arrived and shortly thereafter went to bed, putting his mouthguard in first. There was no shower. That was merely an after the fact story to explain their clean-up of him, possibly in the shower or bath tub.
Maybe something had already been put in his water but even if not, either Joe or Dylan entered his room and held a pillow over his face until he passed out. A shot was then administered and he was carried into the “play room”. I think both of them were involved at this point but not Victor.
They then assaulted him, giving him additional shots to keep him incapacitated. At some point either he woke up and they panicked, or they got carried away in the fantasy and stabbed him or more likely he appeared to be dead (but wasn’t) so they freaked out and tried to make it look like an attack. Neither is thinking rationally b/c one or both is amped up on drugs (I’m thinking Dylan only b/c Joe was able to speak to the cops a short time later).
They go into overdrive and carry him to the bathtub to wash him off and then redress him and take him back to the guest bed room. Perhaps if he is still alive at this point they’ve given him additional shots to continue to restrict movement.
The bed sheets didn’t need laundering b/c Robert wasn’t killed on that bed. But – this part is confusing – if the pillow theory is true, was Robert never in the bed (or at least under the sheets) when attacked? I do remember that Dylan mentioned a discussion of the guest room being hot. Was that true and therefore Robert was not sleeping under the covers or was that another cover up point like the spider on the light?
Victor has woken up or been woken up and is now assisting with some part of the clean up before being sent up to make the call while they do last minute checks of the scene. He doesn’t know details of what happened so he is just saying what Joe told him to say.
As for where the “stuff” all went, I think either there was another person present who left (somebody from alt.com) with it all or it was stashed in Sarah’s apartment and then later removed or Sarah was home the whole time and was woken up and called to duty. Her cellphone records will be interesting. If her phone was on there will be a GPS record of where she was that night.
The why’s are more difficult. Why would Joe get involved in an assault on an old friend? And, even if it was all Dylan why would he assist in the cover-up? Or why would Victor? Maybe it was just the initial instinct to protect the family but at some point how could you live with yourself?
I don’t think murder was the plan. It was the unintended after effect. And, had Victor not screamed they probably would have disposed of the body and tried to pretend that Robert never arrived that evening.
The assault however seems like it would have had to have been planned in some way. The idea that they could sexually do what they wanted with Robert and that he wouldn’t remember anything in the morning sounds like a bad porno plot or one thought up by a druggie.
Whoever said this case is like a Rubric’s cube (Wash Post writer I think?) was exactly right. Just when you think you’ve figured it out some element still doesn’t fit.
The Rubric’s cube begins to make a little more sense when you factor in its two other faces: Sarah and Mikey.
Hmmmm. I agree that he was killed in another room. Also, I don’t think there would have been a lot of blood spillage due to his heart rate probably already being so low from the drugs administered. Which also probably made them think he was already dead. Based on the knife cuts being so clean and consistent, I’m guessing it was the chef (Dylan). Also, that makes more sense that Dylan would perform that part b/c he was not as close to RW.
I guess I hadn’t really been leaning on anyone else being involved, but I also couldn’t figure out where they disposed of the stuff. It would make sense that they would use a play mat, b/c they probably already had one used many times. The clean up makes sense b/c it cleans up all evidence. They probably weren’t really thinking of leaving a mess (they were fanatic cleaners anyways) and would think that as long as he was cut, it would explain their story.
Not sure they took him to a bathtub to clean him – maybe. But wouldn’t there be evidence that the wounds were “washed out?” Plus it was noted that there was a wipe mark on RW’s body. Makes me think they wiped him down.
I think consensual is off the table. Why drug someone to the level of incapacitation if it’s consensual? Not sure why this keeps getting brought up.
I do think he was drugged in the water or something initially, and once he started feeling the effects, they continued – maybe he wasn’t all the way under and they had to hold the pillow over his head — well it was definitely done so he wouldn’t scream out, but they also didn’t have to do it so harshly that it left bruises or in itself caused asphyxiation – he must have already been slightly under — or he was getting a massage – would like to know how quickly he goes under with a shot of Special K…if it’s quick, that would make sense why they didn’t have to hold it too hard…..
Don’t be so shy Tom & John – We’re hearing you guys were rather close to the Gang of Four at 1509 also. 🙂
Did Tom & John enjoy dabbling in Joe and Dylan’s fav past-times, as well?
