The Murder Of Robert Wone

Lois Goslinoski, a deputy medical examiner, determined that Robert Wone had died from stab wounds to his pancreas, heart, and right lung. These were, she said, perfectly even wounds, rather than the jagged wounds one might expect from a struggle. And there weren't any defensive wounds on his body.

Small petechial hemorrhages on his eyelids indicated that he'd been strangled or otherwise deprived of oxygen. But she says it was the stab wounds, not strangulation, that killed him.

She found traces of his own semen on Wone's genitals and in his rectum. She also found 6 needle marks on various areas of his body.

Goslinoski tested for a standard list of drugs, but didn't find anything: no alcohol, cocaine, PCP, barbiturates, opiates, or amphetamines; no common date-rape drugs like GHB, benzodiazepines or ketamine.

Knife found in guestroom

Police confiscated boxfuls of the three men's belongings, including computers, household appliances, Dylan Ward's sadomasochistic paraphernalia, and the box to a three-piece knife set he kept in his room. One knife was missingand it wasn't the boning knife found with Wone's body. Goslinski didn't think the killer or killers used the boning knife, though: it was half an inch to one inch longer than each of the wounds, and it's typical for the full length of a blade to be plunged into the body during a violent knife attack. The knife missing from the partial set confiscated from Ward's room, however, is known to be half an inch shorter than this boning knifethat is, consistent with Wone's wounds.

Investigators carefully examined the house, even removing parts of the floors and walls. Unsurprisingly, blood evidence techniques showed evidence of blood on the bed and throughout the rest of the roombut authorities would later admit that the test reagent was improperly used, and they can't confirm that these traces were in fact blood.

Strangely, the towel that Price had used to stanch Wone's wounds had only a small amount of blood on it, just a few blotches. That's not consistent with what a major abdominal wound would produce.

A blood spatter analyst says that the boning knife paramedics and police saw in the bedroom didn't have blood on its cutting surface, just on other parts of the bladehe conjectures that someone put that blood there by wiping the bloody towel on it. He says the knife does indeed show traces of white cottonand not of the grey cotton on the t-shirt that the murder weapon would have had to pass through.

Stranger still, a cadaver dog found blood in a drain in the backyard and in a clothes dryeras if someone had recently laundered some bloody clothing.

The investigation would drag on for years. Meanwhile, another crime would take place at 1509 Swann Street NW.