The Op-Ed Pages
Once again, taking to these pages with a guest post is longtime reader (maybe the very first), Bea. She was one of the early trackers in this case when the only outpost was at datalounge. Few outside the immediate principals in this saga have a better grasp on the history of this case, evidence, players and the many dynamics.
This is the first installment of a piece she recently wrote. Treatise may be the more apt characterization. We thank her for her continued support, good humor and her indefatigable pursuit of justice in this case.
“Joe Price always wanted to be a hero, with a back-up plan of being rich and famous. According to his anonymous friend here on WMRW, he was very exceedingly ambitious in high school. At William & Mary, he stayed in the closet in part because of his political aspirations; he hammered out enough support and found enough backers, if not friends, to be elected Student Body President his senior year. According to the Facebook Page for “College Partnership for Kids,” one “Joseph R. Price” is credited as being the “CPK founder” in 1990, when he, along with other W&M students, forged a project to help elementary school kids.
Mr. Joseph R. Price is quoted as saying “I wanted to create a way in which college students could give back a little of what they have received.” He’s the only person quoted and given more “props” than any other W&M alum or current student in the organization, despite that he no longer appears to be an officer, member or admin of the group – I’m guessing it’s not easy to for Joe to be on Facebook these days – but it’s remarkable that he still gets top billing.
A busy man, Joe’s imprint on the web is far-reaching, even before the indictment against him came down. The web has many photographs of Joe Price in his glory days. There’s him standing at the podium at the Equality Virginia annual dinner in April 2006 with dignitaries that included a former governor of Virginia and a US Senator. Despite being closeted while at W&M, he later served as president of the W&M Gay Alumni organization – this title accounts for more photos on the web of a smiling Price, with loving Victor sitting in attendance, at the 20th anniversary of the organization in November 2006, only months after Robert Wone’s murder.
But Joe didn’t stumble into this notoriety – he seemed poised and positioned from early on. In 1994, Joseph Price copyrighted an essay entitled “Everything I Really Needed to Know I Learned at William & Mary.” College demands a lot of essays, and many of us wrote many of them, but I’m guessing few of us took the time to secure a copyright registration for any of them. But Joe did – but for what reason? The thrill of seeing the official seal attached to one’s writing – something anyone willing to part with twenty dollars for the then-filing fee could get. And what college student doesn’t have a better use for twenty dollars? It does suggest one thing: Joe Price had his eye on the prize.
But what was the prize? Being burned into the eternal memory of the worldwide web in a handsome suit, at a microphone, giving or receiving awards, Joe seemed to be his own personal PR firm. He took up many causes pro bono as an attorney, for homeless people, nonresident commuters, and a particular cause célèbre for a lesbian mother in a custody battle, which made its way through the courts and into many newspaper headlines, always with a quote from Joe.
It wasn’t only his business or political or activist acumen that caught the media’s attention. In 2004, a USA Today article on gay parenting carried his picture, alongside Victor, the lesbian couple with whom they “parented,” and Joe’s toddler son. Forging new territories indeed, one of tens of thousands or more gay parents with children, but the “lead” picture (the story features other families too) shows a smiling Joe Price, dead center.
One might say, simply, that Joe was an accomplished man who gave a lot to others. Or one might say that Joe liked to fight the good fight, put himself in the fray (at least after he came out, since he wanted to get elected). What strikes me about this list of things is that Joe knew how to manage his public identity and get his name in the paper – not that there weren’t other good motives, too, but it sure seemed like he liked being a hero and he liked getting credit for it.
He engineered his future early on, according to that high school friend in describing his type-A friend Joe (as he himself was) that “success and making money came first,” and that he was “arrogant, smart and cocky” but a good guy too, one who promised to buy his friend his first Lamborghini when he “struck it rich.”
A politician. An activist. A role model. A lawyer fighting the good fight, free of charge (but being paid by his button-down law firm which supported pro bono work). It doesn’t seem Joe was ever afraid to step into the limelight; he was ready and able to take on all comers. He had justice on his side. If he got a little personal glory, so what. It added to his A-list Gay self-image.
Joe Price made all the right moves for a very long time, although there has been much speculation and some anecdotal evidence of his drug use (he didn’t do drugs or even drink in high school) that may have added a different layer to Joe. It didn’t keep him from making partner at his law firm, though, or buying a million dollar home. We know that Joe liked to take care of bathroom leaks himself, that he was the one in charge of ordering cable channels, and undoubtedly he was the one who decided that his outside-the-domestic-partnership lover should move into the “main house” in Dupont after a stay in the basement on Capital Hill.
But all of this is as puzzling as it is impressive. With the varied and weighty media coverage, it does seem he had a hand in it in its proliferation and its management. Joe was creating the Joe he wanted the world to see. Most puzzling to me is how THIS Joe Price would go in deep cover after a long time friend was murdered in his home. He didn’t want to tell the police everything he knew, he was quoted as saying, for fear that one of the trio would be arrested. Was he telling everything he knew or did he just want cops to think so – kind of like stonewalling Kathy Wone but serving as a pall bearer at Robert’s funeral.
Telling the police that the knife was lying on Robert’s chest (and lambasting himself for putting his fingerprints on the knife) – yet “bragging” to friends that he’d pulled the knife from Robert’s chest. Being emotionally drained after the night of the murder and all-night investigations at Anacostia, excusing himself from the breakfast with close friends at Cosi to take Dylan home because Dylan was beside himself – yet showing up to work at the law firm later that morning to tell co-workers what he’d been through (described as “holding court in the hallway”).
A man very careful about his image and his good works – yet he kept sexually explicit pictures of himself being sexually dominated on his work computer and he posted a public profile on an S & M website looking for a “third” for he and Dylan. Joe said up front that he liked all sorts of things including torture but he dodged the question of drug use with a “rather not say.”
Had I been in Joe’s position, I would have been “all in” to find my friend’s murderer. It would have been my job to do whatever I could to help Kathy Wone, and I wouldn’t have stopped until the murderer was behind bars. And I’m no hero. I think most of us would dismiss concerns that the police might wrongly think us a suspect for a while – they do have to rule everyone out, particularly those at the scene. To most of us, not helping the grieving widow is unacceptable behavior. Many of us would have persevered even if we had to suffer through trash-talking cops – haven’t we all seen that Law and Order or Criminal Minds or Perry Mason episode? But knowing Joe’s history, it’s a conundrum to think that that Joe Price was afraid to continue talking to police if he was innocent, legally or morally. It’s a conundrum to think that that Joe Price was afraid to continue talking to police if he knew anything else that would be helpful to the investigation.
If one does a web search about when one should speak to police without a lawyer, pages of search result headlines repeat the answer: NEVER! Not surprisingly, most are from criminal defense lawyers wanting business. It’s not that it’s bad advice, but too it’s never quite that simple. Time and again, we see here that Joe Price chose to speak to police that night – albeit, as he said, against advice of counsel and his own better judgment. But very soon after that, cooperation came to a halt. There were no follow up interviews, alone or with counsel, at least none reported and certainly no formal taped interviews. More telling, to me, was that we heard of no demonstrable effort by Lawyer Price (nor Old Friend Price) to avenge his friend’s murder, no battle cry to find the cold-blooded killer, quite peculiar for the man who was practically known for doing good deeds and righting wrongs.
Many who defend Price on this board insist that Price was within his rights to stop cooperating with the police, and some go so far to say that he shouldn’t have spoken to the police at all. It’s pointed out that without having done so, the police would have had no basis for bringing the original criminal action. It’s certainly true that Judge Leibovitz’s damning words in the criminal conspiracy trial opinion came as a result of watching the defendants’ “Anacostia Dialogues”– and she saved the harshest criticism for Price himself.
More than once I’ve pointed to the defendants’ lack of cooperation as support for my opinion that, at a minimum, the defendants were hiding something, that they were being less than completely honest about what they knew. Because of that position, and because I’m a lawyer, I’ve been asked whether I would advise a friend to speak to police without a lawyer. The easy answer might be “no” but such a question – and answer – would have to be considered in context. I would consider who was asking and why. If police are investigating a crime committed weeks or months earlier, there’s no harm in having counsel present. But in the matter of Robert Wone’s murder, we must begin right there at Swann Street, with a murdered man in a second floor bedroom. Would it be logical that Joe Price, lawyer and Robert’s longtime friend, would refuse to answer questions?
How exactly would that play out? “He’s upstairs, bleeding from stab wounds, but that’s all I’m going to say?”
Decent human beings simply don’t behave that way. If Joe passed a bleeding stranger on the sidewalk, he’d tell cops all that he knew (and his name might be in the paper too). It is true that Martha Stewart did jail time for having “talked” to authorities, but it wasn’t because she talked – it’s because she lied. My advice to anyone planning on lying to the police would be “don’t talk to them” followed by “you need to get a different lawyer.”
Joe Price and MPD Detective Daniel Wagner
After speaking to police at Swann, the men were asked to give formal interviews at Anacostia. Should they have refused? In retrospect, they may wish that they had, but why? In giving statements, their “stories” became concrete – the taped interviews prevented them from giving vastly different accounts later – and the statements, collectively, did not exonerate them in the eyes of investigators.
The interviews revealed inconsistencies, and some would say too many consistencies. The stories didn’t make sense and the men were unconvincing in demeanor and affect (according to the good Judge L). What good would it have done to insist on having counsel present? Joe specifically told police that he’d contacted “his lawyer” and was cooperating against advice of counsel (possibly a lie) but in that proclamation he likely hoped that his apparent “transparency” would be further proof of innocence, that the police would be persuaded to cross him off their list of suspects.
I’m fairly confident that had counsel been secured for all three men that Dylan would not have taken a polygraph. The interviews would’ve been completed in an hour – accomplished with a nod to courtesy about the late hour and the trauma of the night’s events. Certainly, counsel would’ve stopped the redundancy in questioning and counsel would have intervened when the police turned heavy-handed. But what about Joe? Would the presence of any lawyer have prevented him from talking and talking?
I don’t think so. It’s my opinion that Joe was using the interrogations as a platform to convince the investigators of his innocence (Victor’s and Dylan’s as well). In his manner and in his answers, Joe was trying to rule himself out as a suspect rather than aid the investigation of his murdered friend. As Joe himself said to police that night, his story didn’t make sense (“I know it sounds crazy”).
His best shot was to get investigators on his side – and to do that, he needed to talk to the detectives and keep talking until he had them swayed. He tried being “one of them” (from a military family). He tried sounding like a great guy (visits to Kathy in hospital, comparisons of himself to his bad violent, drug addicted brother). He tried intimidating them, and even thought he wasn’t successful, he got some semblance of control through indirectly informing everyone that he was the smartest guy in the room (“I understand the whole game here” – and my favorite, when pressed for his best guess of the intruder’s departure: “between 11:10 and 11:43”).”
-To be continued –
Brilliant work, Bea! Thanks.
Thanks, Greg. Much appreciated – now I see I forgot to add the weird thing of Joe giving the “gay history” interview to the W&M Oral History Project one month before the indictments hit. While the interview is offline now (can still get a transcript) he must’ve done it knowing that the Grand Jury had been convened. The picture he painted was of he and Victor as a bland white-picket-fence married couple with kids he hoped would attend W&M. It blows my mind that he agreed to sit for the interview knowing what affect it might have on the project – and while there were no blatant lies (no one ASKED him specifically if he had a third man in his committed relationship who, with him, trolled for S&M partners on the web) certainly the image he created “for the camera” had little to do with the reality. It was risky, some would say dangerous, to sit for the video interview – and I can think of no other reason to do it except vanity. He hadn’t been a gay rights activist at W&M but he wanted to be remembered as an important gay W&M grad?
I finally found the Price W&M Oral History panel.
I am getting attack site warning from that link Craig, saying that the site is not what the link says it is.
I’ve opened it before and it’s safe. Open the file at the promt and the mp4 will load into your player.
Ok, I’m doing it. So, when a Trojan sets up shop on my computer, it’s your fault.
Here’s the link to the info which allows you to download the summary transcript but which no longer allows you to watch the video unless you’re a W&M alum.
http://scrc.swem.wm.edu/index.php?p=digitallibrary/digitalcontent&id=87
But now I’ve trusted Craig and the video is downloading – 9 minutes, 8 minutes, 14 minutes (why does that happen?), 9 minutes. . .
When this turns out to be evidence from the eyecandy site I don’t know how I will react.
Nah, it’s all good, it’s the real thing. I will say that Joe is looking a tad bloated and porcine in these images. What on earth does Victor see in him?