THIER INITIAL PLAN: After the perps assumed that Robert had died from the drugs they were shooting in them, they decided to cover up the actual cause and location of Robert’s death. Their initial plan was to ensure Robert’s decomposed body would eventually be found at some remote, desolate location, with a violent cause of death clearly evident. With three forceful knife wounds about to be inflicted, they would ensure that Robert’s cause of death was beyond question. Yet another D.C.metro area robbery gone bad. There would be no question that Robert was as assault victim, and that other potential questions (those strange needle marks, his own semen in his anus, etc.), would not inevitably come back to haunt their household. I believe marketing man Victor – who was up and around all of the time when Joe and Dylan’s initial plans (of which he had full previous knowledge) had gone way wrong – was particularly active in scripting (and certainly in his mind, story boarding) their initial cover-up plans.
I agree with a lot in your INITIAL and LATER explanation of events. Victor may have played a big part in the ‘re-explanation’ and may well have doused a bit of reality on their ‘plan’ to dispose of Robert’s body elsewhere. But I think he was asleep or not yet arrived by the time Robert was stabbed to death (and I am speculating- screamed). But my conjecture is that Super-Joe, even after having come up with the original and then defunct plan, would have taken the lead in the ‘second’ plan as well, and I think he continued to try to keep Victor out of it because he used Victor as his ‘conscience’ and didn’t want him to see too much, which explains Victor’s complete change in tone on the 911 call when he (finally) sees Robert’s body and informs the dispatcher that the knife wounds are in the chest. He may well have know a LOT but that was a surprise to him.
Bea says: “he used Victor as his ‘conscience’ ”
Bea, it’s so hard for me to hear Joe and conscience in the same sentence. I just don’t believe he has one.
I can only believe that once things went south, Joe began ordering Dylan and Victor around. “Okay, this is what we have to do…..” Dylan and Victor complied because that’s what they usually do.
CD, I agree Joe didn’t have one. But I think for a decade he “tested” stuff on Victor to see if it was acceptable behavior. So he relied on Victor for “what would a person with a conscience do?” and that night Victor saying “we have to call 911 – we cannot dump his body somewhere else” made Joe put the brakes on the “initial” plan. He then followed the inner-lawyer that IF they got caught transporting a dead body then they really WOULD fry (never mind any sense of right-and-wrong Victor may/may not have argued). But I fully agree that once the first plan was aborted, Joe “took over” the second plan’s schemes and ordered about his underemployed wanderer and his battered wife.
Bea, Hmm…..yeah, maybe you’re right. I’m sitting here trying to imagine Joe and Victor in their early years together. I can imagine Joe “testing” Victor, as you say. Pushing the limit and envelope whenever he could. Seeing how Victor would react.
So, Plan B takes place.
Who knows maybe Victor finally put his foot down.
Hi Bea. Excluding the fact that all three male household members likely claimed that Victor arrived late and went to bed early (excluding this because we know those three have a remarkable tendancy for lying) . . . why do you feel so strongly that Victor was not fully aware — and not even remotely involved — in all of that fateful evening’s activities? On what grounds to you hold such strong convictions on this? Thanks, John.
I hate boring everyone with my same-old-same-old but it’s a combination of things: his nature (many descriptors come from those who’ve known him); that he was ‘vanilla’ (apparently wasn’t into the ‘scene’ with Joe and Dylan (and wasn’t in any of the ‘photo shoots’ the cops retrieved); that he was by all accounts asleep; that he wasn’t supposed to be home; that his tone on the 911 tape changed when he saw Robert’s body, seeming that this was the first time he “knew” he’d been stabbed in the chest; that he screwed up the story (that the “intruder” left with the knife, that he repeated the “time” Joe told him to repeat – 11:43 – during interrogation). It’s definitely my speculation based on these facts (I realize that they could all have lied that he went to bed before Robert arrived, but often liars stick to certain touch stones of truth) and my sense that not ALL three could be as soul-less and inhumane so as to participate in the actual murder.
