Today marks exactly four months until the (scheduled) start of the October wrongful death trial. That flurry of motions and filings we’d expected have yet to materialize, but the coming months should see the kickoff of a nasty battle over what evidence and testimony makes it to trial.
Obligatory Moultrie Courthouse Pic
Now that we know the proper pronunciation of ‘in limine,’ we feel like old pros (or paralegals) and are ready to jump into them.
And for you devotees of guest posts, we took “Christine’ up on her offer she made in a comment on Hoya’s essay – to do a statement analysis of Price’s portion of the ‘Anacostia Dialogues.” Statement analysis is to some an emerging (soft) science for criminal investigators, but not without its critics. It should make for an interesting, if not exhaustive post, to come in the next week or so.
Part one of Bea’s submission generated close to 100 comments and the final chapter could elicit as many. When lobbing in a comment, if the preceeding one looks skinny, start a new thread and mention who and what you’re responding to up front. Until the large print version of WMRW is released, that’s the best we can suggest. We now yield the floor bandwidth:
“We can all speculate as to how we would have acted/reacted under the same circumstances. I might’ve been rattled and even overcome with grief that night, but I know that I wouldn’t stop cooperating in the days, months and years that followed. Without a doubt some people are wrongfully convicted, but that would not be an overriding concern for me nor, I would venture, would it be for most people.
There is no denying that that night was hell for the defendants – to see the bloody body of a murdered friend, to feel the heat of suspicion, to sit for hours in the sparse interrogation rooms with cops coming and going like car salesmen following a script to wear you down.
Taxing, to be sure, but not enough to stop someone from helping find the murderer. What we didn’t see from Joe Price during the interview was anguish over not knowing who killed his friend – at least I didn’t – there seemed to be no turmoil or outrage of feeling useless, of wanting to stop wasting time, of wanting the cops to get on to the real business of catching a murderer.
Joe Price understood the process very well, as he bragged, and he thought he could beat them at their own game. It began with his “regular guy” small talk on the ride over and carried through most of the interrogations – when pressed too far, he retreated to his stock answers (“it isn’t possible!”) and his offended yuppie pose (“this is very traumatic”).
He did some grandstanding (“if you’re going to charge us, charge us!) but he didn’t want to end the interrogations. If he had a hand in the murder or if he knew more than he was telling, the interrogations were his best hope. Because the “story” seemed ludicrous on its face, he had to convince police that it was SO crazy that it had to be true.
Only once did he mention wanting to help find Robert’s killer – when asked if he would tell the police if he knew Dylan or Victor had killed Robert, Joe said he would tell the police. When asked why the police should believe him, he responded with a strangely unremarkable answer: “Because why, why not tell you? I mean, why not? I want to find who did this. You know?”
Despite trying to stay ahead of the detectives, certain elements of Joe’s behavior (which he knows is being taped) are revealing. His emphatic and vocalized concern over Dylan’s whereabouts and well-being seem odd at best when compared to his lack of concern for Victor (who Joe described as “hysterical” previously). His continued answer of “it’s not possible” and “it’s not even a possibility” to questions about Victor’s or Dylan’s involvement in the murder sounds more like an argument of a teenager accused of breaking curfew than a well-reasoned response of a trial attorney.
He uses the same phrase when asked if he, Joe, murdered Robert. He uses one particular analogy twice – once in each set of interviews with different detectives – that “it’s like finding a hippo in your house” (the first time to describe the surreality of the night, the second to describe how it felt to find Robert lying on the bed); another analogy was that “this is as crazy as having a rocket land on your house.” To me, the escalating hyperbole is akin to arguments waged by my teen-aged nephew to my sister in support of his denial that he’d been drinking at a party.
While he agreed to take a polygraph when he was twice asked, Joe handily avoided having to do so by claiming (first) that he didn’t want to wait another hour, and, second, only if he was allowed to see Dylan and Victor. It’s strange that he thought to “bargain” with police under the circumstances, but when denied that request, Joe said he was leaving – and the polygraph never materialized. My guess – and it’s only that – is that he wanted to advise Dylan to avoid the polygraph.
While polygraphs are not admissible as evidence in court, and are widely derided in popular media, they are routinely used as a screening tool by authorities. It’s one way that cops will rule out someone so they can move ahead. Studies show an accuracy range between 65% – 95%. The prejudicial nature of “failing” a polygraph would be too great to be accepted as “evidence” (the jury would put too much weight on an inexact test) but that does not mean they are without merit. Polygraph testing is accepted at the administrative level (for example, use by a probation or parole officer to support a claim that an individual has violated probation/parole – and, as reported even by Wikipedia, regular polygraph testing can be a condition of an inmate’s parole).
Like anyone, I’d hate to be in the 35% (or 5%) with a “false fail” (just as guilty people are likely happy with a “false pass”) but I’d be willing, possibly eager, to take one if police needed to rule me out in order to concentrate on finding the “real killer” – as most people are willing to do, in my experience.
Joe’s actions give the appearance of being the leader of the orchestra which “played” Anacostia that night – what was presented by the trio was very much orchestrated, in my opinion. It began at Swann, with Joe shutting down Dylan’s attempts to speak. While there is disagreement in the ranks here about the importance of the “11:43” time stamp being uttered in error by both Joe and Victor, I don’t recall a discussion on one specific quote from Joe when pressed about the subject. When detectives aggressively pursued the “coincidence,” Joe made this statement: “I believe he asked them to say what time, you know, what – to tell him what time it was.” An odd use of language, I think; most want to know the time, not have it be “said” on tape.
There were many “facts” uttered that night which boxed in the defendants, statements which later haunted them, or may someday haunt them:
(1) that neither Joe nor Victor checked to see if Dylan too had been stabbed; (2) all three of them giving Dylan credit for noticing the unlocked backdoor even though Victor says this on the 911 call, (3) in the first interview, Joe saw “blood everywhere” but after the Mercedes meeting amended the statement to “a lot of blood, like, in two spots”; (4) and one statement that was missing throughout – that no one told the 911 operator that Robert was dead, and there was no mention during interrogations that anyone worried that he might be dead; (5) many instances of particular language by Joe which would raise red flags in a statement analysis, such as (a) “. . .I think you have to buy this stuff because, you know, there was somebody in there” – use of “buy” in common parlance usually references someone believing a falsehood (b) in arguing with detectives about the nature of murder: “[t]his isn’t a crime of passion” – how would anyone know for certain? (c) mentioning in both interviews with different detectives that the intruder may have worn gloves; (d) when asked if Victor ever touched Robert’s body, Joe stated “I don’t think he ever touched it.” – emphasis added.
So why would Joe let them all be interviewed? These are but some of the problems the defendants created for themselves that night – and without the statements, there would not have been a conspiracy/tampering trial, at least not the way it played out last spring.
None of us know what happened. Joe Price, Dylan Ward and Victor Zaborsky are, in my opinion, hiding something important at a minimum, as Judge L. all but said. But if Joe had a hand in committing murder, or wanted the police not to find the murderer, why would he allow the Anacostia interviews?
We do know that Dylan and Victor were following Joe’s direction and that Joe did consciously consider that they could all be arrested that night. The struggle he seemed to display, in using it as a “card” to play before continuing/stopping the interview, resonated with me as a conscious act – something quite strange to have at the forefront while police investigate the murder of your friend.
We don’t know why he allowed the interrogations, but here is my guess: Joe had no way of knowing that Ashley’s Reagent would effectively render useless all that night’s crime scene investigation.
He didn’t know that there wasn’t any useable blood evidence when he asked Jason Torchinsky to secure the grieving widow’s consent to waive her attorney-client privilege to speak of inconsistencies between Joe’s and Kathy’s accounts to police.
He didn’t know that there wasn’t any useable blood evidence that when, in the Wone family basement, he told Kathy that Robert had been stabbed three times as he made grunting noises with each hand motion mimicking the stabbing as was reported. He didn’t tell police that he noticed there were three stab wounds, only that Robert had been stabbed and that he was covered in blood. He didn’t tell cops that there were three successive grunts. Was this what he “remembered” but didn’t want to share with police?
When did the trio stop “assisting” the investigation? Was it because Joe came to terms with the fact that he hadn’t convinced the police department? I can only imagine how a criminal must begin to second-guess himself, how he or she must experience the “elevator drop” sensation of remembering little things that could’ve gone wrong, evidence that might not add up. And if Joe was hiding something, did he grow more concerned once he had time alone with his thoughts? Even his beloved W&M cheerleaders began to question him, if not stray altogether.