AnnaZ, I laughed out loud at the “eyecandy” site content comment!
I’m with you about Joe’s appearance (Victor’s judgment is called further into question) – a jowly man to be sure. In earlier photos, he had the “stocky” look of a maybe-athlete but the neck/cheeks/chins enveloped his face in an unfortunate way.
It does astound me how intent he is in painting himself such a good “ordinary family man” in this interview when asked, specifically, “if you’re comfortable, would you talk about your family . . .” and then he discusses Victor and their two sons but never mentions Dylan. Hoya previously pointed out in a his post about Joe’s outright lying about the cell phone, and this too is a lie. During the Anacostia interviews Joe specifically told police that Dylan was “married” to him. Literally, he used the word “married.” However, when playing the part of Role Model he talks of his long-standing relationship with Victor and jokes that he’d need a chart to explain the biological connections of the two sons yet there’s no mention of “the love his life,” good old Sparkly Cat himself.
It’s crazy that contradicts himself so blatantly. The Grand Jury is going on while he’s giving the interview.
This is the second time I’ve watched this interview all the way through (props to Craig for the link I couldn’t find!) and I’m really surprised that he says that Victor graduated from the University of Oklahoma. Hell, I know that Victor graduated from the University of Tulsa. I don’t know which is worse – not knowing where your partner of eight years went to college or purposely giving the wrong answer. In seeing how he likes to shape his comments for self-aggrandizement, I do wonder if he was just “promoting” Victor to a more notable school (at least as to athletics and public recognition). If so, was the promotion for Victor’s sake or for Joe’s? Nutty.
I’ll stop being nit-picky but I hadn’t remembered that Joe bragged that his son Alec’s picture was one of the first to appear on the “refurbished” W&M Gay Alum website (in his little W&M sweatshirt Daddy Joe purchased for him). He couldn’t have given the webmaster one that included “his” boy AND Victor’s son? Front and center, son. It’s never too early to start putting your face out there. . .
I’d love to see William and Mary to reinterview Joe to give his revisionary account of his rise and fall: in a 2011 edition, would the murder even be mentioned?
“What murder — I chose to be a paralegal in Florida to beat the DC rat race?” or, perhaps, “The Great Recession has forced everyone, including myself, to downsize — their lifestyle, if not their waistline?”
Bea,
Very well thought out.
I don’t doubt that you know more about the history of this case than most any others here. however I do think that you express a bias in most of what you say, but that’s may be just me.
You give a long description of Joe’s accomplishments, a description that might apply to many successful people, except for the spin you give it. Then you state:
“Had I been in Joe’s position, I would have been “all in” to find my friend’s murderer. It would have been my job to do whatever I could to help Kathy Wone, and I wouldn’t have stopped until the murderer was behind bars. And I’m no hero. I think most of us would dismiss concerns that the police might wrongly think us a suspect for a while – they do have to rule everyone out, particularly those at the scene. To most of us, not helping the grieving widow is unacceptable behavior. Many of us would have persevered even if we had to suffer through trash-talking cops – haven’t we all seen that Law and Order or Criminal Minds or Perry Mason episode? But knowing Joe’s history, it’s a conundrum to think that that Joe Price was afraid to continue talking to police if he was innocent, legally or morally.
Well, I for one, have never seen a suspect persevere on Criminal Mind or on any other show the way you suggest. Let me simply ask you this: If, after giving the police all you had in the way of information you considered helpful to find the real murderer, they continued to consider you and people who you truly believed innocent, to be the murderers, to the exclusion of looking anywhere else, how would continuing to answer their questions help Kathy and society find the real murderer?
If all Joe did and said, was spun in such a way that Kathy herself began to hold him responsible for Robert’s death, what then? How was he going to help the grieving widow if he was a number one suspect? No matter how innocent. Wouldn’t anything further he said to try to point out his innocents going fall on deaf ears? And a suspect had BETTER NOT attempt to tamper with witnesses.
There is a point at which suspects do become afraid to talk to the cops as well as to others. For some of them that may be after their defense lawyer finds it necessary to tell you, “You don’t understand, these people hate you!”
And your defense lawyer will tell you, in no uncertain words to say nothing to anyone. Once prosecutors are involved, lawyers talk to lawyers. That’s the way our system works, not exactly the way you see it on either Perry Mason or Criminal Minds.
Your argument seems be to based on Judge Leibovitz’s belief that Joe and or others had useful information that they were holding back, including, she inferred, knowledge of who the murder or murders were.
What if the good judge were wrong in that? (And if she really knew that to be the fact, why didn’t she do more and find more than she did?)
And just how could Joe be innocent legally but not morally? Or morally but not legally? I fail to understand.
I think that your question concerning his failure to continue to talk to the police as an innocent person betrays your failure to accept any slim possibility that these guys might, in fact, be innocent.
You paint a very clear picture of Joe’s climb to success and his ability to shape his image. I found this both interesting and helpful. Thank you. However, the point that stands out to me is that Joe’s being responsible for the events the night of the murder is totally at odds with everything he ever accomplished and/or stood for. You seem to make the point that everything he did was for a reason. There is simply nothing like the murder and the lack of planning and control implied, in his history. And there is nothing murderous or so extreme in the history of the others.
In solving a crime, any police officer or detective will tell you, you must first look for motive. Motive is key. Posters on this site who attempt to prove the defendants guilt, are VERY thin in their augments when it comes to motive. The best anyone can come up with is that they may have been high on drugs and that that might have lead to an accident and/or a somewhat insane cover up. Again no history.
The lack of proof of an intruder is the most incriminating thing involved with the case, but that proof can be explained somewhat by the general police failure to find evidence, as well on police bias. Were the responders biased? The one EMT said that the situation caused the hair to stand up on the back of his neck. That means they were spooked. Not very scientific is it.
You are right when you say, “It’s a conundrum to think that Joe Price was afraid to continue talking to police if he knew anything else that would be helpful to the investigation.”
And if he didn’t?
If he did have guilty information, as you seem to think he had, then, being the manapulative person he was, he would have continued to try to feed them (false) information, would he not? Particularly, if he was the fearless person you say he was.
I’d say that what we have here on WMRW continues to be an unsolved mystery as well as one huge conundrum. And thats what makes it so fascinating.
I’ve tried to make clear that this is my opinion based on a careful reading of each available document, reviewing transcripts, videos – everything.
If I were Joe, in those circumstances, I would first ask the cops to let me take a polygraph. Before you say that I’d be foolish, then consider what’s more important – my having to take 10 polygraphs (which you can do in case the first one was “funky”) or Kathy Wone thinking I had something to do with her husband’s murder and letting the cops STAY bogged down in believing (wrongly) that I did it?
That is something absolutely concrete that Joe could have done. If indeed he “passed” on the first try, the cops WOULD have changed directions. I’d bet a considerable sum that Dylan did NOT pass his polygraph, which gave cops a reason to stay on the trio. With the top flight defense team and a wealthy father, you can bet that Dylan took another polygraph with a hand-picked person, in secret, and if he HAD passed that, the defense team would’ve handed it to cops pronto. And “leaked” it to the press.
While I was clearing my name, because I would know I was innocent, I’d be talking to the press to help get the word out, make sure if anyone saw ANYTHING, that they should call the cops. That email he sent to friends? Maybe use it to help the investigation. If my friend was killed in my house, I’d hire an investigator if the cops weren’t getting anywhere. I’d collar my drug-using brother, and any other “shady” character I knew, and personally try to see if they knew something I didn’t.
It is an unsolved mystery, and I can’t know why Joe behaved the way he did – I’m saying that it’s contrary to the way he’d behaved in the past. And my opinion is that it doesn’t add up. I’m not saying that I know he had a hand in the murder because I don’t know that. But I do think he knows more than he told authorities and he clammed up. He could’ve handled a little more risk, I think, to honor his murdered friend.
“The lack of proof of an intruder is the most incriminating thing involved with the case, but that proof can be explained somewhat by the general police failure to find evidence, as well on police bias.”
One can lay at the doorstep of the MPD any alleged failure to thoroughly check for fingerprints, disturbances in the patio area or neighboring yards, other “robberies” featuring a similar MO and, of course, the misapplication of Ashley’s Reagent, among other things.
But, as we discussed in a prior thread, not only was there no sign of an actual break-in (no broken glass, jimmied locks, etc.) but the defendants themselves suggested that the intruder entered through the unlocked kitchen door. If we take them at their word, this was a crime of opportunity — someone was lucky enough to observe or stumble upon the unlocked door — by someone who ultimately murdered a first-time, one-time guest but did not actually steal anyting, since nothing was missing.
Since we are talking motive, what was the motiviation for this alleged break-in? Isn’t the intruder theory just as grounded in pure speculation as the theory that one or more of the defendants killed Robert? It is based purely on the assertion that the three did not and could not have killed their friend and that someone else must have come in through the unlocked door. Had the police been more careful and throrough, they might have found evidence that would have ruled out the three, but likely would have shed little light on the motive of an unknown intruder.
It’s a matter of logic as much as evidence and part of why I think Bea and Judge L. agree that there is more the three are not saying. It does not mean that they are guilty of murder, just that for some reason — trying to rule themselves out as suspects, as Bea suggests, or fear of someone known, as you suggest below, or other reasons known but to themselves, as Judge L. suggested — they stuck to a particular set of facts and speculations in their interviews and are declining to say anything further.
My own (current) hunch is that Joe, didn’t do it, has strong suspicions as to what may have happened but cannot prove it any more than any of us. Hence, while he remains in the cross-hairs and absent the discovery of a Guandique-like intruder or ninja, he’s not saying more.
Hoya,
Thanks for another of your well thought out and logical arguments.
I would only point out that after the detectives had told the defendants in no uncertain terms that there was absolutely no evidence of any intruder, (Something that the police could not have known so early in the investigation,) the defendants continued to insist that there had to have been an outside intruder. It was only the detectives who said that it must have been either a crime of impromptu opportunity, like theft, or that one or more of the defendant had to have done the deed.
The police seem to have, at no time, considered any other possibility like a ninja. Nor did the defendants seem to think to make that suggestion. (If I were covering up my guilt under those circumstances, I would have brought up ALL SORTS of theories.)
But, why would it have been only a burglar who had the luck to find a conveniently unlocked door? Couldn’t a ninja have had the same luck? Or an angry, hate-filled neighbor? This could have made his hit and run attack all that swifter and easier.
To your question, “Isn’t the intruder theory just as grounded in pure speculation as the theory that one or more of the defendants killed Robert?” I answer YES!
That’s the point as I see it. The theory that one or more of the defendants killed Robert IS grounded in pure speculation in my opinion. To hold someone guilty, we need much more.
You say, “My own (current) hunch is that Joe, didn’t do it, has strong suspicions as to what may have happened but cannot prove it any more than any of us. Hence, while he remains in the cross-hairs and absent the discovery of a Guandique-like intruder or ninja, he’s not saying more.”
I have been thinking the same thing. (Sans Guandique.) Your hunch does explain much concerning Joe’s behavior. If it’s true that the three of them still live together, then it seems unlikely to me that Joe suspects either of the other two. However maybe he’s keeping a close eye on one of them hoping to learn something.
Your continuing clear insight and reasoning is welcome to me as well as to others I’m sure.
By the way, have you ever read Al Gore’s book, The Assault on Reason?
“To hold someone guilty, we need much more.”
Absolutely. Hence my agreement with most* of Judge L.’s opinion — there wasn’t even enough evidence for tampering or obstruction, never mind murder.
And my hunches evolve frequently 😉
The insistence that there was no intruder was clearly an interrogation technique (much like when they say “your buddy Vic in the other room is going to talk” etc.). It doesn’t mean they had already ruled out the possibility that early in the process. But it was Victor in the 911 call who first to say that there was an intruder “evidently” and Dylan who asked “Is the back door open?” Joe mentions in the phone call captured on the tape prior to his interrogtion that someone killed their very dear friend “in the process of trying to rob us basically.”
*Tampering against Joe was a close call that might have gone either way, but close enough that one can’t say she was “wrong.”
Yes, and thanks for reminding me that Joe was at one time accused of tampering.
That further explains why he didn’t continue to do more talking around, fact finding and looking for evidence as others posters say that he should have, if he truly wanted to find out WMRW.
I don’t find his clamming up and keeping a low profile at all suspicious, considering the circumstances.
Scandal Management 101: shut up and stay out of sight until the public’s ADD kicks in, or until there is another natural disaster or war that supersedes your notoriety!
