The wife of a young lawyer who was stabbed to death one year ago appealed to her husband’s killer on Monday to turn himself in and unburden his conscience from the heavy weight of murder.
Kathy Wone, standing before more than 150 friends and family at her husband’s former downtown law firm, said she is starting to make her way through the “darkness,” but she still grieves for the killer’s own life, which she said has been ruined by the crime.
“Confessing will be the hardest thing you’ll ever do in your life, but it will also be the most freeing thing that you can do for yourself,” Wone said. “A secret like the one you are hiding from the world will only grow heavier with time.”
It was Kathy Wone’s first time to speak publicly since Robert Wone was stabbed three times inside a $1.2 million town house near Dupont Circle.
Wone’s attorney and D.C. police have said the three roommates who were with Wone that fatal night have information that could help solve the crime. Police said in court documents that they found no signs of forced entry into the town house at 1509 Swann St. NW, and the crime scene was cleaned up before investigators arrived.
Investigators said they don’t believe roommates Joe Price, Victor Zaborsky and Dylan Ward, who said an intruder broke into the house and stabbed Wone in the bedroom with a butcher knife taken from the kitchen. David Schertler, an attorney for Ward, said all three men talked to police in the first days of the investigation, answering every question and providing hair, DNA and blood samples. He said the roommates also mourned Wone’s loss.
Eric Holder, representing Kathy Wone, said the roommates’ claim of being friends of Robert and Kathy Wone was “inconsistent” with their failure to cooperate with authorities.
“You need to ask yourself, ‘Have I provided police with all the information in can?’ ” Holder said, addressing the Swann Street roommates. “Only you, your conscience and your God can answer that question. You’re either a friend and you cooperate or you don’t.”