He was asked not to attend the “remembrance” at W&M after he and Victor had arrived on campus. “Little things that go wrong” eat at all of us, whether on a small scale (a teen having a beer at a party – did the neighbor see me?). I wonder whether Joe was fighting those dragons when Tara Ragone pushed back, when he wrote her that wiping up blood was not the same thing as tampering with evidence.
At some point he knew that it would be “out” that there was little blood at the scene and very little on the towel he used to “stanch” Robert’s blood. Did the “second towel” Victor allegedly handed him make its way into his consciousness? And if he genuinely wanted to tell the police everything but couldn’t because he feared one of them would be arrested, as he said, what might that extra bit of evidence be? Why might it result in one of them being arrested?
I suspect that many of us in that position would end up bothering police too much, that with each new morning we’d awaken with tangential theories or forgotten minutia. And most of us are not heroes. I’d guess that most of us don’t have a cultivated reputation of righting wrongs, that we haven’t spent nearly the amount of time greasing the wheels of the press that Joe Price has. What a strange time he chose to avoid the press – no well-said request for help, no putting himself on the line.
Joe and I have some things in common. I got interested in this case because I lived a few blocks from Swann twenty years ago. Joe and I practice in the same field, attend the same conferences. I know people he knows, although I don’t know him. We were both working class kids who became lawyers, and like many others, I understand some of his desires to succeed.
Although I am impressed with how many good things he’s done, how many causes he has championed, I do find it interesting that his name was in the paper as often as it was. And why would he shy away from being in the newspaper this time? His friend was murdered in his home – when is there a better time to be a hero?
Or maybe Joe did play the hero after all – just not Robert’s hero. Joe bet everything he had (his job, his home, his reputation) to save someone – brother Michael, Dylan, a murderous third from Alt-dot-com. Himself. If it was information, not his own actions, he hid from police that night, the info had to be a game-changer – Joe walked away from all that he’d accomplished to hide the truth. He must miss the hell out of his old life – the accolades and the spoils – but not nearly as much as Kathy misses her husband.”
Bea thanks for both parts I & II of this thoughtful analysis.
Why did Joe allow the Anacostia interviews? An interesting question and your answer is plausible.
Here’s another possibility in keeping with my most recent musings: Joe didn’t do it and doesn’t know who did but suspects it is someone he knows — one of the other two housemates or someone else from their circle. He is conflicted in that he wants Robert’s murderer found, but doesn’t want to be the one to finger someone he knows and maybe loves (unlike the Unabomber’s brother). He can balance the conflict in his own interview by dropping hints, innuendoes and suggestions (which he certainly did) but not saying outright what he suspects, for which he has no proof. If one of the others is guilty and cracks, well, at least he stood by them and didn’t give them up. Likewise if his comments or those of the others end up leading the police to a suspect from the wider circle, at least he didn’t finger someone without proof and the police would simply find the person by doing their job. The undercurrent throughout, as you’ve pointed out in the original thread, is Joe’s realization that he must use the interview to clear himself of suspicion as well.
But as we know, Joe didn’t convince the MPD, the others didn’t crack and the three remained the prime suspects. And Robert’s murder remains unsolved.
Hoya,
Once again I agree entirely with your thinking and your response to Bea’s good analysis. A couple of my thoughts:
Standing by and believing in your family is a very universal reaction. As I recall, the Uni-bomber’s brother was VERY reluctant to finger his brother, but finally did. If Joe had only suspicion, he might well have been very conflicted also, telling himself “NO he couldn’t have!” but realizing that he might have. The brother’s later robbery of the very crime scene of TVs, etc is the very definition if the words “Stupid, stupid…” and must have further convinced Joe of his brother’s lack of sanity and control.. But since there hasn’t been an arrest, perhaps Joe has no such proof.
We don’t know what suspicions he is passing on to the police through his attorney. But he would know and would have known throughout the interview, that pointing your finger at other people is what all crooks do. And it just makes you appear all the more guilty when no evidence is found concerning your pointee.. Perhaps that’s one reason why he didn’t point suspicion towards anyone either inside or outside of the family circle.
Some may say that the triple’s suggesting an intruder is pointing the finger away from themselves. But If they really knew themselves to be innocent, that is exactly what they would think and believe, and say, is it not?
Does anyone have any idea why Michael would have reason to kill Robert and, if so, how did he know Robert would be at the Swann St. house that night?
It’s such a shame the blood evidence at the scene was ruined but Joe didn’t know that for weeks if not months. If we assume that he did KNOW that someone had tried to clean up the blood (even if he hadn’t been part of it) – which is suggested by his comments to Tara – this could be indicative of him covering up someone else’s crime (but is itself still a crime, which he well knows).
Hoya, taking this to its logical conclusion, for whom would Joe, Victor and Dylan be willing to give up everything to save? Seriously, the home, the life they knew, the careers? And if the murderer was a stranger, why not explain their big mistake and take the hit on that earlier? It doesn’t makes sense that he’d live the rest of his life under the cloud of suspicion, likely face millions of dollars in judgment in the civil case, give up everything he’s worked for. If he’d confessed this “smaller” mistake, he would have done right by Kathy and kept more of a career – and assuming Victor had even less to do with it (“I said what Joe told me to say”) then he’d likely not have been charged, would certainly not be facing a wrongful death action. I don’t see Dylan (or Needham) being willing to go through this, including the million they’ve likely already spent, because Joe mistakenly thought Michael MIGHT have done it. Even if Michael HAD done it. Would like to hear your thoughts. Dig in over one mistake and take it to your grave no matter the consequences?
Bea: I’ve always liked the analogy comparing this case to a Rubik’s cube — find an explanation for something and then turn it over to look at it from another angle and find out it makes a mess of another facet. I will also admit to some contrarian intent in my comment above, figuring if I didn’t post these thoughts, someone else would. But here goes:
I’m thinking Joe really doesn’t know, only suspects, but can’t prove. So he’s not taking a fall for anybody. He was caught up in thinking too much like a lawyer, as Bill O. suggests below, not wanting to possibly wrongly incriminate soemone else, without clear evidence, but also seeking to exonerate himself, and in the process boxed himself in. This shows why he was wrong to trust his own abilities and should have hired counsel immediately so that the lawyer could worry about the legal angles and he could worry about keeping his story straight and conveying essential information.
He could point to the person he suspects, but has no evidence to back up his theory and there is paradoxically more circumstatial evidence against himself, which he can’t effectively refute, so he’s stuck as a suspect. He may have cleaned up blood to cover for this person or because he really was freaking out and not thinking clearly, as arguably, when he made the possibly, literally, fatal error of removing the knife.
This theory also takes into consideration that at least one of the other two may actually be guilty and so is not taking a fall but rather getting away with murder. And one of the other two could be completely clueless and innocent.
I did not mean to imply with the Unabomber reference that Michael did it, although he would fall into the category of other, non-housemate individuals Joe might suspect. I was just thinking that unlike Ted Kaczynski’s brother, Joe has not seen fit to directly put the police on the trail of “his” suspect or suspects, housemate, brother, neighbor, cat torturer, man in a van, whoever.
A variant of this theory would be that facts pointing to the guilty party were right in front of Joe’s face but that he immediately went into a state of denial that the love of his life or his long time partner or whoever could actually have killed his friend and has stayed there.
It’s late/early and I may not have made myself any clearer. But the long and short of it is, I’m trying to look at this from the perspective of “What if Joe is innocent? If so, what could possibly explain his behavior at the interrogation and since?” Indeed, why incur all the losses he has if he didn’t do it? Maybe something like my theory could explain it, or maybe nothing can because the premise is faulty.
Hoya,
I like your great Rubik’s Cube analogy very much. (Look at things at all angles over and over again)
Your current theories seem very plausible to me.
In fact I feel that you’ve pretty much nailed it, concerning Joe’s heretofore unexplained behavior.
Having, myself, one been in a situation where I thought that presenting all of the “Facts, ma’am, just the facts” on the assumption that that was all that was necessary for the authorities to find the truth of the matter, (It lead to great difficulties because I had foolishly included some unnecessary information,) I suppose that I have a fellow feeling for Joe. (In his legal situation.)
In Joe’s case, he may have been wise enough to hold some facts back, on the realization that those facts might be used against him and would not lead towards finding the killer. Joe’s having freaked out and wiping some blood up, for instance.
Why would he be so stupid as to tell the wiping up fact, as well as about the knife pulling out, to Robert’s good friend? Perhaps his attorneys had planned to, or had already, passed that information on to the investigators. And Joe, caring very much about what Robert’s camp thought, for personal reasons, felt compelled to tell them as well. Bea wonders why he doesn’t talk, but he did in that case and perhaps it taught him a lesson. (I can just IMAGINE what his lawyers said to him after that.)