Bea,
Yes I agree, murdering someone or being a participant in or covering up a murder appears to be completely contrary to everything Joe has ever done in the past. I’m glad you remain puzzled by that fact.
I don’t know what a “Funky” polygraph is, unless you mean a flawed or inconclusive one. I suppose in that case, they might allow a redo. But to keep taking failed tests until you pass one? Surly you jest. Trust me when I say that polygraphs do not work. The police do not, by law, reveal these results to outsiders like Kathy. So how would passing a test influence her if she can’t know about it? And if Joe revealed the results to Kathy, of a private test he took, how would she know that he hadn’t failed the first nine times?
You suggest that Dylan’s failing his polygraph might have lead to charges being filed against him. Doesn’t that indirectly constitute the use of a polygraph in court? It’s no wonder to me that defense lawyers hate their use. The police also know that they don’t work but use them as a “Tool” to intimidate suspects into talking. Passing a police polygraph does little to get them off of your back. Besides, police sometimes lie to suspects saying that they didn’t pass when they did, or if the test was inconclusive. And how can you prove different, since they are not allowed in court?
You list a whole lot of things that you would have done if you were Joe. But how do you know that he didn’t do, or hasn’t done these things privately? Like hire a private detective or two. As far as enlisting the public’s help, for all you or I know, he might have secretly had a hand in financing this very blog. That is, if he really wanted to enlist the public’s interest to help find the truth. If you really knew that you were not the guilty party, and you wanted the truth to come out for all of the reasons that you sight, then wouldn’t you do something like that?
Do I believe that Joe is a secret angle behind this blog? No, not really. But what I am saying is that if he did do something like that, how would we know about it.
And though Joe may like to toot his horn, wouldn’t he wait for his exoneration to make whatever involvement in truth seeking he had been doing known to others? He would, I think, keep his name out of it if he really believed in what he was doing. Whatever effort he made towards truth finding would be far less effective if it has his name on it.
Maybe, just maybe, the entire focus of his effort is to find the guilty party. (As you say it should be.) Wouldn’t he recognize that as the ONLY real way to clear his name? The only way that he will live his life out without a cloud of suspicion hanging over him will be if an outside murderer is found. Passing a polygraph or ten or even convincing Kathy, isn’t going to do the job.
I’m just doing some brainstorming here. Asking what ifs. Hope you don’t mind.
That Dylan likely didn’t pass the polygraph kept the attention of the cops on the trio, and that Victor and Joe didn’t take them added to it. I didn’t mean to imply that Dylan was arrested because of the polygraph – polygraphs are not “evidence” on which the prosecution can use at trial. Ever. And I didn’t mean to imply that Joe’s history means he was unlikely to have been involved in/knows much more about Robert’s murder – not that he seemed at all predisposed to murder – but that he picked a strange time to avoid cameras and go into hiding when he’d built his reputation on being a spokesperson/lawyer for people who’d been wronged.
Polygraphs are not an exact science, not by a long shot, but they “work” 65%-95% of the time by measuring heart rate, blood pressure, respiration of a person being asked specific questions. In other words, there are OFTEN physiologically notable responses to telling a lie. And yes, it’s possible that an upset person might be “inconclusive” and yes, it’s very common for such a person to be re-tested. Even if it’s a flat-out “fail” one can still convince cops by taking additional tests. The point is that when the story doesn’t add up, as here, or it’s a he-said-she-said, the parties will WANT a polygraph so the police have something other than a gut reaction to back up their stories.
As for Kathy, I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about. I wasn’t referencing the polygraph in relation to Kathy. If, however, Joe thought she suspected him, and he’d passed a polygraph, he could tell her so and the cops would confirm it (assuming it wasn’t a private polygraph).
It was reported that Scott Peterson was prepped to take a polygraph privately but his lawyers saw the preliminary response and called it off. If a high dollar defense lawyer thinks his client will pass one, it’s common practice to have their client take one (not the case for most people accused of crimes simply for a lack of resources).
As I said before, polygraphs are never used in a trial and for good reason – while they are HELPFUL to ELIMINATE suspects for police to use as a screening tool, the prejudicial nature of a failed test wouldn’t be overcome by defense counsel proving that 5-35% of the time they’re wrong. Jurors would put too much stock in them, the way they do breathalyzers (which are much more accurate if conducted and calibrated properly). But polygraphs are great if you’re wanting the cops to go look for the real bad guy – which is why Joe SAID yes each time he was asked to take one UNTIL it was time to take it.
You and I disagree about polygraphs. I participated in a demonstration of one and it worked on me. If I had been in Joe’s position that night, and I was innocent and had told the complete truth, I definitely would have taken one. I might have asked for one. I know there’s a chance it would backfire but I’d definitely have taken my chances when, as Joe agreed, his own story didn’t make any sense.
We disagree too about how public Joe would likely have been about his efforts to find the “real killer.”
Thanks for your opinions. My view of polygraphs come from personal experiance, so I guess I’m prejudiced. And I agree that all in law inforcement don’t missuse them. But I can tell you that some do.
When it is public knowledge that a particular polygraph test is given, how can a suspect be allowed to ask that positive result be passed to an interested outside party? (A witness to boot,) If this were possible, one’s failure to request his test results would clearly indicate that his results must have been negative. Therefore I can’t see how law can legally release ANY results to the public. In my experience polygraph test results are clearly labeled “Warning! For use by law enforcement only!”
I’ve made this point before but I’ll make it again. In working with victims of armed robbery, assault, etc. one of their most frequently expressed fears is the fear that the perp. will come back and victimise them again. “What if they come back?” is one of the most frequent phrases uttered when someone has been victimised in their workplace; “what if they know where I live and decide to get me at home?” is one of the most frequent phrases uttered when someone has had their wallet or keys or mobile phone taken from them. There is nothing that puts greater fear of God into a person than the idea that they could be in danger from an unknown stranger in the sanctity of their own home.
Regardless of any other considerations, if a ninja assassin really had snuck into my house and murdered one of my oldest friends only a floor away from me, with no apparent motive, I would be terrified for my own future safety and would wonder whether I or anyone else in the house was actually the intended victim (especially given that Robert was an unexpected presence in the house on that night). I would be harassing the cops day and night to find this person. I’d be naming every possible suspect I could think of from the guy who looked at me funny on the train to someone who picked on me in third grade. I’d be sizing up everyone I knew in case they were the perp. I’d be seeking as much information as I could from *everybody* in case they knew something that I didn’t that would make sense of this nightmare.
I’m afraid Joe’s behaviour suggests guilty knowledge to me.
Emily,
And just how do you know that Joe didn’t do these things you suggest? That he or his lawyers havn’t harassed the police. Haven’t named every possable suspect. That he or his friends havent talked to ‘Everyone.’ After all, such activity wouldn’t be made public.
Neither Joe nor the others ever spent another single night in their beloved home. They moved far away to a secret Florida address that has never been made public. So how is it that they fail to show fear of the perp? Seems to me that they have been running scared to death of someone. Exactly how is it that Joe’s known behavior shows a lack of fear and guilty knowledge in your opinion?
Alternateguy,
Joe, Victor and Dylan did indeed sleep another night in the house. After the investigation was complete, and the home was renovated because it was tore up during the investigation, they all returned to live in the home. Only gradually did they move to Florida — first Dylan moved down there, then followed by Joe and Victor. But they definitely moved back in and slept in the home after the murder.
David
David,
Thanks for correcting me if I was wrong. This question was discussed at least once before on the blog and it was my understanding that they had only returned to the house to pick up things and check things out. It was stated by someone besides me, (I’ll try to look it up.)that they had stayed somewhere else in or near Washington until they moved out of town. Where did you get your information that they had actually lived overnight at the Swann Street house following the murder? I’d sure like to know the facts concerning this, since I have made the “…never stayed another night…” statment before and hadn’t been called on it.
Sarah Morgan never spent another night in 1509. Price, Ward and Zaborsky decamped for a luxury apartment building a few blocks away from Swann Street after they sold it.
Sarah had the appropriate reaction; the guys … not so much.
Yet Sarah still may be covering for her former friends — a woman’s choice or intuition, or something else?
“… And just how do you know that Joe didn’t do these things you suggest? That he or his lawyers havn’t harassed the police. Haven’t named every possable [sic] suspect.”
Well, Joe did mention “the black guy” after all. I’m not sure if that counts though.
In my view the initial interviews of all three people present in the house the night Robert was murdered do not show any evidence of fear for their own lives or the complete bewilderment one would expect knowing that a stranger had murdered someone only a few feet away from where you were sleeping. This should be the point at which this fear should be *most* salient.
Also the subsequent behaviour of all three people present in the house the night Robert was murdered have been subjected to extraordinary scrutiny, both in the trial and in this blog and we have no evidence that any of them behaved in a manner consistent with them being in fear for their lives.
Emily,
There have been quite a few posts on this site where people express their belief that the suspects, in not expressing enough fear for their own lives during the interviews, are somehow revealing their guilt.
I have both read and watched the interviews repeatedly, as I know many others here have. I have to agree that fear for their lives regarding the possible intruder, seems not to be directly expressed.
Yet, while watching the interviews, I continue to find that the trio’s responses seem both believable and convincing to me. That being the case, I have, for some time now, asked myself, “Why doesn’t the lack of expressed personal fear of the would-be intruder not bother me? Here is what I decided.
1. If I had been walking down a certain street with a group of friends and one of them were suddenly felled by a gun shot fired by an unknown and unseen assailant, what would I say to the police when called in for questioning. (And perhaps that friend wasn’t in the next bedroom twenty or thirty feet away from me, but walking two feet away from me.)
I can very well imagine myself giving all sorts of information concerning myself and my friends including what I heard and saw and where we were coming from and where we were going. I cannot imagine myself telling the police that I was afraid to ever walk down that street again, for fear that the unknown shooter might get ME the next time. I’d sure not plead with the cops to catch him before he could shoot ME.
I would have to be WAY over-the-board self-centered to focus at such a time on my own future safety rather on the death of my friend. (Even if you believe that one or more of the trio ARE over-the-board self-centered, I suggest that each is sophisticated enough to know to repress those feelings in public.)
2. The trio members each knew that they were safe from the intruder, for the time being, being among law enforcement. (If they thought that one of themselves is guilty, why didn’t they express fear of being near that person?)
They also knew that their future living options were completely up to them. They each had the ability to lock as many doors or live with whoever or wherever they wanted for the next night and all the nights to come.
(Providing they weren’t incarcerated, and they don’t express fear of that.)
3. Personal fear of the intruder was neither necessary nor appropriate to discuss during the long night of Robert’s murder. It doesn’t surprise me that all three felt that way. In fact, I would be suspicious if they had not.
(Suggestion:) Whenever one posts “What I would say…” statements on this blog, one should be careful. You may be revealing more about yourself than you intend to.
As far as the trio subsequently not behaving in a manner consistent with them being in fear for their lives, I can only remind you, once again, that they moved far away and have kept their address secret. And how do you know how many times they have looked over their shoulder or how many locks and alarms they have or if they keep guns under their beds? I sure don’t.
NOTE: Ninja Intruder-
I wasn’t saying that I don’t have a gun under my bed, I was saying that I don’t know if the trio does.
Alt, I suspect Emily is referencing at least in part that during the interrogations none of the three is saying “why on Earth did he/they stab Robert?” and why neither Victor nor Joe thought to check on Dylan. By their own stories, Dylan finally wandered over to see what the commotion was all about – no one wondered if he too had been stabbed, no one yelled his name? Dylan’s bedroom was the first door an intruder would pass.
Some adults, banded together, might consider running down the stairs to see what they could see. Victor did claim to be afraid to go downstairs but I agree with Emily that none seems plagued by fear or shock during interrogations. I still find it strange that Dylan just sat on the sofa on the landing. Seems to me they’d be talking loudly about what the heck just happened, what they should do for Robert, maybe at least look out the windows to see if they could spot a car driving away or a man running away . . .
I’d be interested in knowing whether the 3 stooges began activating their alarm system AFTER Robert’s murder. I believe they claimed to be a bit relaxed about their activation habits.
If they DIDN’T start activating it on a regular basis at night after Robert’s murder, it would say to me that they didn’t have concerns about an intruder returning. (which also says they knew there was no intruder.)
I’d love to see security company records.
Well Bea/Emly,
“why on Earth did he/they stab Robert?” was the question the police were asking, over and over that night, and the trio were saying, over and over, “We don’t know. “We don’t understand it.” As well as words to the fact that this made no sense and was the worst thing to ever happen to them.
