“Don’t miss the rare opportunity to own a piece of history,” says the listing for 1509 Swann Street, Northwest, currently on the market with an asking price of $2,395,000. But one piece of the house’s history is unlikely to make an agent’s one-sheet: It’s the site of one of DC’s most vexing murder mysteries.
On August 2, 2006, a young lawyer named Robert Wone stayed over at the house, occupied at the time by his friends Joe Price, Victor Zaborsky, and Dylan Ward, rather than make his way back to the home he shared with his wife in Oakton. Near midnight, a 911 dispatcher received a call that Wone had been stabbed. Paramedics found him on a pull-out sofa looking as if he’d been “showered, redressed, and placed in the bed.” Price and his roommates told police they believed an intruder had somehow gotten into the house. They were charged with obstruction of justice and acquitted in 2010; they settled a wrongful death suit filed by Wone’s wife, Katherine Wone, in 2011. To this date no one has been charged with Wone’s murder.
The house has sold several times since Wone was killed. His apparent murder on the premises “didn’t really factor in” to one sale, a developer told Washingtonian in 2015.
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