Your saying that Joe might have gone into a state of denial, that night, regarding his family, could also apply to his feelings about his friends. That is a VERY common and human thing to do. (“He/she just WOULDN’T DO something like that!”) Again, we have no way to know what information his lawyers may have subsequently passed on to the authorities, but it apparently includes no usable proof.
While you and I can imagine turning over a Rubik’s Cube to see what’s on the other side, I think that some posters here have begun to feel that this case is like turning over a rock to see what crawls out.
I have to admit that unwanted sexual images do have a way of distracting my thinking here, even if I try not to place a value judgment on people’s life styles. People are free to make their own choices as to what to believe and how to do, except when it interferes with the rights of others. To me Joe’s history is that of a rather positive person. And his actions, as suggested by those who believe him guilty here, would be a real aberration. Could all of that be explained by drugs and uncontrolled sexual lust? Perhaps. But where’s the history? Wouldn’t some Anita Hill have stepped forward by now? WMRW is the perfect forum.
The Rubik’s analogy is not mine — don’t remember who coined it first — but it often seems apt as applied to this case.
I’ve held off on weighing in until now, but here are my two cents.
For the new folks, Joe and I were casual acquaintances in college (William and Mary was a small school, so pretty much everyone in your class was either a friend or a friend-of-a-friend). I found him to be extremely intelligent, ambitious, and highly self-confident. (I don’t think the word “cocky” really applies, since that implies that he’s OVERconfident, and he always seemed to know just how much he could accomplish.) He could also be extremely vindictive towards people that he thought were challenging him. He didn’t strike me as the kind of person who would stab a houseguest, but he also didn’t strike me as the kind of person who would have his S&M dom move into the house with him and his partner, so I think my impressions on that front are kind of a wash.
Trying to parse his behavior on the night of the murder–once EMS arrived–has been fairly difficult for me, given what I knew about him. The key things that strike me are that (a) he wasn’t doing CPR or holding pressure to Robert’s wounds when EMS got there (implies guilt but doesn’t prove it; he may have just thought that Robert was already dead and didn’t see the point of applying pressure anymore), (b) he didn’t tell the police that Michael Price had a key to the house IN THE VIDEO THAT WE SAW (implies that he’s hiding something, but there were several hours of interrogation that we’re not filmed, and he may well have mentioned it then), (c) he didn’t tell the police that he was looking at someone else’s phone, not his, during his interview (weird, but he had gone for quite a while without sleep by then, and I’m not sure how long it took him to realize that it wasn’t his phone), and (d) he realizes that an intruder who left through the back would’ve had to leave the patio gate unlocked unless they scaled the fence, and he assumes that the gate was, in fact, locked.
As for the fact that he clammed up at the end of that round of interviews, there’s really not much I can draw from that. My reading of the transcripts is that Joe’s impression of what was happening went from “Joe and the detectives are trying to figure out who killed Robert” to “the detectives think Joe was involved in killing Robert”. Once the dynamic became adversarial, it wasn’t about Robert Wone anymore. It was all about Joe Price, and he was sparring with a group of detectives (i.e., not lawyers) in the area of law. It was a direct challenge to Joe in his primary area of strength. I think his reaction would’ve been the same regardless of his innocence or guilt. From that point on, he seems to be in “lawyer mode”, and the only point that he seems to hesitate on is the lie detector testing–he knows it’s inadmissible in court, but beyond that, he doesn’t seem to know if he should take it or not.
None of this really tells me much. It all just seems like Joe being Joe. I’m curious as to what former acquaintances of Dylan and Victor think of their behavior.
I can’t speak to analyzing behavior since I know different people respond diff. to different situations. Some people laugh when they’re nervous. Some people are calm during crises, others are not. We all have our diff. takes on that night. I look at what stands out to me and what is entered into the record. To begin with, I don’t know anyone who lives where RW did who ever stayed overnight with friends rather than go home to a spouse at that time of night. Then again I don’t know anyone who carries one fake wallet due to fear of robbery. Maybe the reason RW didn’t want to travel that late had to do with waiting late at night at a Metro station. I don’t know.
But,
Fact: The house where he stayed had a few devices designed for human torture in Dylan Ward’s room.
Fact: The three men living there were in an unusual domestic arrangement where one was the lover of the two others and was trolling for a third.
Fact: JP was trolling for someone to be the third on a website where he wouldn’t admit to not using drugs but did admit to being into torture
Fact: He lied to his housemate-SM-about giving his brother a key, despite her asking him not to and expressing that she didn’t feel comfortable with him having one
Fact: The brother, Michael Price, was/is a convicted criminal.
Fact: The brother’s lover was charged with beating up the former
Fact: JP defended the guy who allegedly beat up his brother in court
Fact: The brother later robbed the Swann St. home.
Fact: The brother’s cohort in crime tortured cats-skinned them until they bled, ran them under water and laughed and laughed and did this often.
Fact: The brother was studying phlebotomy.
Fact: He missed his phlebotomy class for the first time the night of Robert Wone’s murder
Fact: Robert Wone had unexplained needle marks in his skin that night.
Fact: The police found the drug Ecstasy in DW’s bedroom at Swann Street that night.
Fact: In addition to torture devices there was an incomplete knife set in DW’s closet that night.
Fact: There was a New Yorker magazine opened to an illustration of a stabbed man.
Fact: JP told his friend T. Ragone that he cleaned up blood that night but didn’t tell that to police.
Fact: He told his friend S. Hixson that he pulled the knife out of RW but didn’t tell that to police.
Fact: VZ came home from a business trip early that night and by his own acct stopped packing to run out to catch JP at the gym and JP didn’t wait for him–he’d already left.
Fact: VZ only found out incidentally that RW would be staying over that night.
Fact: JP says he engaged in life-saving activity but DW says he didn’t see that.
Fact: DW said he was “worried” a person or persons who stabbed and murdered RW might still be in the house so he sat alone, by his own account, on a couch in a separate room from the others.
Fact: According to police, he didn’t say anything when they arrived but went back into his room.
Fact: DW has some interest in Asian culture that extends beyond his “massage” interests, and he switches interests and careers, at least more than his “family” does.
Well, I have to run right now, so I leave it to others if they so choose to add to the facts. What they add up to, I’m not sure, only that, this home doesn’t seem quite like the one described in that W& M interview and that criminal activity is not something that was unknown to that household and their intimate others and those who held keys to their home at the time. It is a household where additional lovers, some secret from VZ, some not, came into play and deceptiveness in the “family” seemed the norm.
Susan,
I find your list helpful. Thanks.
To me, your facts seem accurate for the most part. (I’m not sure about Hixson.) What the significance of each is, is going to be different to each reader. For instance. The fact that torture and other sexual devices were found in Dylan’s room, (Stored away in a closet?) is an indication that not a whole lot of hiding of evidence took place. Like the magazine wasn’t even hidden under a bed.
Most of the facts seem, to me, to have a logical explanation and not necessarily a guilty significance.
I mean that if every household that has a very small amount of elicit drugs in it or that houses practitioners of kinky sex, were a crime scene, then the world wound run out of yellow tape.
But what jumps out at me are those facts concerning the brother and friends. Here is the only place where a decidedly anti-social history jumps out. And animal torture can be an early sign of a budding sociopath.
Joe could very well have once had, as has been discussed elsewhere, a blind spot concerning his brother. His failure to think of his having a key may have been as a result of that blind spot. What he thinks now and what he has now passed on to authorities, we have no way of knowing.
My own suspicions now, are not so much directed towards a ninja as they were before, thanks to you.
Alt, don’t you find Dyl’s sitting on the couch most peculiar? He’s says he’s scared of an intruder but then he goes down to the sofa and does nada. If he was still at Simmons, his profs might find his behavior very post-modern in the incongruous sense of situational irony: isn’t that right, Sparkly Cat?
Agree, Clio. I really can’t fathom someone “watching” the 911 call and the non-life saving measures taken by Joe, amidst all the hub-bub and the waiting for the ambulance, but to take time to sit. Wouldn’t he put himself in charge of something – grabbing more towels even though they weren’t needed, or positioning himself at the window? You’d think he’d accompany Victor downstairs for support or to be on hand to wave in the ambulance. Instead he sits on a sofa and then goes into his own room, and, when faced with the EMT, not have anything to say.
Just plain strange behavior. Not long ago a neighbor’s house caught fire (at first a very small fire) – I helped find a garden hose while my partner called 911 and then I yelled for another set of neighbors to grab fire extinguishers and my partner brought ours outside to me. There were maybe 15 people, not counting the house’s residents, all trying to find SOMETHING to DO to help. The “doing something” seems like innate behavior in an emergency. Even when the fire got out of control and we watched the fire truck coming forward, several of us moved our cars to give them better access, some took the children away so as to not watch their home go up in smoke. I don’t think anyone stopped doing SOMETHING until after the trucks left. Sit on the sofa? Go into your room?