What do you see missing in that? The trio was supposed to be asking the police why someone stabbed Robert?
Exactly how would stopping or hollering to check on Dylan while they were quite busy calling for immediate help for Robert, express less personal fear? If they were REALLY afraid I suppose they could have both called from upstairs and shut their door, but although they were guy guys, it seems to me they acted just like intelligent men would be expected to in an emergency. Why are only straight soldiers expected to be brave?
Seems to me. Joe’s not calling for Dylan, while busy checking on Robert and monitoring the 911 call and knowing that a murderer must be at large, perhaps during those short minutes can be explained by his being in shock. But some of you folks keep saying that there is no sign of their being in shock.
I don’t think that Joe was in shock at that moment. Joe, being no dummy, realizes that 1. If Dylan was hurt also, getting help and an ambulance there ASAP was the thing to be doing. 2. If Dylan was all right, he would be hearing all of the screaming and shouting, and show up soon, which he did. 3. The first and foremost need is for help for Robert.
But Dylan’s just sitting on the arm of the sofa and saying almost nothing is the classic reaction of one in shock, as was the screaming of Victor. Don’t forget, the videotapes and interrogations were made hours after the murder. Some of the first responders did comment on their feelings that the trio’s behavior seemed somehow strange and not what they were used to seeing in similar situations. But I, for one, highly doubt that these responder folks had encountered many individuals quite like these.
Unarmed guys might consider running downstairs to “…see what they could see,” when they thought there might be a vicious murderer in the house? THAT would have been a show of fear to you? (?) But of course they WERE kind of busy getting help for Robert.
Look out the window to see if a car is driving away? Just where would that fit on their list of priorities? Sometimes your speculations just don’t make sense to me. Acting stupidly would make them seem less guilty to you? Well, I suppose that I can see your point. Their reported behavior does sometimes sound almost too logical and understandable to me. And I suppose THAT’S a tell of some kind. But not something one can really put their finger on.
.
You’re really over-reaching here. You’re talking minutes when it only takes seconds to yell, “DYLAN, ARE YOU OKAY?” There wasn’t a time-out for a commercial between telling Victor to dial 911 and looking to see if Robert was okay. It’s seconds in time. Fractions of a minute. It’s multi-tasking. And let’s not forget that there’s no evidence of Joe attempting to stop the flow of blood or helping Robert in any way.
As you stated, “the first and foremost need is for help for Robert,” and that’s right, but where is there the slightest bit of evidence that he got any actual help as he was lying there?
I’ve been in life and death emergency situations and you just don’t casually stroll over to the window — you move, MOVE, MOVE!!!!! and that can include a quick move to the window, grabbing a bunch of towels, issuing instructions, applying pressure to the victim. It can all be done in seconds — but I seriously doubt it happened at Swann Street. Can you imagine how awful it would be if one of them got a speck of blood on his pristine white terrycloth robe or sparkling tighty-whities!!!! Their laundry would never be the same.
The FIRST thing Joe and Victor would do upon seeing Robert had been stabbed would be to yell for Dylan. The FIRST. They might decide ONE would call while 911 while the OTHER goes to Dylan’s room, but under no circumstances do they just wait for Dylan to saunter in. Agree, Bill2.
Bill 2,
You seem to think that Joe should have been multitasking and Emily thinks it odd that he was not shaking and doing unexplainable things due to shock. Which is it?
You ask, “but where is there the slightest bit of evidence that he got any actual help as he was lying there? 1. The only witnesses said that Joe tried to help him. 2. There was less blood than expected, so perhaps the flow was staunched. 3. The EMT found Joe kneeling over him. 4. At least one surgeon said that his heart had stopped beating from the moment of the heart stab and so what help to start the heart beating could Joe have provided?
Other than seeking professional advice and following directions, which he apparently did.
Where is there evidence that Joe DIDN’T attempt to provide help, other than that the first EMT said that Joe was doing nothing for Robert when he entered the room?
But that can be explained in two ways. Since the first responder admitted that he approached from Joe’s back side, couldn’t Joe have straightened up and withdrawn his pressure pad at the sound of the presence of the EMT without the EMT having seen that detail?
(And that straightening up and withdrawing from his position above Robert was interpreted by the EMT as if he had caught a Vampire in the act.)
Wouldn’t Joe have realized at some point that no blood was flowing, hence no need to continue to apply pressure, since staunching blood flow was the purpose given for applying the pressure?
Perhaps the EMT had expected someone to be applying artificial respiration or pounding on Robert’s chest or some such, but Joe was smart enough to know that that might be exactly the wrong thing to be doing, and he had only been told to apply pressure.
Your comments on the specks of blood on the pristine white clothes shows a real bias against these guys and I expect that that clouds your logic and judgment.
I do have a real bias against people who cover up a murder. But I didn’t comment on specks of blood on the pristine white clothes because that didn’t exist.
That’s one of the things that sends up some red flags. There was a bloody murder in the house and this trio shows up freshly showered with only one drop of blood, not on clothes, on a fingertip of someone who is supposed to be helping the victim.
Bill 2,
I’ve heard that Joe was somewhat of a cleanliness freak as well as speculation that he might have compulsively cleaned up some blood in his super neat house.
It’s shocking what illogical things someone might do in a state of shock.
Like wipe up blood or throw some bloody laundry in the wash. Or fail to mention these actions to the inquiring authorities.
I see any of these actions as possibly being human and not necessarily evil.
Efforts to pretend a tragedy hasn’t happened are not logical, but are all too common.
What, Joe mopped and did a load of laundry while kneeling next to his dying friend? He told police he never left Robert’s side from the time he saw him until the EMT arrived.
Bea, wasn’tthere a momentbefore the policeshowed up? Maybe while Joe was showinthem aroundVictor was
washin
OK,
maybe not.
Bill 2,
It’s funny, but having blood on you is usually seen as sign guilt. In this case, you find the lack of blood a sign of guilt.
How can these guys win?
I think that I recall that Joe said that he washed his hands then later found that a spot of blood remained. Indeed, it would be strange if the fastidious Joe didn’t bother to wash his hands, perhaps when he put on his bathrobe..
AltGuy:
I have to differ with you a bit here. Their behavior was weird. It is one thing to look at the events of the evening and try to find logical reasons why they reacted in this weird manner. It is another to rationalize it away as normal or unsurprising under the circumstances. It was not normal or understandable. It was weird.
Yes, shock might have caused the weird behavior. Everyone reacts differently to trauma and the defendants have an expert on tap ready to testify that this behavior is a reasonable reaction. But his opinion will be based on studies of survivors of 9/11 and other traumatic events, not by merely saying shock can explain anything. If they were in shock, why did it manifest itself the way it did in these three?
Guilt could explain the behavior, as could knowledge or strong suspicion of the actual culprit. So could, as you suggest, the realization that there was little or nothing they could do for Robert — if so, how or why did they come to that realization? Surely the behavior tells us something useful?
Writing it off as normal and due to shock is too easy, even when trying to see the defendants side of things.
Hoya,
Hey, I agree with what you are saying. These guys and their actions do seem rather weird to me.
But the point I have been trying to make is that their critics want it both ways. The trio is either being seen behaving as though they aren’t in shock or doing weird unexplained things.
No, I don’t know if they are guilty, but I do thank that they should have the benefit of the doubt until proved guilty of something.
Folks here often suggest that their behavior is only explained by their being guilty of either causing or covering up for Robert’s murder. I’m just trying to suggest alternative explanations.
Shouldn’t all possibilities be explored here if we are looking for the truth?
I see discrepancies in so many arguments.
For instance, someone posts that it is suspicious that Victor went back up the stairs to use the phone without showing fear of the unknown intruder.
But the testimony is that Joe had to take the hysterical Victor by the shoulders and stand at the bottom of the stars and start him back up those stairs. (Back to the room that they had just come from and to the only room in the house where Victor knew that the intruder wasn’t present.)
Joe apparently realized that Victor was too hysterical and afraid to make the necessary call from the murder room, and Joe HAD TO try to do something for his friend.
Is what I see a stretch? Or is thinking that Victor would be too afraid to go back up the stairs a stretch?
I think I probably haven’t expressed myself strongly enough. It’s difficult for people who haven’t been in a situation where they feared for their own life to appreciate what that feels like and what a “typical” reaction is.
The scenario that I have most experience of is attending a workplace as a support staff counsellor shortly after an armed robbery has occurred. In no cases that I have attended has anyone been killed or even injured but all staff have had guns or machetes waved in their faces and were in fear for their lives.
What I typically see:
– involuntary physiological arousal, most people are trembling so uncontrollably that they are literally unable to drink a cup of water without difficulty; most people have pounding heart rates and are hyperventilating and show a great deal of physical agitation (stamping their feet, being unable to sit still, taking long deep breaths) as well as hypervigilance (darting eyes, startle response at noises, etc.). This sort of thing is extremely difficult to fake and it is unmistakable as a normal response by a civilian who has witnessed violence and has been in fear for their own life. The trouple showed nothing remotely resembling responses like this. I’m sure it is this that made the emergency responders hair stand up as being “not right”.
– emotional lability, e.g. “I’m fine, no, I’ll be all right” (smiles weakly then bursts into tears).
– cognitive confusion and racing thoughts, e.g. asking multiple times “what time is it?” or “has anyone rung the owner?” when these questions have already been answered. And, as I said, the typically voiced concern “what if they come back?”
Alt, you seem to have this idea that it is possible for someone who has seen one of their oldest friends murdered in their own house by an unknown assailant who is still out there to: 1. suppress their emotional responses and 2. behave in a task focussed manner that concentrates on the big picture. In my experience neither of these responses are controllable or possible or typical of anyone who genuinely finds themselves victimised in the manner that the trouple claim to have been victimised. These types of events are labelled “traumatic” for a reason, they are not labelled “slightly incommodious” and “likely to make you late for work”.
Also the scenario you give of someone getting shot walking down the street in no way compares to the level of violation involved in someone being murdered in your own house. Seriously, you make light of the enormity of what occurred in that house in almost every post you make.
Emily,
Your closing line to me is, “Seriously, you make light of the enormity of what occurred in that house in almost every post you make.”
Perhaps, in light of the fact that there are huge numbers of experts in and out of government who are officially involved in the effort to work out the answer to the question of W.M.R.W. All of us are just spinning our wheels in our postings here. But I haven’t seen anyone here making light of the enormity of what occurred. Not anyone.
Perhaps you read that into my postings because I believe that Robert may not be the only victim here. My thinking is that while his death is truly tragic, for society to go off and make the mistake of nailing the wrong person for the crime, would be another tragedy. Nailing some person might bring a false comfort to some and seem like some sort of closure, but it would in fact be multiplying the tragedy, and leaving a killer free to strike again.
I often think of the fact that when Joe said something to the fact that he had a friend that died that night, the police officer corrected him with “No, you had a friend MDERED tonight!” Which is more enormous to Robert’s friend and family? His death or the fact that it was a murder? Joe apparently felt the enormity in the death, while the officer felt it in the murder.
Was it possible for someone to have behaved in the focused manner that Joe said he did? It would have been not only possible but necessary in order to save his friend’s life. Some men do have the ability to act in a task focused manner, and from what I’ve read about Joe’s life, thanks to Bea, he was surely a task focused and in-control guy.
Did I say that Joe was focused on the “Big picture?” No, if he had that kind of focus, he wouldn’t have wiped up blood, handled the knife, forgot to holler for Dylan or even glance out the window. Joe was focused narrowly on the task at hand, try to save Robert. (Can you just IMAGINE what posters would be saying here if he had failed to do that?)
And what if they didn’t behave in exactly the manner they said they did? What if they panicked and did weird and unexplainable things in their shock? (Joe does mention freaking out.) Does the fact that they might have failed to disclose all of their actions, make them guilty of murder? Perhaps they believed that mentioning details that would likely throw the police off of going after the real murderer, was counter productive. And once you say something that’s not exactly true, you later realize that you can go to jail, regardless of your motive.
It does seem to me that some posters here see things two ways. Any Unexplained action is suggestive of the trio’s guilt, while the absence of panicked behavior is also suggestive of their guilt. Example: You say that people in shock often ask what time it is for no reason. Joe asks Victor to ask what time it is, and that’s seen as some sort of suspicious ‘tell.’
You have a lot of ideas how typical people behave in similar situations, but I think that these three were rather atypical people, and I can’t really imagine an incident similar to the appalling event that happened that night in the middle of their home.