I’m less certain how involved with the clean-up, the story line, etc., but I just don’t “see” the guy involved in the assault, rape, suffocating, drugging or murder of Robert Wone. If he was up “playing” with the boys, there would be no reason to say he was asleep earlier. Besides, I suspect there are ways of validating that he’d come home unexpectedly, that it may have been an arduous trip. I admit that I’ve had this “sense” from the beginning, but it’s been bolstered by everyone who claims to have known Victor, or even “met” Victor (including the recent individual who says while he knew Dylan and Joe better, if he needed to turn to one of them for support, it would have been Victor).
Too, it fits a kind of psychological profile we can (admittedly, speculatively) piece together – he allowed Joe to bring Joe’s mistress into their home. It wasn’t really a 3-way relationship by what’s written, and I see Victor as a much less aggressive personality, much more the ‘grown up’ of the trio who loved the jackass Joe so much that he let himself be treated poorly. I’m not saying he was a doormat in all things, but I suspect he turned a blind eye to Joe’s drug and sex antics so he could “keep” him.
And now he may go to prison to “keep” him. . .
Bea, disagree as we may, I’m not convinced that Victor was so ‘vanalla.” For years he permitted and was involved in an unconventional household, which he openly displayed to his friends.
I have to agree with Bea on this. Being in the proximity of evil doesn’t make you evil.
You may be stupid. But not evil.
Or whatever adjective you’d like to use. :>
Being “evil” of course is a highly subjective adjective.
I believe that “evil is” as “evil does” in continuing to cover up one’s wrong doings.
“Unconventional” is also subjective: 1509 Swann is turning out to be remarkably traditional, at least for classical antiquity. A trophy wife/matron, a comforting concubine, a loyal confidante, and a chronically ill and dependent brother all revolve around the Sun: Joe Price. Only if we accept the fact that patriarchy has become less common with women’s liberation could the Price household be termed “unconventional.” And even liberated women stand by their men — witness Joe and Dylan’s choice (and my own) for President in 2008, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Agree with Clio and CD that Victor putting up with Joe’s antics does not mean he participated. I think he “allowed” Joe to have Victor in part because he knew/didn’t want to be the guy that would require him to be. And Joe needed “a” Victor in his life just as he needed “a” Dylan – the formal domestic partner he could take to functions, yes, but also someone who could slow him down (but ultimately, not enough or soon enough the fateful night).
My guess is that Victor “went to bed early” many nights, even when he didn’t arrive home unexpectedly or after an arduous business trip. He had closed his eyes to a lot over the years.
THEIR INITIAL STORY: “No officer, Robert never arrived here last night,” Victor or Joe would say. The authorities would initially search the Rock Creek Park area, assuming Robert had been assaulted while taking the “scenic route” from his Radio Free Asia offices to Swann Street. Ultimately, weeks later, Robert’s decomposed body would be found in a remote Virginia location, such as the forests near Manasses. Presumably, he had decided to catch a ride back home that evening with an acquaintance. Soon thereafter, the chattering classes would be abuzz about the identity of that mystery driver who promised to take Robert home from RFA, but who instead assaulted and murdered Robert along the way. If it had actually unfolded that way, some gay and closeted RFA staff members would now be more well-known to us than Sarah, Michael, Tom and John.
Mannasas (much closer to Oakton than Rock Creek) was my thought, too, in part because it has been a gay cruising ground in the past and, if Robert’s body had been found there, his murder could have been chalked up as a married man on the DL getting what he deserved.
MOVING QUICKLY: The troop initially assumed they had no more than six hours to complete their disposal task under the cover of night and return home from Virginia. With the transportation and disposal time involved, they knew they needed to move very quickly. Since Joe was obsessive-compulsive about cleanliness, exceptional care was taken not to get the house or themselves bloody while creating the resemblance of a stabbing. The stabbings were not accomplished on the guest room bed, but likely on tarps (play sheets) on the floor of the den.
Agree.
1.Uh….. I’m beginning to think you are Grisham, Grisham.
2. Tarps were already set up (or should I say set down) but did they set up in Dylan’s room or Sarah’s space?
lol! Not at all.
Sarah’s space doesn’t make sense. They wouldn’t have needed to – VZ wasn’t supposed to come home. Knife came from DW’s set in his room. Not sure it was tarps they set up, guessing they used a special mat that is customary for S&M play. In any event, why do you think Sarah’s space?