Hey Bea,
I could understand maybe doing nothing in terms of not knowing what to do but I think someone who was good at marketing/pub relations and wrote copy for Eq. Virginia and studied literature used an odd choice of word–“worried” to describe how he felt about a possible murderer still being in his house.
He just saw Robert Wone, essentially dead from what we know, blood, a knife, VZ on a 911 call, JP on the bed and I can understand sitting down stunned, but not away from security by my friends or in a locked room but out on a couch in another room and out in the open. I don’t understand why they all didn’t lock themselves in the room with Robert W. I don’t know how V had the courage to go up those stairs alone.
Just was thinking–did M. Price finish his phlebotomy course? His first missed class was the night of Robert Wone’s murder. Did he ever finish the course? If not, I wonder why not.
He was probably only taking the course to have free access to I.V. catheters as well as needles and syringes.
He had the courage because he knew who did it.
Actually, Linda, what you suggest is interesting. Know he did drugs–wonder if it involved shooting up, either himself or others. Interesting.
Wonder what this breaking news is.
I find this fear that Zaborsky (and Ward?) had of going downstairs increasingly hard to believe. The threat had passed. If the ‘intruder’ was still in the house they would’ve heard something in the sardine can, and since said ‘intruder’ beat such a hasty retreat from the 2nd floor, why would he/she have had reason to linger around on the first floor?
Craig,
Under the conditions as the triple describes them, who wouldn’t have had fear?
And fear isn’t always rational.
The crime wasn’t at all rational. The crime was insane, was it not? And insane people don’t behave in predictable ways. The triple was right to be in fear.
It’s been my experience in life, that we can drive ourselves nuts trying to understand the actions of crazy people.
So where does that leave us? Unfortunately, without answers. But we do keep on trying.
You’re right, Bea, that it’s strange to see someone sitting silently during an emergency situation. Even if someone simply wants to stay out of the way of those who are helping, it’s normal to offer to help if needed.
Is it possible that the conduct of the silent observer would have been explained if there had been a drug test administered to the trio that night?
Don’t the police, if they encounter someone at a crime scene who seems to be under the influence of drugs, usually ask it they can take a blood test? If this wasn’t done that night, can we assume that the police didn’t see any behavior that that indicated drug use?
Like many test failures that night, the lack of testing can be working against the trio just as much as in their favor.
Bea,
Folks here speak of the “Non lifesaving actions of Joe.” Isn’t this based on the view of the first EMT responder and Dylan reporting that they didn’t see Joe doing anything?”
All Joe was doing, according to him, was what he had been asked to do. Hold a pad to the wound applying some pressure. That was exactly what he had been asked to do and nothing else. Would Dylan, in his rather dazed condition, have realized what Joe was doing? Applying pressure to a pad might not appear do be doing anything since it requires no particular motion.
As I’ve suggested before, the first responder, having approached Joe from the rear, perhaps just as he straightened up to let him have access, might not have known what Joe was doing either.
Alt, you’re right that Dylan said he didn’t see any life-saving measures, and the EMT didn’t see any life-saving measures. Joe himself claims to have held two different towels to Robert’s chest to stop the bleeding but only one towel was found (with a small amount of blood on it). Joe never seemed to indicate whether Robert had a pulse (claims to have checked for one) nor is there a definitive answer from Joe when Victor relayed the dispatcher’s questions. The defense later claimed that Robert died immediately from the first stab wound (which wouldn’t explain why Joe heard grunts #2 and #3).
But more importantly to me is that if my friend isn’t breathing while I’m waiting for an ambulance, I’m giving him CPR (Joe was an Eagle Scout, knew CPR – even if he didn’t, who doesn’t know enough to TRY).
There was so little discussion about Robert – no “I couldn’t find a pulse so I hit him in the chest” or “I started CPR right away because he wasn’t breathing.” It was as though Joe didn’t want to comment on Robert’s condition during the 911 call (except to ask what time it was). You don’t find that odd?
Altguy,
I am also going to have to add what Bea has said in relation to whether Joe was administering life-saving actions. If he was holding the towel (not a pad which is what both Joe and Victor described)over Robert’s wounds, the EMT would have noticed, whether Joe’s back was to him or not. Remember the house is small, so as the EMT rounded the corner of the second floor, what he should have seen if Joe was administering life-saving actions was Joe hunched over Robert’s body. I am sure the EMT has seen this before. He did not. He only saw Joe sitting prone, not hunched over Robert’s body, with his back to the door.
David
Sitting prone? I thought he said knelling. Maybe he un-hunched upon hearing the EMT coming. I don’t know. A folded towel makes a pad. Whether there was one or two seems a bit of a mystery, but perhaps can be accounted for in the variation of stories. Simply to say that Joe did nothing to help save Robert seems to be going much too far under the circumstances. Had the EMT seen anything like this before? I highly doubt it. How many times is someone stabbed while sleeping peacefully in bed? How many times is someone there who has been calmly and methodically following the 911 operators advice?
You cannot sit prone. Prone is lying flat on your front sides (abdomen/chest side down).
Bea,
Please! I myself was never an eagle scout, not even a boy scout, but I know enough to know that you DO NOT perform normal CPR on a victim suffering from puncture chest wounds. That is exactly what NOT to do. It can increase internal bleeding and so lessen the chance for survival. CPR is for victims of drowning, poison, electrical shock, drug overdose, heart attack and the like.
Apparently both Joe and the 911 operator knew this. You don’t go pounding on the chest of someone who has been stabbed in the chest. Joe did exactly what he was supposed to for someone in a major city. Call 911, ask for an immediate ambulance, follow the 911 operator’s advice. Joe also, according to the given story, did what you and I or any friend would do. Stay with the victim, perhaps talk to him, hold his hand.
Basically, during the later interrelations, Joe was answering questions. He wasn’t asked a whole lot about what wounds he saw, how much blood was coming out, exactly what he did or did not do.
He was unclear in his response to the 911 operator concerning is he breathing. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. (A hundred years ago, doctors used to hold a mirror in front of a person’s mouth to see.) Joe’s response wouldn’t have been to suggest that Robert might be beyond help. “Just get help here as quickly as you can?”
Joe said that he checked for a pulse, I find it a little odd that the 911 operator didn’t ask more about pulse and breathing than she did, but maybe she realized that there was no applicable first aid that you can do in this case, being that there were stab wounds to the chest. EMT would be arriving there in a few short minutes with the proper ventilators, training, whatever. Any desperate ‘try anything’ methods to restore breathing would have been appropriate perhaps for someone miles away in the country. I don’t know.
If someone isn’t breathing, you breathe for them.
As for Eagle Scout behavior, ain’t one of them going to put a knife FROM the wound.
If there was no bleeding (hard to fathom, isn’t it?) and you can’t find a pulse, and there’s a big question mark as to whether he’s breathing, you just sit there (after pulling out the knife)? Please.
Bea,
Can you imagine a situation where you find a knife penetrating your friends chest, and you immediately try to end that offending penetration by pulling the knife out?
Then after a moment, can’t all of your long-ago Boy Scout training kick in and you realize, “Nothat’s not what you do!”
Well, I can easily imagine Joe’s doing just that.
You seem to be able to imagine Joe as a friend doing nothing to help Robert.
I find THAT rather hard to imagine.
Pulling the knife out would have been a mistaken thing to do, but could have very possibly been an impulsive and unthinking attempt to help.
Is the fact that Joe didn’t continue to make mistaken actions to help Robert a big mystery to you?
Not to me.
Damn this is getting tedious [sorry Bea], but I do have that comforting is that all you’ve got? felling.
Alt – no.
AltGuy:
As I hope I’ve made clear by engaging with you, your alt perspective is both needed and welcome here.
Just a constructive critique: you are most effective when highlighting facts that tend to show innocence or motivation for strange behavior, less effective when arguing that the often puzzling, even bizarre behavior of the defendants is perfectly normal and to be expected.
I was no Eagle Scout (I quit after Webelos) but there’s no way I would have yanked out that knife.
Hoya,
Thanks for your good observations.
I didn’t mean to imply that knife pulling is “Normal.”
I’m like you. I think that I wouldn’t do it either.
But then, apparently, it’s commonenough that they warn you not to do it.
I don’t think all of the triple’s actions seem normal.
But they often seem explainable, at least to me.