I have read psychological reports that people behave in a wide variety of ways during emergencies, you seem to look for a few. Were any of the people you observed, being accused of having a hand in or covering up a murder while under observation? Seem to me that alone would have a way of focusing one’s attention.
“…neither of these responses are controllable or possible or typical of anyone who genuinely finds themselves victimised (sic.) in the manner that the trouple claim to have been victimised.” (sic.)
Where do you see that claim? To me they seem to be rather focused on Joe’s death. He was the victim, in their minds, not they. Throughout your posts, you seem to expect them to be rather self-centered people, while I don’t think that it’s been established that they are.
Sorry, I should not have used the term “make light of”. I meant more that you “fail to appreciate”.
alternateguy said:
“Which is more enormous to Robert’s friend and family? His death or the fact that it was a murder? Joe apparently felt the enormity in the death, while the officer felt it in the murder.”
I’m surprised that you need someone to point this out to you – the fact that Robert’s death was a murder is the most important fact about his death to everyone concerned in the case.
See, there’s an example right there of you failing to appreciate the enormity of the case. Of course it makes an enormous difference to anyone whether someone they love died as a result of murder. This should include for the people in whose home their friend was murdered. A death is bad enough but the fact that he was purposely killed by an unknown assailant makes his death exponentially worse for those who grieve him and for society at large, hence the involvement of the police force. Do you really need this stuff explained to you?
alternateguy said:
“Throughout your posts, you seem to expect them to be rather self-centered people”
No, I expect them to be shit scared and visibly upset people. And they failed to live up to my expectations.
I don’t think there’s much point in you and I discussing this further.
I agree with your last comment. But I must add that if someone called on the phone and informed me that my loved one had been murdered, it’s hearing of his DEATH that would be the enormous shocker.
To posters on this site maybe the murder is the enormous factor, and I, having never even known Robert, feel that way.
I’m just trying to point out that, to a close friend, the focus might have been different. And, there would have been guilt, for not having been able to save or protect him.
Wow alternate guy, you do go in for some itsy-bitsy teeny tiny parsings don’t you?
Yep. I always think that life is complicated.
“if someone called on the phone and informed me that my loved one had been murdered, it’s hearing of his DEATH that would be the enormous shocker.”
Making a statement such as that is enough to render the average human being speechless.
Compare two scenarios: 1. a young wife learns that her husband has died suddenly due to a undiagnosed congenital heart condition, 2. a young wife learns that her husband has been murdered by an uknown assailant still at large.
Are you really going to make some sort of argument that the reactions to the death are not going to be different due to the nature of the death? If so then you are either trolling or severely autistic.
In case you want some reading material on the matter simply google “grief reactions following murder” to find lots of literature that demonstrates that murder is a “bigger deal” than simply learning of the death of someone.
Emily, (In answer to your later posts, ’cause I’m running out of space.)
“Making a statement such as that is enough to render the average human being speechless”
I see that you are in no way average, since you do follow up with a couple of more long postings.
Having followed your directions and after goggling “Grief reactions following murder,” I did find at least one article discussing the fact that grief reactions following a murder may be more severe than those reactions following a sudden and unexpected death from natural causes.
That, I grant you, stands to reason.
But please look also at the long list of grief reactions following a sudden and natural death. The list is just about as long, and includes all of the most severe reactions.
I did not mean to suggest that the cause of death isn’t important. It is. But in judging the reactions of those nearby, I think that it is the degree of responsibility one feels that is the most significant factor. Guilt is just about the strongest of emotions, next to loss. And so, of course, the cause and reason for the death is very much involved in the degree and type of emotion felt, depending on that degree of responsibility.,
Many here spend much time trying to get into the heads of this one or that one member of the triple. To try to understand their reactions and degrees of shock following Robert’s death. In order to do so, to any effect, isn’t it necessarily to consider such distinctions as to the primary cause of those expressions of grief and shock? And, of course, most importantly, if they are covering up guilt.
Many say, “Well if it were me, I would have been…and I would have immediately…”
Done – what? Unless we have had a close friend murdered in our house under those conditions, how the heck do we know how we would react? And, after all, they are three different people and none of them are we. And, if you’re like me, you’ve never even met any of them.
Yes, it is silly of me to point out how I would feel at a particular death, because that may well not be how any of THEM would feel or react.
Yet I go on reading the silly comments of others and posting silly comments of my own. But what else can we do to try to figure out WMRW?
Where is there any evidence that Joe attempted to save Robert? Is there evidence that he attempted to stop the flow of blood? Didn’t you see the lack of blood on the towel? Didn’t you note that he had a touch of blood on only one finger? When the EMT people got there, Joe was sitting on the bed in his clean white bikini underwear doing nothing.
Bill2, right on, Maude!
Here was our “hero” being less than heroic? Was he expressing a lawyerly reaction to an irrational episode, or a realization that friends do kill friends after all?
Keep it up, Herr Alt-mann.
I’d like to add a twist to your well-thought-out, fair and balanced (in hoc foro ergo rara) argumenta. For the sake of argument, let’s say that Judge L.’s legal restraint turned out to be true, i.e., that not all of the trio members were guilty of conspiracy and that, in fact, one or two of the members were victims of actions of the other(s). So, based on the logic of this set up, that could be Dylan does something that Victor and Joe don’t know about, or Joe and/or Victor do something that Dylan doesn’t know about. In that case, one or more of them are innocent. So, where does that leave this blog? Should people feel bad about all the rank speculation and crass vituperation they have showered on ALL THREE even though there might be innocents involved? Or is this just a spite-dump for some spiteful folks?
Dieter, that’s a variation on pretty much what I think did happen. I think that Dylan murdered Robert and that Joe immediately went into a mode of covering for Dylan when he realized this and that it probably only slowly dawned on Victor that this was the case.
That said, I don’t feel bad about all of the speculation and accusation that has subsequently gone on because both Joe and Victor have brought it on themselves by lying and stonewalling. That makes none of them innocent to my understanding. Not being a lawyer I don’t know what you really call this, but accessories after the fact sounds like a nice fit.
Or Dieter, don’t forget, as I mentioned above, maybe Joe (or another or two or all three) have strong suspicions about what happened but don’t actually know for sure, any more than those of us here.
There are very few here who paint all three with a broad brush as “guilty” and most of us are clear to label speculation, mental exercises and theories as such. Victor has many defenders and many found Dylan’s interrogation tape convincing and have said so.
The three are free to choose their manner of defense. The course they have chosen, up to now, invites speculation, as Bea points out. It is surely not an easy course, but for whatever reason, it is the one they have chosen and they must have good reasons, unknown to us, for so doing and sticking to it.
Hoya’s correct – I have no idea if Joe is guilty of anything from a legal standpoint. I hold the opinion that he did not behave like an innocent man, and I would be very surprised if he did not KNOW something significant that he withheld from police. The fact that he asked Jason Torchinsky to inquire whether Kathy Wone would waive her attorney client privilege a few days after the murder makes me highly suspicious. That he played word games that wiping up blood is not the same as tampering. That he told a FRIEND that he didn’t think he could tell the police everything for fear one of them would be arrested.
When viewed in the context of the crazy story they told that night, I simply don’t believe him. Not to get bogged down in minutia again, but that Joe “assumed” the intruder LEFT the back yard by SCALING the wall instead of going out the door is something I cannot find any rationalization for. It’s nonsensical that one would assume this, especially since Joe hadn’t gone into the back yard, and it make perfect sense if one knew in advance that the back gate remained locked and would have required that intruder had a key and re-locked it after his departure.
Nothing adds up. I still can’t get my head around Joe deciding that THEN was a good time to stop acting as a mouthpiece for good causes. . .
Who is spiteful on this blog, Dieter? As I’ve said before, we are all “too busy to hate,” just like Atlanta in the 1960s, but we are not too busy to think.
Who seems the most innocent amongst the trio, Dieter? One may be a little innocent, just like being a little pregnant: either one is, or one is not!
Good thinking, Deiter,
I believe that if any one of the guys are guilty of this crime then it is clear that that person’s is rather insane. This may be something that one or more of the other two suspects but can’t prove. It seems highly unlikely that all three share in this extreme condition, based just on mathematical probability. The others are only guilty if they KNOW of something significant that they have kept hidden.
I’m reading that all three moved to Florida. Is that accurate? And what about Aunt Marsha’s house. Didn’t Joe and Victor stay with Aunt Marsha (or was it Martha) in Northern Virginia for awhile?
Dylan went to Florida and stayed with a male couple in a condo in Wilton Manors (Broward County). I believe he was doing some massage work while staying there. Joe and Victor stayed in that condo with the other three on some weekends. I got the impression that it was during the time they were seeking the house in Dade County.
We know that, after the purchase of that house, Dylan moved in and was advertising his massage business at that time. I’ve never seen any claim that Joe or Victor moved in.
I’ve always felt they bought that house in case they lost a large amount of money in a court case. In Florida, that would not result in the loss of their home IF that is their main residence. That’s why I’ve been watching to see if there has ever been any WMRW messages giving sightings of Joe or Victor down there. (O.J. Simpson bought his McMansion in South Florida before the Goldman’s took him to court.)
And somewhere along the way, Dylan also lived in Thailand. Didn’t that happen since the murder?
Hey Bill2,
I agree that Joe and Victor bought the house in Florida (at least in large part) because of the homestead exemption, keep that asset if there is a large monetary judgment against them. In looking at real estate where they bought and when they bought, the home has lost value since the purchase so I don’t know it will do them much good (unless they put all their cash into the house to keep it untouched). But they do have to establish it’s their principal address, so they’ll likely migrate there between now and trial, much like OJ did.
Like you, I’ve not read anything suggesting that Joe or Victor had moved there or established residency but for the original arrest/bail hearings that Victor had gotten a Florida driver’s license and that they purchased the home – actually, at that time, they proved that they’d rented out that house to prove that they had no immediate plans to leave the DC area. That was in January 2009 if memory serves, so my guess is that they’ve done things to check boxes to help establish residency there whether or not they’ve actually moved there. There has been speculation about where they REALLY live (I think in “answers” to discovery J & V refused to answer even where they lived) but to my knowledge only Dylan has/had a serious presence there.
And yes, Dylan did “study” massage abroad AFTER the murder but before the arrest.
It was Aunt Marcia, dear, spelled like the fictional Marcia Brady of “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!” Mercedes, Mercedes, Mercedes, indeed!
google–Pathologic narcissist bordering on sociopath
but as an aside with the Canadian Ken and Barbie– how could they both think that Karla could drug her sister, let her shining Blond prince dethrone her sister as her gift and their one bonding moment for eternity, make a video of it and then her sister would wake up with no memory and all would be well–well her sister died and everybody believed them with no questions ask until many tears/years later and after Karla talked and DNA analysis linked ken to a rape.
eerie similarity, me thinks. And people question the possibility that Joe could do this to Robert. If a sister could do this to her little sister, certainly a friend could do this to a friend.
Thanks, Bea, for your “op-ed” piece. Every new angle or perspective to look at this case provides the opportunity for fresh perspectives. One thought I had is that I find it odd that JP was so concerned with calming VZ down when Robert W. was allegedly discovered. Why wasn’t he screaming? Why didn’t he and or V just grab the phone right there in the room? And again, I wonder why V felt comfortable traveling by himself back up the stairs. Did he say he heard the chime of the door closing? I don’t think so. If not, what gave him the confidence to travel alone back upstairs. I don’t get it. I don’t get the lack of fear that someone could be lurking around or hiding or scouting the place. Where was that?
And what about DW saying he heard RW latch his door? I don’t get that part. Because it suggests someone would have to break in his room (no evidence) or he got up to let someone in (no evidence).
Re guilt or innocence, etc. we can only work with what we know: Four men in a house, three a self-described “trouple”; one, a one-time forever guest at their home. And don’t forget JP’s confession to Ms. Ragone about cleaning up some blood in a panic. Where did he do it. Did he wipe blood on a towel? No evidence of that that we know of. Did he use tissues? No ev. Did he get up and leave Robert to wash? The lack of the other evidence suggests that.
Then again, the convict brother missing for the first time his phlebotomy class; his convict lover’s attempt at poetry in the funeral guest book–and the brother harassing and cursing out a female cop at the funeral. The female tenant gone for the evening midweek to watch TV locally with some friends. A duplicitous spider luring the man of the house out to…kill it? And what else…
To me, Susan, our Texan, Mr. Pring, and/or Mr. Hixson may really hold the keys to this case if they can map out the contours of extreme BDSM and where Joe and Dyl fit on that spectrum of excess.