Bea: I, for one, under this particular situation, will NEVER, EVER, want to touch the body (never mind the CPR) even my best friend is still breathing. Are you out of your mind? If I did do something, who knows what kind of pressure I would have caused that person to STOP breathing. Alt is right.
If my friend isn’t breathing, I will breathe for him.
I don’t find it peculiar. If I remember correctly he had taken a Lunesta, so just standing or sitting doing nothing seems perfectly natural to me. About the only thing the reported happening that night that makes sense to me.
Alice,
Well put. That was my impression as well.
According to the given accounts, he had walked into a surreal world. “What’s going on?” “Makes no sense.” “Maybe I’m dreaming this.”
It would have made me weak in the knees.
Isn’t it possible that the claim of taking Lunesta was provided to cover for the intake of something else? How do we really know he took Lunesta?
Nice list Susan. There are so many strange circumstances surrounding the murder. A small technical correction: the New Yorker illustration was of a dead William Shakespeare, not a stabbed man.
Your first fact should have been one of the most important in the criminal obstruction/tampering/conspiracy trisl, yet all related evidence was excluded while it was still scheduled for a jury trial. I have maintained over and over that the prosecution’s biggest mistake was not relitigating the issue once the defendants opted for a bench trial, given that the judge would have been less likely to be prejudiced by the evidence.
It should have come in not only because it may have played a role in the murder but also because the desire to keep the toys and associated lifestyle private might have been a motive for the tampering and obstruction, even if the defendants were innocent of the murder. Already fearful of being railroaded by homophobic cops, Joe might have figured “OMG, if they discover our stash they’ll crucify us.” Hence the emphasis on an unknown intruder to keep attention off of the unusual lifestyle of at least two of the three housemates.
Hoya and Alt,
I knew the picture was Shakespeare and read the NY article. But ultimately it’s an illustration of a stabbed man.
The way I seem to look at that night is by asking–what was different the night of the murder from all other 1509 Swann nights. And how is that household different from most others.
Added to the list of facts is JP’s recent promotion, the attendant pressures that come with that, the business JP and V were to discuss, etc. I think facts alone are revealing. What they spell out, I’m not sure. I just think that they need to be the foundation from whence all theories come.
I appreciate Bill O’s characterization of the JP he knew back when. But by JP’s own acct he was in the closet then and not in the competitive world of adult employment, etc. Those things do change people.
Above V should read RW–I believe JP mentioned that he and RW were to discuss bus. the next a.m. Apparently work brochures found on the scene might support his point. Either that, or RW just brought by some info. re RFA to share in general.
While I’m thinking of it there are just so many seemingly relevant facts. The trouble going on inside that home, as noted in the trouple’s own Hallmark words (V’s mentioning everyone and their neighbor as “family” except D. Ward in his card to JP). JP missing another anniversary. JP anxious about losing DW) and their interest in bringing in a third. We know there’s a third already there-V. But they don’t want him. There’s Hixson across the street but apparently they been there and done that. So how many strange men have been up and down those stairs? Or did they not get that new third yet?
Also we know that JP was a “slave” to DW’s master. What kind of orders did he have to follow? How far did that game go? Many questions, but still lots of facts. They tell us about the people who lived in that home and how honest or dishonest they could be with each other.
is there any video tape of slave/master interactions
I’m sure there are generic ones but I’m sure each relationship of that genre has its own “rules” of the game, etc. One would think, though, that the fellas would have taped things or taken pics…..
Too bad we don’t have the Arent Fox hard drive where Joe kept his stash. On second thought, I really don’t want to see it.
I hope Covington questions Sarah Morgan on many things, including the use of camera equipment. In any earlier post Clio wondered whether SM has had any communiques–direct or indirect–with any of the troup’ since the night of R. Wone’s murder. Covington should question her on that as well.
I’m sure Joe brought home some literature to give to Robert – it’s ready-made at every law firm when seeking business. RFA would not have been a big “get” business-wise but Joe was under pressure as a new partner. Perhaps all the good pro bono work “counted” as an associate but there would be pressure to bring in big bucks (and there’s inevitably a tie between “book of business” and one’s draw (salary, essentially, based on percentage of ownership).
I’d commented once that leaving work at 6 is unusual for a lawyer unless he’s in equally early – 10 hour days are a standard minimum (if you’re expecting to bill 8, also minimum). And it was mid-week. Between his pro bono work that satisfied some needs (but aren’t give “full” value in law firm economics), his vast playtime activities, and possible drug use (which is anecdotal, but some have been confident posting of such knowledge – and the US attorney referenced it early on) I do wonder if Joe was having trouble keeping all the balls in the air. We’ve been told that he would drink at firm events until he was blotto (granted, that ONCE may have been acceptable but began to be something frowned upon) and that brother Michael was known to show up at Joe’s office. While one of these things wouldn’t raise much of an eyebrow, it’s additional fodder for a Joe-under-pressure. If you throw in that Sparkly Cat, the love of his life, was showing signs of turning tail to run (couldn’t help the pun), Joe may well have been a very stressed out guppie. And that’s without the plumbing problems . . .
But, perhaps to relieve these pressures, Bea, Culuket worked out at the gym: isn’t that what he told the detective on the ride to Anacostia? Isn’t the gym where Ma’am tried to look for her consort earlier that evening? Don’t most professionals in DC work out in the early morning rather than in the evening — especially the early evening at midweek? One may still want to check the attendance records at their gym to verify or to clarify that part of the long backstory that Victor spun.
Hey Clio,
I’ve been by all these gyms at night, after work, including the one that “Ma’am” ran to to look for JP in the middle of unpacking. It is busy at that hour and later. Many people work out in the eve in the city.
There wasn’t any mention of him going back to the office. Some do work out and then return – but usually when the person selects a gym near the office, not near the home.
And there’s the pitiful image of Dylan “working out” in his little bedroom which our Eds kindly reported was absolutely tiny when they recently toured Swann for “open house.”
I always rather thought that “gone to the gym” was family short-hand for out scoring drugs.
One thing I don’t recall being discussed here is whether Dylan distancing himself from Joe, which alarmed Joe greatly, truly meant Dylan had grown tired of Joe OR whether it would end in an ultimatum, that Victor be ousted. From one perspective, perhaps Dylan liked being the mistress and sex object, but early on he’d told Sarah (VICTOR’s friend) that he expected Joe to break up with Victor so he could have him.
Many good facts, Susan. One thing I’ve found interesting is that during interrogations Joe was adamant that there was nothing on the first floor to steal except some large electronics, yet when brother Michael did burglarize Swann I think he made off with nothing but electronics (the number $7000 worth rings a bell). A “side bar” on the expensive electronics goes back to how this yuppie household had several flat screens (in 2006) but only one disposable camera.
Bea,
I truly hope that Sarah Morgan, the downstairs neighbor and longtime friend of VZ, is asked about camera equipment. She was with them on their Italy trip and by all accts was an active person in their life. She should know.
And,
Fact: S. Morgan said that she left early that evening to “watch TV” at her friends’ home some blocks away.
How often did she do that? Another good question.
I must say, it seems extremely odd that the brother showed up there often, as noted by at least one person who identified him/herself as a former AF employee.
And re drugs, either you do them or you don’t. Since JP was open enough to admit to liking torture on his Alt form but not that he didn’t do drugs, that would lead one to reasonably deduce that he was open to doing them.
Fact: JP described “DW” as “scary” in one letter.
Fact: VZ left DW out as a family member in his recent card to JP but called DW “sweet and kind” to police. Master, scary, sweet, kind, masseur who provided extras, had ecstacy in his room, a torture chamber too, was losing interest in JP. DW, Taiwanese childrens’ book author, culinary studies graduate, masseur, marketer, thanks to slaves connections, and what else?
Who did the photography found on the work computer? Was it shot by a modern-day Matthew Brady with a nearby studio equipped with props and costumes? Was there anything captured on the disposable, and who bought the disposable? Where was the disposable found?
Clio,
Good questions these you post.
Some speak of Joe’s “…interest in photography.” Well anyone who uses photos or looks at them or gets photographed is interested in photography.
The question concerning photo equipment in the house should be, “Is any of them a photographer?
Disposable cameras are not good cameras. They don’t take good quality pictures. Photographers don’t use them.
I would assume that if Joe wanted pictures of good quality taken in his home, he could have had some photographer friend take them.
Sure, he could have owned any amount of fancy photo equipment, cameras, backgrounds, and lights. But that doesn’t make him a photographer.
Most photographers have their own equipment and keep it with them. Now, if we knew that one of Joe’s merit badges was in photography – maybe.
Of the pictures he had on a website, were any of them taken in his home on Swann Street? Can we tell where they were taken?
Look at your calendar. We’re living in the 21st century. Joseph Price doesn’t need Matthew Brady as the only way to get high-quality photos. Now look at the ads in the Washington Post and discover ads for digital cameras that can provide high-quality photos available at Penn Camera, Ritz Camera, Tyson’s Corner, Montgomery Mall, etc.. etc. at low cost.
Creating another elaborate scenario in order to add a professional photographer into your mix just doesn’t match with the ease of acquiring easy-use, high-quality camera equipment at low cost.
Next Alt elaborate scenario:
I was talking disposable cameras, not digital cameras. And, yes, amateurs can take good pictures sometimes with digital cameras. So, can we tell how Joe’s web site photos were taken or where?
Which is the best, most logical and simple explanation for the absence of cameras?
My speculation that they weren’t there? Or the story that the triple had them taken away by person or persons unknown?
Speaking of elaborate scenarios, what do you call those speculations concerning the hurried disposal of photo equipment?
While leaving your own kitchen knife in the victim, yet?
That wasn’t my invention.
Susan:
I know I’m picking a nit here, but Shakespeare wasn’t stabbed. The significance of the illustration of Shakespeare on his deathbed, and it’s not minor, was that the positioning and poseing of the body in the picture was uncannily mirrored by the positioning and posing of Robert’s body when it was found.
Hoya,
Thanks, yes, that was significant. The significance of the picture was threefold if you ask me. One was the point you mention re the arm (I believe it was the weird positioning of the arm that stood out), two the individual was stabbed and three, he was a man. It could have been a fictional Shakespeare or anyone and it’d still be of interest–to my thinking. It was DW himself, wasn’t it, who mentioned the odd position of RW’s arm? Or was it one of the others? One of them did mention it in the A interviews.
“The night was HELL” for the twisted sickos at which mitts an innocent man was killed to death so horribly? Those reverse white-flight freaks are the ones that VISITED the hell on Robert Wone! Because stone-cold stumbling bumbling fumbling jurisprudence in Washington – “how typical,” in the words of C3PO – failed to meet and/or exceed the Reasonable Doubt standard on these sickos more twisted than a bag of Utz pretzels should not [and for me most certainly DOES not] mean that the slightest breath/rumor/whisper/prayer of the remotest shred of . . . sympathy? should be granted to them. They are the ones that already had that innocent house transformed into a sick-sex den before the deadly night; Robert Wone didn’t bring any of THAT crap, both of the implement and the revolting-character variety, with him when he picked entirely the wrong place to try and catch some Zs at. Washington may have had her share of Weirdness when it comes to unfortunate crimes, but this ain’t no sinkhole of vice like that obscene New Dork, the dark mysterious New Orleans, drug-soaked Miami or worst of all that shake & bake colony by the Pacific, Mrs. Californicator itself, which has hosted most of the grisliest killings [and serial killers] in the entire country. Conclusive Proof may be needed [and strangely somehow not obtained by the clumsy dolts “in charge” of the investigation of this horror] to have brought down the gavel and set up the gallows for this band of deviants, but just like in the similarly sick case out in Looee-Ville of two pathetic fag crystal deth addicts that killed an innocent person and buried him in the basement of their straight-out-the-Munsters mausoleum of a house, I believe their guilt screams out loud. And with anything approaching luck, “so shall it surely be” for this sorry pack of queer rats when they eventually wind up in their truly permanent address of 1509 Swann Street Northwest Hell, getting their putrid gutts violated and eviscerated for the half a dozen eternities.
i had always wondered what clio without medication would be like. now i know
Amy Winehouse’s singing in Belgrade is just as clear(Huh!) as Clio’s analysis of wmrw. The more I read, the more I pour.
Thanks for the “compliments”, boys/girls: my musings as muse must still be getting some attention at Team Price, and that’s just as it should be — as Voltaire said, history is just a crime chronicle.
Lay off the sauce, though: look at what even a little dinner wine may have done to Joe and Dyl.
Reading backward/forward zillion times til sobriety.
The thing that’s so striking about the trouple is that they have presented an inviolate united front. It’s rare for couples to survive this sort of pressure from law enforcement without one of them selling the other down the river to secure their own advantage – let alone 3 people maintaining the faith.
This suggests to me that each of them have significant amounts to lose personally by spilling the beans. Which, I’m afraid, suggests guilty knowledge to me.
My major problem with the suggestion that Michael might have been a perp. and Joe is covering up for him is that it does not explain what investment Dylan or Victor would have for protecting Michael. In fact being able to pin it all on Michael would be an easy way for Dylan and/or Victor to make this all go away and make their lives much less complicated. They have no filial loyalty to Michael. I find it difficult to believe that they would protect Michael (at the price that they’ve paid) out of simple loyalty to Joe.
I wonder what pressure the police have placed on Michael to get to the bottom of this?
Emily,
It’s funny but I don’t recall much of hearing about either husbands or wives selling each other down the river under tough police interrogation. If I’ve heard of this, it’s probably in a case where one of them, or both of them are guilty of something. Suppose, in this case, both (Three of them.) are innocent?
And another thing, posters often wonder how can the triple have been so cock sure that neither of the others did the murder. Well, myself not being French, it’s hard for me to imagine myself into a “Marriage of Three” situation. But don’t couples usually stand up for one another and have blind spots towards the failings of each other? Isn’t that what love’s about? “NO! He (she) WOULDN’T HAVE DONE THAT!” “Couldn’t have done that!”
Later on, after much reflection, a spouse might begin to wonder. But, unless they had specific knowledge, would they come forward?
Of course it’s always possible that one has guilty knowledge that the others don’t know about.
And, furthermore, how do we know what each individual’s lawyers have subsequently reported?
When asking what investment any of them have in protecting someone else, that is assuming that they know something significant concerning the murder. Perhaps, beyond suspicions, they simply don’t. (Except for one, perhaps, that’s not saying, for obvious reasons.)
Just expressing alternative views.
I tend to agree, Emily. Dylan has moved on from the trouple, and while Joe continues to stray, Victor hangs on for dear life (or so it would seem). Victor appears to be the sort to put himself on the line for JOE. Joe MAY be the sort to put himself on the line for DYLAN when Sparkly Cat was the love of his life, but I don’t know about NOW unless there is something which would also compromise Joe. Dylan, it seems to me, would put himself on the line for nobody. Too, Dylan is the one (ironically) with resources (e.g. wealthy parents) and Victor likely tapped his parents as well (reading into his parents’ likely affluent nature and constant presence at the criminal trial).
Would Victor and Dylan put themselves on the line for Michael Price? IMHO, no. I’m not sure Joe would to this extent. Remember, they’re still not out of the woods despite one criminal verdict, and this civil trial could weigh down Victor and Joe indefinitely (again, Dylan, less so since he’s not so much into paying his own way, and his parents wouldn’t be on the line for their adult son’s debts).
What about initial concern/embarrassment if a Trick from alt dot com got juiced up and went down a murderous path? The trio would have fingered the guy. Even if one/more of the trouple was high and were involved SOMEWHAT in that night’s activities, the trouple still bands together and says TRICK DID IT – unless (possibly) there was photographic evidence of something of a non-consensual nature which would implicate one/more trouple members even if not remotely involved in the murder (here is where felony murder might come into play).
There is the possibility that one/more trouple members wrongly ASSUMED there had been foul play and then began the cover up, but I don’t know what would have kept them from telling the truth somewhere down the line if they could have saved themselves from serious criminal charges and a lifetime of humiliation. Quite the quandary.
Every once in a while I do wonder if (1) Michael Price will commit some crime serious enough that he’ll give up what he knows (even if second hand) to lighten his own load (drug addicts tend to do so), and/or (2) if Joe Price will misbehave badly enough that Victor will say “no more” and clear his conscience.
There’s always the possibility that these three are completely innocent and know nothing but said and did things which make them look guilty (the list is VERY long and hard to fathom) and in five years we’ll hear of the “real killer” being arrested – I’ll eat my hat if the person is in fact an unknown intruder who scaled a tall fence and happened to find an unlocked door, who forgot to steal anything, who decided to become a highly skilled murderer upon seeing his SECOND potential victim asleep, left without a sound, and scaled the fence a second time instead of using the gate door without a damned thing to show for his efforts. That’s IF there’s no truth whatsoever to having blood cleaned up, needle marks indicating that Robert had been incapacitated, and the neighbors both mis-remembering the time of the scream.
Once again, you’ve hit the ball right out of the ballpark, Bea. If it really was an unknown intruder, I’ll walk to the west coast carrying that hat for you to eat.
Deal, Bill. Maybe a tasteful (and tasty?) fedora.