I mean who has sex with a neighbor, and then has a meeting in that neighbor’s car with one’s spouse — just after a close friend has been murdered in one’s own home. The mind continues to do the Virginia reel!
Poor Mr. Hixson is the gentleman with the terrible vision problems. Looking out his window, across the narrow street, he was unable to determine which member of that household was standing on the doorstoop.
And, this observation was from a gentleman who admittedly had had an intimate encounter with at least two members of said household, hours or days beforehand.
Tawdry isn’t the word for this, ladies!
Bill 2,
I have always considered that taking out Robert in the way it was done, would have been an effective way of destroying the triple. It has almost had that effect. Such an intruder would have had to have knowledge about the comings and goings and layout of the household and, of course, a motive. How does that apply to either Hixon or others?
In reply to Alternateguy, we know that Scott Hixson had been in the house and, threfore, was aware of the general layout of the house. From his window, he should be able to see who is coming and going at the front door. He could have seen Robert’s arrival and watched for lights in the bedroom window. He was also close enough to go along with any request to remove photo and/or video equipment, bloody towels, and other evidence from 1509 on the night of the murder.
Bill 2,
So, it’s not quite as impossible that an outsider could have done the crime as the police say it is.
The good judge would be accurate, in this case, when she said that the triple knew the murderer. This does not necessarily mean that they KNOW who the murder IS, and that’s not what she said, though she may have implied it.
If Hickson, or anyone else, carried off evidence at the behest of the triple, it would seem stupid not to include a TV or so, to make it look like the work of a burglar. (And I don’t think that any of the triple have been described as being stupid.)
And, too, if a bunch of photo/video equipment were missing, why didn’t the triple mention THAT as evidence of the proclaimed burglary? (They were challenged, over and over, with the statement that, “Nothing was taken!”)
It would be more than interesting to know if they still have any friendship with Mr. Hickson, but I don’t see how that would prove anything.
If I were the police then, legal or not, I’d sure be tapping someone’s phones.
“legal or not”? And you bemoan the use of polygraphs as a screening tool?
Bea,
I’m not police, thank God. But from what I see of many police detectives, they do bend a lot of rules to find the criminal.
Wire tap evidence can’t be used, of course, but once they know who’s guilty of what, they can go after the necessary evidence to make the case.
“Wire tap evidence can’t be used, of course, but…”
Altguy,
You are flat out wrong and misinformed. Wiretappy can be and is often legally authorized. Blagojevich FBI wiretaps, anyone? Etc., etc., etc.
Wiretapping. (above) I’ms ure wiretappy is when the shoes gets antsy during the recording.
OK, then I should have said “legal or not, as the case may be.”
In the first post.
It doesn’t work that way. If anything is gleaned from an illegal wiretap it’s then thrown out as “fruit from a poisonous tree” – cops either get warrants or they don’t wiretap. I’m sure there are some rogue cops doing it but they risk their careers over it. And what they learned isn’t usable.
So it’s not at all easy to investigate the theory.
You have to wonder how Price conducted the introductions in Hixson’s car. “Victor, meet Scott. He hops into our bed with me and the love of my life when you’re out of town. Scott, this is Victor. He’s in charge of watering the plants and helps put out fires on the barbecue grill.”
This is a devastating yet sublime portrait of our own Dorian Gray, Bea: I cannot wait for the second installment!
Questions Begged: how does Joe handle his feminine “Otherness” in a still-male-dominated society? Does the “power bottom” motif still fit? And, as an outsider formerly in an insider’s world, will he ever rise like a phoenix somewhere else? Is this the end of the Joe Price story, or just the beginning?
This is very disappointing. It is disappointing that WMRW, a onece unique and intriguing blog where journalism and law could come together to provide all interested persons with unprecedented access to legal proceedings in order to help solve a horrible and tragic murder has devolved into another one of those tabloid-esque blogs that are a dime a dozen.
It is disappointing that a lawyer would give hypothetical advice about what she would advise her clients to do in not only a case, where she is completely uninvolved, but also in a area of practice in which she has no experience. (If I remember correctly Bea is a copyright lawyer not a criminal lawyer). I am sure that every lawyer, (and probably other professions, such as doctors) has experienced the phenomenon that as soon as you graduate law school every one of your family and friends thinks you can answer all of their legal questions. Even random people on the street, when they realize you are a lawyer want to ask you about their child support payments. My mother still asks me legal questions on a weekly basis – and she has never been charged with a capital crime. But as we continue to practice and move further and further away from that one class in law school on civil law, family law, criminal law. etc., most lawyers will resist the urge to comment on an area of law on which they are not an “expert” or at least knowledgeable.
For example, I could not even tell you the difference between a copyright, patent, or trademark. I just don’t know, I could speculate but the speculation would not have anything to do with my experience in copyright law. I think this even more true when we move away from just plain law and move into conversations about strategy or client advice. As any lawyer knows, this is one of the most intricate aspects of our jobs. This is where we earn our “big bucks” (and for the record clio – I have been a public defender my entire career, so my clients don’t actually pay me). Even if I was going to opine on the intricacies of patent law, I could never pretend to know what I would advise a client when it came down to whether she should sue over a violation of the patent. Maybe the difference is that there is no TV show about patent law but there are plenty about criminal law, so it is easier for lawyers to pretend they understand criminal law.
You don’t have to believe this, but I will tell you criminal law is a lot more complex than what they show you on TV. In fact, there are 1000s of pages of Supreme Court opinions just on the 5th amendment, not to mention lower court interpretations. Bea, have you been keeping abreast of the most recent Miranda progeny? If not, I would suggest that you refrain from giving your friend advice about whether she should talk to the police, not just because you don’t want to mislead your friend, but also because you don’t want to get sued for malpractice or violate your ethical duties to do what is in your client’s best interests.
Picture this as an example: I go to an orthopedic surgeon who tells me I need surgery on my knee. I then speak to my friend the dermatologist who tells me that based on her own views of surgery and what she remembers from med school, I should not get the surgery. Would any of you tell me I should take my friend’s advice? What if every orthopedic surgeon tells me that for this type of injury I should always get the surgery? Would any of you give any credence to my friend the dermatologist writing on a blog that getting the knee surgery is just plain wrong?
I am disappointed by this post because it not only demonstrates how different WMRW is today than when I first started reading it right before the criminal trial but it also emphasizes the willingness of lawyers to participate in the tabloid nature of criminal trials, with little to know understanding of the applicable law and strategy.
I understand that the point of this article was for Bea to give background on Joe and how his past actions compare with his actions since RW’s murder. And at first I had no issue with Bea opining on whether the defendants’ refusal to speak was “acceptable” behavior, because as humans we can all make moral determinations on our own and I understand Bea has strong opinions about whether the defendants’ actions were morally acceptable after the murder. But Bea’s advice on what she as a lawyer would tell a friend or client in this situation and the comparison to fictional and sensational TV shows, in my opinion, is unacceptable.
Wow. Offense and insult duly registered – but I do have a right to my opinion and stand by it. I only did criminal law working for the PD during law school and then for a year out of school, have kept up on Miranda/progeny only loosely, but I don’t hold myself out as any kind of criminal defense attorney. That said, I was asked what I would have done, and I answered.
If I were Joe that night, and I were truly innocent and wanted to help the investigation fully, I would behave exactly as I indicated. Joe too was an IP lawyer and spoke to police without counsel, advised his friends to do the same – maybe his behavior is likewise unacceptable to you (but people with a bleeding friend in their home generally speak with police). Unlike Joe, I’d have taken the polygraph had I been him – and if I’d passed, the investigation would veered away from me (as it would have with Joe had he passed).
Sorry this offended you so. This op-ed piece was not about legal fine points, specifically said it was NOT about what would be admissible – essentially the entire effort was focused on the “regular person” approach and response to finding a dying friend and how Joe Price, in particular, behaved. Perhaps that Joe and I shared the same legal practice area makes it more valid, not less, in that I was speaking to how people behave and specifically how Joe behaved in view of his personal history.
Wow. Kiki, if anything proved your point, I think that response did. Can’t wait for Bea Part II. I mean, now that Oprah is gone, where can we go for our kiddy pool? Thanks for taking the time, Kiki, too. This forum was a much better place when folks like you would comment regularly, rather than just when it got too outrageous to still exercise the right to remain silent.
Dieter: So you share Kiki’s “disappointment,” too? Color me whatev… Make one single positive contribution here, instead of your predictable carping, and I might start to care about what you have to say. Might.
Kiki – There will be a trial starting four months from tomorrow. Until then, and in lieu of filings or procedings, the only alternative is to mothball the site. That could make Dieter a happy little camper, but it isn’t really an option. Your criticism is welcome, but your characterization as ‘tabloid-esque’ seems wide of the mark.
Well, it does seem from these well-timed and mannered responses from pro-defense constituents that Covington’s questioning may be hitting too close to home. “Tabloid-esque” is another man/woman’s hagiography.
BTW, dears, long before the criminal trial, the Editors brought in a wide variety of lenses, besides those of a defense attorney, to look at this mess — those lenses including the academic disciplines of literary criticism, history, histology, sociology, queer studies, etc. Accordingly, from all of those insights, not everyone thinks that a hired gun or excuse maker/presenter is always right: just sayin’.
“Would any of you give any credence to my friend the dermatologist writing on a blog that getting the knee surgery is just plain wrong?”
I will answer since you asked “any of” us. I might take the derm’s advice, esp. if the derm. had followed the history of my trials and tribs with the knee from the beg. of its problems. Then again I’d also remember that the derm. was writing an “op ed” too and as you remind us, on a “blog” to boot. Then I’d remember my own derm experiences and that of others and realize that despite many derms with years of experience they all might give different advice.
“I am disappointed by this post because it not only demonstrates how different WMRW is today than when I first started reading it right before the criminal trial.”
Here I disagree with you and think your memory is lacking despite your being a public defender……..
This blog has had guest pages before and has had opinions from various attys who have given their particular takes on things. And the courts around our nation are filled with public defenders who seemingly don’t speak with one voice on issues. The editors invite guest pieces. As I recall they even invited you to contribute KiKi. The world (and this blog) is partly what you make it.
To Dieter–If you are looking for a “kiddie pool” then seek and hopefully ye shall find. I don’t like listening to Rush Limbaugh and you know what I do? I don’t listen to him. Be the change you hope to seek in the world D. And the best way to do it is with some respect. When you whine or like some other hold yourself to be the voice of a profession, then that’s what people will hear and read–your whine. Props to Altguy who engages in a minority view but at least engages respectfully.
Speaking only for myself, I would love to see a Alt-Kiki-Dieter post: their Triple Entente cannot be as loathsome as a (former) alignment of three may have been.
Weekend kisses, everyone, for the coming Solstice,
Clio.
Clio, Straight guy doesn’t want your kisses and you can blow it to someone else of your choice. KiKi, Alt, and Dieter. Don’t stop posting.
Kiki, I always enjoy how well you throw shade while kissing your own arse. A rare feat.
Honestly, well said, Carolina.
I note that in an 11/24/10 post Kiki mentions that if she “were a prosecutor….” and if she “were a defense attorney….” But she states above that she’s a public defender. And yet she makes suppositions about if she were… and I didn’t see “op ed” above her posts. I am disappointed (though not the four-plus times she expressed) but I don’t find it “unacceptable” and she might. I welcome the different viewpoints, voices and scenarios. Arrogance, etc.? Not so much.
“as” she might (second line above). Typo. I hope no one is severely disappointed or finds that unacceptable. However, if anyone does, I will soldier on bravely as is my blogging wont….
Bea, this was very well-thought out. You have obviously been following this case for a long time.
When will Part 2 be unveiled, Editors? Bea left us on the edge of our seats with a masterful look at Joe’s spin doctoring that evening — enroute to, at, and after Anacostia.
From years as a politician for, but not among, the poor and disenfranchised, Mr. Price had to be an expert at code shifting, appealing to working-class cops from the standpoint of his own lowly origins. That would explain the odd choice of small talk on the ride to the police station, as Bea notes. He also had to establish his masculine bona fides right away: Joe appealed to the male cops by stressing that he is a real man who just happens to love two or more men. And, the cops may have bought it — they never told Joe that he would never survive in jail, but they did tell Victor, whom the cops took as Joe’s wife. In fact, they bought Joe’s presentation of the trouple as man, wife, and mistress — which placed a heterosexual lense on a uniquely “all-about-Joe” situation.