Bea and Emily,
I don’t think any of them would risk their lives for just one of them, except possibly V for JP. I think M. Price has made it known to the public that he is a loose cannon and unreliable. My thought is that if any one of them are guilty, then they all keep quiet because they all have “the goods” on each other and not just re the murder. They are a tight group by all accts and it extends out to Hixson, Dernbach, Hinton, etc. Again, my thought is if any are complicit then either drugs, prostitution, petty crime, whatever– or the murder alone would be the tie that binds. That’s a possible theory. It seems more possible (I said possible, not necessarily probable) when I think of that one poster who brought to our attention that case that was finally solved after years where about 10 people were complicit in the death of the one woman/hotel clerk and all kept secret about it all these years.
And re JP and the 911 call, etc. I guess based on his Anacostia tapes and accts from past friends and what’s on the record, he’s a vocal guy and bossy at times. He told V to call 911 and seemed to be speaking to V at points. Why don’t we hear screams like “He’s not breathing–we need someone now!” Why no details to be relayed to the 911 operator? That’s odd. V gets quiet and it gets quiet after that initial hysteria.
Yes, and why did Victor snub the reported police overture last year at this time during the waning days of the first trial? He must be more liable for whatever happened than we may care to know; Aunt Marcia, we’re still “praying” for you!
Did the marketing whiz have prior knowledge of Joe and Dyl’s (possible) dangerous gambit, and, if so, is that the main reason why he came back from Denver early — to try and to stop it? Why was there the rush to see Joe at the gym? What was so important that Victor had to track him down at the gym?
You’re funny (re “Aunt Marcia”)!
My thoughts re V, and I know I’ve posted this before, is that if he knows anything and is keeping quiet about it it is for the sake of his children and the weight he gives to the “bonds” of family as expressed in his letter to JP. V can’t have been totally blind to the presence of Hixson and possible Alt men in addition to the live in “master” (DW) so he accepted a lot by staying with JP. And who knows what else he accepted.
While Zaborsky may not have known the identities of Hixson and other tricks, he probably noticed that there was a lot of extra linens in the laundry from the master bedroom whenever he was out of town for a few days.
Yes, and, perhaps a stray, unaccounted-for jockstrap (or two) as well.
Or, Victor may have left Denver to join the planned festivities, only to find out just how far Joe and Dyl would go in pursuing this possible prank/assault.
In this scenario, Ma’am then balked at the planned sexual extremism, sulking in her room while Robert was drugged and killed. Then, he/she was brought out by puppetmaster Joe to be the mouthpiece for the coverup as the 911 version of “Tokyo Rose.”
…and don’t forget…just because you breathe for your dying friend does not mean others will, Bea. I am 100% straight guy and not a lawyer, but I don’t dictate you to be the same.
Too narrow ~ make that feeling
Before anyone goes on and on and on and on with more elaborare scenarios of what may have happened, just answer one question about Price’s lifesaving measures: Where is the bloody towel used to apply pressure to, not one, not two, but three stab wounds? Where is that bloody towel?
elaborare scenarios = elaborate scenarios
Indulge me this, Bill 2. It’s the Intruder Scenario espoused by some.
It Was a Perfect Night for an Intruding Murderer
August 2, 2006
1509 Swann Street
* Robert Wone works late and makes his first-ever plans to spend the night with his friend Joe Price and JP’s family, VZ and DW.
* The downstairs neighbor leaves early that evening to watch tv for the night with friends
* JP finds a wayward spider on the lamp outside and so must dispose of it.
* The back door is now unlocked
* Robert Wone showers
* An intruder waits for most or all of the lights to go out in a household full of men on a weekday, before midnight
* An intruder hops a 7 foot (?) fence and enters the home.
* An intruder finds a kitchen knife and climbs the hard wood stairs but no one hears the intruder.
* Robert Wone somehow doesn’t have his door latched
* JP and V hear a grunt/scream, whatever
* JP hears an exit door chime
* No one hears anyone running down the hardwood stairs
* DW is safely in his room, the one closest to the stairs
* DW took Lunesta so had been sleeping soundly
* RW’s wallet and cell phone and all the valuables an intruder could have made away with are untouched.
* Medical examiners can find so sense of struggle on RW’s part
* The intruder safely leaves
Did I leave anything out? JP theorized (I think he said it was his “theory”) that the intruder was a would-be burglar. Why didn’t the intruder take RW’s phone and wallet? How did RW end up with his semen in his rectum? What are those needle marks from? How was the crime scene so obviously clean?
We’ve visited all of this before but it’s like life and any slice of it upon reflection–maybe new perspectives come out of looking at it again, and whoever murdered RW needs to be held accountable for taking his life. Whoever murdreed RW needs to be away from children and society in general to prevent him/her/them from doing further harm if that hasn’t happened already.
Susan, you stopped too soon. There’s the part where Price attempted to aid the victim by removing the knife and applying pressure to three wounds with an invisible towel. And then there’s the part where Ward forgot he took the Lunesta so he consumed three more in order to get to sleep sooner. If we’re going to have him taking Lunesta, may as well ramp it up to create a more elaborate scenario. It provides a good excuse for him to sit there like a zombie while Price is frantically attempting to save a life.
Thanks, B2. I’m sure I left out more but there’s also the neat, clean stabs. What I don’t get is why the intruder didn’t seem concerned about the noise RW was making as he was stabbed and why there’s no evidence (pillow, etc.) of trying to silence him. I also don’t get grabbing anything–anything for self-defense. Mysteries, all.
Add to that the “burglary.”
Editors, an historical analysis of the contemporary accounts of the “burglary” of October 2006 may prove to be most useful. Even dieter dearest may learn something from that type of post!
Dear Friends:
I’m glad to be back, perhaps briefly, after yet another bout of this weird ear thing, or whatever it is.
It was pretty awesome to start reading the latest “ray: the correct pronunciation of “inn limminnee””. Then I noted that Craig had written the post. Given!
I will try to catch up again and I’m sorry I’ve been absent. I hope all of you are well.
Peace,
Deb
Hi Deb,
Hope you feel better. Look forward to your additional posts.
Bravo. If it walks like a duck. . .
Not saying it there’s no possibility it is something other than a duck but it would save one from having to inquire about semen in the rectum or unexplained needle marks or “cleaning up blood isn’t necessarily tampering” when there is an inexplicably small blood on the towels or anywhere else. It quacks loud and clear from where I sit.
Meant this for Bill2’s “elaborate scenarios = elaborate scenarios” post.
By the time he got to be an Eagle Scout, he would have been so well trained in First Aid that lifesaving measures would have been automatic. It’s like driving a car. Who stops to think: 1. I have to put the key in the ignition 2. I have to turn the key 3. I have to put my foot on the brake, etc., etc. It’s the same thing when you’ve had First Aid drummed into you over and over as scouts did by the time they get to the Eagle status.
When I was faced with a victim with four wounds, there were no thoughts about what to do. It was an automatic response to perform lifesaving efforts like driving a car or riding a bike.
In the Wone case, the total absence of a bloody towel sends up a huge red flag. Without that towel, there is no evidence that Price did anything to aid the victim.
That towel may have contained traces of other fluids that no gentleman (or lady for that matter) would have wanted to have been made public. Scott, dearest, where, oh where, did you put it? Down a sewer, or in a monastery’s garden (BTW – “In a Monastery’s Garden” was a big late 1890s/early 1900s hit: the first owners of 1509 Swann would have recognized it immediately!)?
Bill 2,
I would be shocked to learn that American Boy Scouts are teaching young men to apply artificial respiration to a victim of chest puncture wounds. And the proscribed actions are going to differ depending on the likelihood of nearby medical help. (Maybe we should all read the Boy Scout handbook as it was written back when Joe was a scout.)
We don’t know if any of Robert’s wounds were bleeding profusely when Joe first saw him, or if there were “sucking wounds” which first aid does teach about. (You apply a pad.)
Now the absence of a second bloody towel has grown to be, in your post, “…the total absence of a bloody towel…”
We know that there was one bloody towel. Some say that it doesn’t seem to be bloody enough. And that there should have been a second towel. And I wonder about these things also.
But Bill 2, the mysteries here are deep enough. They don’t need exaggerating, in my view.
A towel with a some spots of blood was found. I’m talking about a bloody towel with evidence of applying pressure to wounds. You know damn well what we’re talking about but it doesn’t fit in with the elaborate scenario you’re attempting to create for this hour. As you continue your fairytales, will we get to meet the cleaning lady, chimney sweep, and the nanny who goes over the fence with her flying umbrella?
Bill 2,
(I don’t know if they had a chimney.)