Also, why was Dyl singled out first for the polygraph? Was Victor perceived as telling the truth? Was Victor seen as more “normal” or gender-appropriate by the cops than our trickster from Tacoma?
And, if Dyl had passed the poly, as others have pointed out, then we would have known about that “triumph” from defense counsel by now. So, if Dyl had clearly failed the poly, why wasn’t he arrested on the spot? MPD blew the opportunity to get to the real story, if that was the case! More likely, the test results must have been inconclusive, but Joe was still clearly worried behind his bravado front.
Clio,
Polygraphs aren’t scientific.
By law, Polygraph results can’t be used to arrest anyone and the results can’t be made public. It’s my understanding that no defense will discuss Polygraph results since they can’t be verified.
Polygraphs measure physiological responses during interrogations and are used as a screening tool. While they are not suitable evidence during trial, because they are only 65-95% accurate, they are one piece of the pie under which a cop may make a determination that a party is likely guilty – but prosecutors make the call whether the case would hold up during a preliminary hearing/Grand Jury indictment and there would need to be sufficient evidence (polygraph again is not “evidence”).
Clio, Dyl wasn’t singled out for the polygraph so much as he was the one who actually agreed to do it. Joe was asked twice, agreed twice, but then disappeared when the time was nigh. When Dyl was “inconclusive” or failed, cops were awaiting physical evidence from the crime scene – until virtually all of the blood evidence was ruined. Sadly, that there was evidence of blood on the door, walls, and ceiling never got to the light of day, in a determination of ‘what happened.’
One could assume Dyl was considered more likely “guilty” early on because he was on the second floor where Robert was (if one assumes Joe and Victor are telling the truth that Joe was upstairs). I’ve often wondered if Victor hadn’t fallen asleep and wouldn’t have known whether Joe got into bed or not – until he was awakened and then “screamed.” The authorities gambled on arresting Dylan in Florida hoping he’d talk while in custody during extradition – and it may be the didn’t think him the most culpable but the most likely to break. All speculation. Too bad, from my perspective, that early attention wasn’t on Victor. Dylan may have appeared to have been a lost sheep willing to take 2nd Wife honors but I think they misread him as weak. It takes some inner strength for an intelligent man like Dylan to be willing to be kept, especially if it was indicative of his unwillingness to work for a living. One might say he was devoted to not being self-supporting, which the cops misread completely, IMHO.
Susan, Clio and Nelly, thanks for having my back. I never meant as more than an opinion piece – and one woman’s opinion, at that, though I stand by what I wrote. FYI, the only time I would give an opinion about criminal matters would be to friends who knew I wasn’t a criminal lawyer – not like I would give them freely even then. Like Joe, though, I’m assuming that most people with a dead man in their second floor bedroom would be willing to answer questions.
Altguy, I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate your presence on this site. While I don’t always agree with everything you say, it’s very refreshing to know that you (and many others) are continuing to keep an open mind about what may have transpired that terrible night on Swann street. It’s easy to get bogged down in the multitude of mysterious details (and this case is rife with them), but sometimes you have to step back and look at the most basic, summary, high-level facts:
1) A beloved and respected man was murdered in his friends’ house and there was no apparent motive for the killing.
2) A bunch of weird and unexplainable “black box” stuff happened between the time he was stabbed and the time help arrived.
3) It is extremely unlikely that an unknown stranger was responsible for the killing (not impossible, but extremely unlikely).
4) The behavior of the trouple since the incident has neither conclusively confirmed nor conclusively disproved their involvement, whether as murderers or conspirators.
When you put these four items together, you are left with a very confusing picture of one of the most frustrating murder cases I have ever personally come across. In a normal, sensical universe, Robert would’ve woken up the next morning and gone forward with his life. But someone prevented that from happening, and the answer to the riddle is lost somewhere in that “black box” that no one seems to be able to crack open.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s very hard to look at this case critically and come away with the conclusion that all three defendants are completely innocent. While it can’t be ruled out as a possibility, I believe that at least one and maybe all of them know(s) what happened that night. But you are right to make sure that we always keep our minds open enough to question that base assumption, and that we don’t slowly evolve toward considering their guilt to be our “ground zero” foundation and build all our arguments on top of it. Because the sheer fact of the matter is, they could all be innocent, unlikely as that feels. And we owe it to the defendants, to Robert, and to the very laws of logic and possibility to keep all avenues open in our pursuit of the truth.
Well said. I’d love it if these three gay guys were exonerated if no reason but to remove the black eye from the gay community. Too, they’d have to understand if they were completely innocent that people would love to hear the reasons/explanations behind the inconsistencies (not that the public is owed them, but if they wanted to clear their names, they’d likely WANT to explain). I really doubt they are equally culpable even if one of them had a hand in the murder or cover up – they can’t all three be sociopaths, in my view of the world – and part of me holds out a tiny bit of hope that one of them will eventually “talk”.
Absent a true ninja assassin and a lot of strange tangential happenings and some really really bad luck, I don’t see complete innocence. I’d love it if someone here would try to explain a single theory and account for all the peculiar things which weigh against a ninja (for example, why would Joe tell Kathy Robert was stabbed three times, with three grunts, yet not mention that to police; why would Joe say “cleaning up blood is not the same as tampering” if he cleaned up no blood at all). There might be a logical theory which accounts for all of it but I can’t think of one. The best I’ve been able to come up with is that perhaps Joe wrongly thought Michael or Dylan killed Robert then went down the road of cleaning it up to protect them, only then to discover there was a ninja, but even that would be an illegal action – and would he still clam up and have all of them risk everything, give up A-Gay life and careers, if he alone could have faced a short sentence (possibly probation) and completely exonerated his husband and the love of his life? Perhaps someone else has a better imagination than I do.
Bea,
Good post.
I’ve heard that Joe was a compulsive cleaner upper. Blood, particularly the blood of his friend, was very out of place in his house. Didn’t belong there. Joe may have been, was, very likely in shock.
His control as a lawyer may have kicked in about when the police started asking him questions. Until then, in the confusion of EMTs, police and fire department coming and going, Joe may have had time to… what? Put on his bathrobe, wipe up some blood? If he ran some wash through and the police didn’t notice that washer and or dryer were warm, we’re talking real Keystone Cops.
Just brainstorming
I’m sorry, but if they “accidentally” cleaned up for a ninja because they mistakenly believed that Dylan/Michael/Whoever was the real killer, then they should all be charged with murder. Robert Wone was still alive in the ambulance, and he was still alive when he arrived at the ER. Had he gotten to the ER sooner, there is a real (albeit slim) chance that he would still be alive today. The lawyers should be able to clarify here, but my understanding is that if the were involved in any felonious behavior that contributed to Wone’s death, then they can be charged with murder.
“Felony murder” is when during the commission of a felony another person is killed – ordinary example, if one robs a store and the security guard mistakenly hits the store clerk with a bullet, the robber can be convicted of felony murder.
Let it be known that I don’t think that Joe mistakenly believed that Michael/Dylan/Trick killed Robert and that he cleaned as a result of that – instead that’s the closest thing to coming up with a plausible (not very) explanation that would make Joe guilty of obstruction/tampering etc. but not culpable of murder or knowing who the murderer was but hiding it. If someone here could explain the hundreds of inconsistencies that would create, I’d love to read it. I think it’s likely hogwash.
But back to felony murder – if one of the three was acting with knowledge that Robert was alive but spent his time cleaning (tampering) to a degree that that would be felony tampering, instead of getting Robert help, and the delay caused his murder, I can’t say if that would be felony murder – but it would likely be some host of chargeable felonious offenses. There was once a lot of talk here about a rape and a later decision to murder Robert to keep him from talking – at that point there was considerable discussion about the notion of a delayed response being criminal (say if one wasn’t involved in the rape or murder but didn’t call authorities immediately so all the evidence could be removed) – don’t know if you were “around” then. Also some discussion about “what if Robert was believed to be dead” before the stabbing – down the same lines of trouple defenders in general. There might be something in there regarding a similar theme of what would be chargeable.
Me, I think the three know who killed Robert – at a minimum.
Bea,
On page 27 of Joe’s second interrogation, he indicates that no one had Mirandized him that evening. Is it true that they didn’t? How would that effect the use of his testimony?
Could the law have just said, “Well, since he was an attorney, we didn’t need to Mirandize him?”
Joe was being interrogated as a witness, not a suspect; ergo he was not Mirandized. This is basic stuff.
AnnaZed,
So his statment’s couldn’t be used against him? So no warning needed?
Basic to you, perhaps. But I’m no lawyer and so need, and appreciate, your help.
Onyx,
It’s nice to be appreciated. I do try to keep an open mind and that’s just what I hope everyone will try to do. I’m sure it’s no surprise here that I feel that all or most of the trio may be innocent of being responsible for Robert’s death. Do I know that for a fact? No. But I think that it’s a real possibility, almost a probability. First let me comment on your four summery “high level facts.”
1) Agreed. And you could say that the friends were beloved and respected as well, though not as universally.
2)Explanations were given for just about every event that was reported to have taken place following the murder. Some may seem weird and not believable to you. Most of the reported events seem very logical and believable to me. What I think could be classified, as “Black box” are the mysterious and unknown events leading UP TO the murder.
3) Your words, “Extremely unlikely…” sound likes the words of the prosecutor and the police. After giving much thought to the situation, I consider the possibility of an unknown intruder to be, not necessarily probable, but extremely possible. That’s based on the following:
A. All three residents, the only witnesses, say that they believe it to be true.
B. There are a number of ways that it could have happened, including slipped latches, picked locks, use of uncontrolled keys, jumped fences.
The principal reason against is that no one reported hearing a departing murderer. But such a person could have left stealthily, particularly in view of the fact that the witnesses to the vocal sounds that caused their alarm were involved in noisily responding to the sounds that woke them. Also, the police said that they found no evidence of an intrusion, but there is reason to believe that the search for such evidence was delayed and perhaps less than conclusive.
4)I agree with you here. But I would add that many of their actions such as taking the fifth, calling off the polygraphs, and clamming up in public, which some posters seem to find most suspicious, are most likely because they were following the strong advice of their lawyers.
Onyx, to me it seems most UNLIKELY that these guys could have committed the murders because of, not only their lack of motive, but because they were far too intelligent to have left such suspicious conditions, if they did the deed.
Joe was a lawyer. It has been pointed out that he had no way of knowing that the crime scene investigation would be muffed to the degree it was. If they were guilty, he would have considered it very likely that evidence would be found. If he were guilty or had covered up for one of the others, why would he agree for them to go to the station and talk their heads off? They could very well have given their story at the house, then said, “You guys act like you don’t believe us! We want to call a lawyer”
They knew the Miranda. And they knew that asking to have your lawyers present couldn’t cause your arrest. Most likely it will delay an arrest from happening.
Most of the arguments given by the detractors I find easy to shoot down with simple logic. I will admit that there are a FEW odd and unexplained or even weird responses that came from the defendants, but I find these suspicious items are few and far from “Tells” as some of the posters here describe them.
Read the interrogation transcripts. It jumps out at you that the police are pushing to get the three of them to take polygraphs before they talk to any lawyer. They are anxious to get the FBI polygraph man out in the middle of the night. They know very well that Lawyers put the kibosh on polygraphs. It was clearly AFTER lawyers were consulted that Joe reneged. I think that there’s no sign of guilt at all, in their changing their mind and leaving all communication to their lawyers. That’s simply the way it’s done. But some posters here find it suspicious for reasons I don’t understand. They say, “Well if it were me I would tell them… ” But I doubt if they have ever been the situation where your lawyer orders you, in no uncertain terms, “Don’t say anything to anyone!”
Bea, for one, finds it suspicious that Joe now stays out of the limelight. But I don’t find it suspicious at all. The press is FAMOUS for conducting “friendly” interviews and then spinning the story entirely out of your control. Particularly so when they can pull in a sex angle. The American public goes NUTS whenever sex is involved. Anyone who has ever been associated with the triple could be hurt, and Joe knows that.
AltGuy:
As to your point on 2), expanations were also given for things that were not asked about but might have been discovered or observed (e.g. water in the guest bathroom? water on the patio? charred remains of something in the grill?). This could be seen as more than making a detailed, accurate statement but also might be viewed by some as providing excuses for facts the police would find suspicious. 3)A is not evidence of an intruder. It is three people putting forth the same theory. This could be because it is true or all believe it to be so. It could also be beacuse the story has been agreed to by all three.