And, what if the wound wasn’t bleeding profusely, what then? It has been reported, by many, that there was surprisingly little blood. And the instructions, as given to Joe were to apply the towel, (Pad.) and to keep the pressure on. That would be in order to STOP external bleeding, would it not?
If we are not considering all possible alternatives here, perhaps that’s because some of us are doing a bit of witch-hunting. But, I won’t point any fingers.
What possible scenarios are speculated on here should include ones that attempt to comply with the REPORTED FACTS, should they not?
Where do you see it reported that there was a really bloody towel? Where was it reported that the wounds were bleeding profusely at the time Joe found the wounded Robert?
No, the scenarios I may suggest may not seem logical to you, any more than those of yours seem logical to me. If you believe that someone went to the trouble to dispose of a bloody towel, then you must answer both the how along with the why of it don’t you? That is if you really want figure out WMRW and not just cast stones.
Another dreamlike speculation, 2Bs (Bea and Bill2). You have been talking about something that didn’t happen for 5 years i.e. Joe cud, shud, wud have done tis/dat, or I wud, cud, shud have done dis/dat, blah, blah, blah. Not a laywer here but the courtroom is not going to dwell in what you have been “speculating” which is the opposite to “reality.” Boring!
Reality Michael: There is no bloody towel.
(Uncle?) Michael, this is not a parking lot after a funeral, and we’re not Gail Brown. Come clean and/or get over it, dear!
Bea/Hoya,
I can’t hear the phrase “It quacks like a duck,” used without thinking about a different Joe – Joe McCarthy.” I guess that’s revealing my age. But, not to forget, McCarthyism lead to false conclusions. Not what either you or I or any of us want to happen here.
I’ve been thinking about something for a long time. What if the murderer had produced those sounds and not Robert? I base that, in part, on three thoughts. 1. The sounds were loud enough to suggest that the vocalist had some degree of strength available, which Robert would not have had following quick methodical stabbings. 2. No one has said that the “Grunting noises” sounded like Joe’s voice. 3. There was likely more time than accounted for between the actual stabbing and the noises, if we are to believe Joe and Victor’s stories.
At the risk of being accused of creating another elaborate scenario, I’ve been thinking that the murderer might have made the sounds as a result of vocalizing his murderous thrusts or, more likely the sounds were made later in order to throw the household off. How would that throwing of the household off happen?
What if the murderer were a ninja? He could have yelled the sounds from downstairs just before exiting the door.
But what if it were the third man of the triple? Silently stab the sleeping victim, perhaps while holding cloth or hand over mouth to prevent noise or after giving incapacitating shot. Then go downstairs to kitchen, possibly wash knife dispose of towel and get another knife, open and close door, go back upstairs, either leave kitchen knife on table or insert into wound, then alert household with loud noises until you hear signs of arousal, immediately close door to your room, delay appearance saying you were asleep.
Now the above theory can explain a number of oddities. Even Joe’s removing the knife from victim’s chest. Perhaps the substitute kitchen knife was only slightly inserted into the original wound, because it would have been VERY hard for the murderer to insert it fully without making a mess of it and revealing it to be a second knife. Joe would have been able to say that the knife was lying on Robert, without it being a significant lie, (In his mind.) and also later tell that he had pulled the knife from his friend’s chest. If Joe found the knife only in Robert’s chest a little way, say an inch, then he might well have removed it without having considered it a damaging thing to do.
One might ask why the murderer would risk the door chimes causing someone to come check things out. If that happened then he could have said, “Hey, I just chased someone out the door!” But perhaps he knew enough about the participants to know what the reaction to a door chime would be.
I know, this scenario answers many problems while not suggesting anything like a motive. And where is there a history of insanity? Just more speculation to add to the brew I’m afraid.
OMG, Alt, you didn’t reference Joe McCarthy: why is that tried trope Team Price’s favorite historical allusion? You’ve got to do better than this, darling.
“It quacks like a duck.” The other Joe’s argument. It wasn’t me that used it here.
On item 2, I meant to say, “… sountd like Robert’s voice.”
I’ve GOT to stop proof reading these things after I send them.
sounded!
Breaking News-
Wow! Wonder what this could be. Wonder if there’s a settlement afoot or…something else. Whatever it is I hope for justice.
Well, that’s cryptic.
Yesterday was the mediation. Just looked it up. Wow, could Kathy Wone have….SETTLED???!!!!
AZ, it’s not cryptic at all. Click on home and see the eds note re breaking news.
You are right,cryptic is most assuredly the wrong word.
I was reacting to this:
“This Still Coming In
We’re expecting that news could break in the Wone civil trial slated for later this October.
Watch this space.”
Maybe the right word is arg!!!!
I’m having deep I need to know what is going on feelings.
Me, too. It will be hugely disappointing if she settles as that will mean information that should come out or be challenged will be dismissed. But it is K. Wone’s life, her choice and I’m sure it’s been an unbelievable stressful time for her. I hope whatever course she takes is in accord with the feelings of R. Wone’s parents and brother.
The postings here seemed to have come to a standstill. It’s as if we’re all sitting on pins and needles. I agree, with AnnaZed, “arg!!!!
Damn, I haven’t done the sit at computer pressing the refresh button on the WMRW page every 30 seconds thing since the trial, argg!!!
Ditto.
Bea they settled, I can’t believe it. It will also probably be one of those undisclosed terms things, arg!
word
Damn, amazing.
Better rich than wrong
Triple sigh!
Here’s a random thought/theory. I apologize if this has been put forth before; while I’ve read most of the comments on this site, I haven’t gotten to every single one.
What if a fourth party, unknown to us but known to the trouple (e.g., Michael Price or an alt.com third or whoever it may be) actually committed the murder for his own sadistic reasons and then blackmailed the trouple into covering it up? In other words, let’s say either this person had something devastating on the trouple, or threatened to harm the children or their mothers or something if the truth came out.
So the scenario would be, this person shows up at the house for whatever reason, and then through some series of events (and maybe drugs are involved), ends up stabbing Robert. The trouple discovers what happened and they are horrified. The murderer threatens them, or their loved ones, or threatens to unleash some terrible secret that would ruin one or all of their lives unless they agree to help cover it up (no idea what this would be, but let’s pretend there’s something). They clean, they alter evidence, they quickly hash out a story, and the murderer disappears with any evidence that might possibly incriminate him as the killer, including the real knife, any photos, bloody items (towels?) that he touched, etc. Possibly the murderer even dictated the clean-up procedures, all designed to avert suspicion from himself without regard to how it would be interpreted in relation to the trouple. And the killer may also have known about all the S&M equipment and suspicious-looking paraphernalia in the house, and could’ve counted on that to help ensure the cops would keep looking in the wrong direction. He may’ve said something like “I don’t care what you say happened — say whatever you want — as long as you don’t collar me.” Leaving Joe to go grasping at straws to come up with the intruder theory or anything to avert the blame from himself, VZ, or DW.
This would explain why all three of them acted so weird, why the evidence doesn’t match the story, and why all of them would be willing to go to great lengths to keep the secret. Perhaps there is still some sort of threat hanging over their heads, and they can’t tell the truth for fear of repercussions by the true killer. And as time’s gone on and the cloud of suspicion has grown heavier and heavier over their heads, they’ve resorted to just clamming up completely.
It may sound kind of far-fetched, but it would really explain a lot. My problem with their involvement has always been that they were generally (prior to that night) stand-up respected guys with good reputations, and Robert was their friend. My problem with their lack of involvement has always been, well, everything else. Something like this might explain both. Or something along these lines. What do you think?
I agree the case is crazy and anything is possible – under this theory, the defendants would certainly be guilty of a number of felonies . . .
What could that deep, dark secret be? Thanks to this blog, we know what kind of “men” the former male inhabitants of 1509 Swann were/are. If they had killed before, then we would know that by now. And, was Robert their friend — Victor and Dyl distanced themselves from him pretty quickly!
“Joe had no way of knowing that Ashley’s Reagent would effectively render useless all that night’s crime scene investigation.”
Can someone explain what “Ashley’s Reagent” means? Thanks:)
Ashley’s Reagent is a chemical used by forensics to detect the presence of blood on surfaces (rather like the more well-known Luminol, but chemically different). It seems that the MDP made some sort of serious mistake in using it on the surfaces that they did use it on.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_n8dCWlIAP8J:legaltimes.typepad.com/files/supplemental-memorandum-in-support-of-joint-motion-to-compel-discovery.pdf+Ashley%E2%80%99s+Reagent&hl=en&gl=us
Thank you SO much. I love this website, I want this case solved SO badly. The folks who post here are a HUGE wealth of info! Invaluable!
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