3)B very true, but remember again, it was the three defendants who insisted that this all happened because the kitchen door was unlocked, which raises another question. Why the infamous big bug or spider story as to why the door was unlocked? Why not just say they might have forgotten to lock it? Why is it so important that the means of access was an unlocked door as opposed to the other possible means of access you cite?
As far as the three being far too intelligent, smart people commit shocking crimes and make stupid mistakes in the process all the time. This is a non-starter as much as the other oft-offered defense that they were too gentle and nice or that they never would have killed a friend.
Finally you are right to suggest reading the transcripts. But I also hope you would exhort others to watch the videos, which give very different impressions, especially Joe’s, and I hope you’ve done so as well.
Their behavior and statements that night raise just as many questions for me if they are innocent as they do if they are guilty of something.
Hoya,
Love your continuing and logical reasoning. Here are some of my thoughts on your comments.
You say,
“expanations were also given for things that were not asked about but might have been discovered or observed (e.g. water in the guest bathroom? water on the patio? charred remains of something in the grill?). This could be seen as more than making a detailed, accurate statement but also might be viewed by some as providing excuses for facts the police would find suspicious.”
True, the items might have looked suspicious and that realization might be, in some cases, the reason that the suspects mentioned them. But that does not necessarily mean that their explanations were false. I’m sure the trio members would realiae that the general situation would look suspicious on it’s face and the fact that they
didn’t try to offer more explinations than they did is significant to me.
You say,
“It is three people putting forth the same theory. This could be because it is true or all believe it to be so. It could also be because the story has been agreed to by all three”
Both of your explinations can be true without there being guilt. They may have talked through and agreed to their story, as people will, but this is no indication that the story is untrue.
You ask, “Why the infamous big bug or spider story as to why the door was unlocked? Why not just say they might have forgotten to lock it?”
Seems to me to be just the sort of genre story that makes their account believable. You might say that it’s weird that they each remembered the same thing, but perhaps they found it funny, “That’s so like Joe, worrying about every bug.” And, of course they would have remembered it, thinking back to recall if they had left the door unlocked.
If the story served no real purpose, as you suggest, then why have posters here made it infamous as some sort of tell? That’s always been my question.
AltGuy says: “It’s funny, but having blood on you is usually seen as sign guilt. In this case, you find the lack of blood a sign of guilt.”
We’re not talking about “usually” and I didn’t say a “lack of blood a sign of guilt.” Further, I’m not looking at the lack of blood with the view of someone doing the stabbing. The lack of blood doesn’t match up with the claim of assisting the victim — lack of significant blood on the person said to be assisting the victim and significant lack of blood on the towel. You’re putting out a claim that Price, as a neatnik, probably washed the blood off his hands. If that was the case, why did he still have blood on one finger? That doesn’t match your claim about him wanting everything super clean.
As to your idea that they could have told the cops that the intruder stole all their photography equipment, if you want something kept out of a murder investigation, you wouldn’t give the cops a list of what to look for.
We know of Price’s interest in photography therefore the lack of photo equipment in the household is a real red flag. Was it made to disappear because it showed evidence of what events were taking place in the house that night? From Price’s office computer, we know he enjoyed photos of himself in a sexual situation. Why is there no sign of the camera equipment that took those photos?
Bill 2,
You make some good points, as you usually do. I hope that I don’t sound dismissive of your thinking, nor of the thinking of such posters as Bea, when I try to poke holes in your logic. As you, and she, try to do with mine. (Sometimes rather successfully.) Let us all hope that this really unique internet debate leads to the finding truth.
No, you weren’t talking about “usually,” it was me. I wasn’t trying to squash your argument as much as trying to point out the irony of the situation. Bloody hands are universally considered a sign of guilt. (Out, OUT damn spot.)
The medics do comment on the lack of blood at the scene, and some posters, including myself to a small degree, do find that lack of blood on the victim suspicious. (And the Prosecutor found it suspicious.)
It should be pointed out that Joe’s having little blood on himself after aiding Robert, is in keeping with those findings of there having been remarkably little blood. His washing his hands and leaving a drop of blood on a finger, would indicate to me a very hurried wash job, which it would have been under the given circumstances. So perhaps he doesn’t share those guilt feelings of Lady Macbeth.
If Joe knew that the photo equipment had been taken away at his behest by someone, then the police wouldn’t have beenlikely to find it. But I suspect that he didn’t have a lot of such equipment around. I myself have been through periods of having a lot of cameras and tripods and movie lights and microphones around (Not for porn use.) and through periods, like the present time, where I have gotten rid of all of that clutter. (The triples house was clearly not cluttered.) One gets tired of hobbies, and turns another page in life. That doesn’t mean he would necessarily delete the pictures. In fact, leaving such pictures on you office computer might show of a lack of guilt, depending on the nature of the pictures. (Now if there were pictures of straight guys lying unconscious…)
You ask, “Why is their no sign of camera equipment that took those photos?”
Were they taken yesterday? And if Joe was featured in the photos, why do we think he took them. Wouldn’t it just as likely be someone else s’ equipment? (I’ve heard that Joe had an interest in photography, but was he a photographer?)
A most basic point in law is that everyone has the right to face his accuser. In this blog, someone needs to at least speculate on behalf of Joe. If he were posting here, I’m sure he would offer some logical answers for our questions, but since he is not, we can only speculate as to what his answers might be.
Alt, in your para. 4 above you are mistaken and confusing two different instances. There was the blood on the finger that he admits to police to washing away.
Then there was the blood he mentioned to his (now former) pal T. Ragone which he admitted to wiping away. It doesn’t sound like you’ve read the testimony given by all during the criminal trial. You would be well advised to do that.
Susan,
Yep, and to read it again and again.
During the Aug 3, 8:48 interrogation, (P.24, line 24.) Joe says that the cops noticed blood on his finger when they took him by a 7-11, and so he washed it off sometimes after, suggesting that he might have done so while using the bathroom at the interrogation facility.
If or not he washed his hands at his house at any time, I haven’t seen that, but it might have been information that he didn’t volunteer simply because he wasn’t asked about it. It was just my speculation that he might have washed his hands at the house, and I think he likely would have if his hands were really bloody.
If, on the other hand, conditions were the way he and others described, and he lifted the shirt carefully, and applied the folded pad to the wound carefully, as he well might have, there might simply not have been a lot of blood to get on him.
Actually, it’s been my speculation in previous posts that he may have compulsively removed the knife from Robert’s chest and not have admitted that to authorities for a number of understandable reasons not being indicative of his having assaulted Robert or knowing who had.
If you can lead me to definitive information that I’ve missed, I’d appreciate it very much if you would take the time to do so.
I only skimmed your post and see you’re missing the point. Your positing possible scenarios and whimsys. I’m not. I’m telling you and pointing out the fact (not whimsy; not analysis) of what his former friend testified. Go back and read the testimony.
Susan,
I had read and have read ABOUT Tera’s testamony, If you can give me a clue where to find her exact testamony that would be a help.
But it’s been my understanding that she reported that Joe said that he pulled the knife out of Robert and that at another point, he suggested that he cleaned up some blood.
Both are not necessarily proof of guilt of murder involvment, to my belief and appearently not to the court’s. Neither is the fact that Joe told this to a good friend of ROBERT’S. Doing so would be a really stupid thing for Robert’s murderer to do, any way you look at it. And Joe is not a stupid man.
Tara Ragone’s reports really have little meaning in conjunction with the discussion I was posting about – The fact that Joe’s hands may have been unexplainably clean. And that that doesnt prove him guilty of murder.
Tara’s report doesn’t say that he washed blood off of his hands or clothes, it could have been his wall. And pulling the knife out of someone by the handle doesn’t necessarily mean you will get blood on your hands.
There I go again, posting whimsys.
Agreed.
AltGuy, since you’re claiming that “Joe is not a stupid man,” it’s obvious you and I are discussing two different people.
I’m talking about Joseph Price, an attorney who confided that he withheld information from the cops.
I’m talking about Joseph Price, an attorney who confided that his withheld information could result in the arrest of one of the trio.
Please be aware, I’m not commenting on the fact that any information was withheld.
I’m commenting on the stupidity of someone revealing those two nuggets of information. Nobody with a modicum of intelligence would consider either of these two admissions as the move of a brilliant person.
The Joseph Price I’ve been discussing kept porn on his work computer.
The Joseph Price I’ve been discussing used his office e-mail as the contact information for the porn website he administered.
The “not stupid man” you’re discussing is obviously another one of your whimsys, so carry on, please.
Bill 2,
Joe 2
Good. Now that you and Susan have a word to hang on it, “Whimsy,” you won’t have to worry about anything. Such as the obvious discrepancy between the two Joe Prices – the accomplished one that Bea describes in her long discussion of his history, and that his friends seem to believe him to be, and the one that he would have to be if we are to believe that he is the criminal that his accusers seem to believe he is.
No need to understand why he says the things he does. No need to explain. He’s just stupid. And evil. And any other explanation is but Whimsy. Easy.
That wasn’t for Joe 2. A stupid error on my part.
Huh?
There’s no way to know the cops would not find photo equipment taken away at Price’s behest. It’s foolish to imagine the trio would provide the police a list of their photo items as you suggested. If police knew of their interest in photography and knew of their entanglement with the neighbor across the street they could have begun looking right there. I doubt if Price’s interest in photograpy suddenly began the day he set up his porn website. No doubt he had a longtime, ongoing interest in it when you couple his vacation photos, S&M photos on his office computer, and his decision to host a porn website. You claim that you suspect he didn’t have a lot of camera equipment around. I suspect that he did have it and that it was in use that night in taking photos for possible use on a porn website.
Didn’t Zaborsky tell the 911 operator that Price was involved in lifesaving measures on Robert Wone? Blood on one finger is not evidence of that. Are the few drops of blood on one towel evidence of applying pressure to wounds? Even if Robert’s heart stopped pumping with the first stab wound, applying pressure on the wounds in a lifesaving measure would result in more than a few drops of blood. You can come up with a dozen more scenarios as to why there is obviously a missing bloody towel, but I guarantee they’ll all be shot to bits in just four months. Joe Price didn’t Swiffer up all that blood in an attempt to have a clean house.
There was one disposable camera found at Swann. Given that Joe was “into” dirty photos, had many recent ones on his work computer, was actively trolling for a third on alt-dot-com (where sending digital photos back and forth is key), one would have to go to extreme measures to think they didn’t have more than one disposable camera. Perhaps on a lark they decided to rid themselves of all photo equipment, but it seems highly unlikely.
If one is getting rid of things before the cops arrive, and they didn’t get rid of the S&M equipment, to choose still and video cameras is quite meaningful to me.
Oh, Alt, the cops didn’t notice the blood on Joe’s finger.
I would love it if Joe answered our questions. I’d love it if Joe answered Kathy Wone’s lawyers’ questions. Yes, he can face his accusers and has that right – he just chooses to remain silent. Wonder why that is since he loves to talk?
Bea,
Send dirty photos of himself on the internet? Why he had better not run for office.
Thanks for your comment. I had, perhaps, read some of the testimony wrong, I’m not sure..
Page 24, line 24 of Joe’s second interview read’s
“I told one of the guys I got a little blood on my finger, and they noticed that, like, at the 7-Eleven. They took me over there. And I didn’t even think about when I came over here and went to the bathroom several times. I washed my hands, you know, it’s gone— that was it.” (Then he explains that he always washes his hands when he goes to the bathroom.)
(I’m sure that the whole experience must have scared the piss out of him.)
When he said, “…and they noticed it.” on the transcript it sounds like a sentence progression. In watching and hearing the videotape it’s more like a stream of consciousness thing. “I told the guys that I had a little blood on my finger.” is a statement. “And they noticed it .” Is, perhaps, an explanation of why it was discussed. I got the impression that he was saying that the police noticed it first.
But perhaps it WAS he, that brought it to the attention of the police. REAL interesting if so. Was it ever brought out at trial? If not, perhaps that’s because either the police weren’t questioned regarding this, or they collaborated it.
Bea, you and others have commented on how calm and unemotional that he seemed in his testimony that night at the precinct. I put some of it down to his lawyer training to appear rational and controlled.
But did you noticed, during the long wait prior to the second interview, how his left foot kept tapping in air most of the time? It seemed to me that he was trying to calm himself and relieve a boat load of tension. At one point it even seemed to me that he might have been silently sobbing just a bit. An act? He probably knew that the cameras were on. Or simply something he couldn’t control.
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