A D.C. Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that key parts of prosecutors’ case that three housemates covered up the 2006 slaying of Robert Wone can be admitted as evidence.
Judge Lynn Leibovitz said she would admit tests from a forensic expert suggesting that the knife found near Wone’s body was planted. Defense lawyers had said the experiments did not replicate the crime scene.
Leibovitz also ruled that testimony about Michael Price, the brother of Joseph Price, is relevant to the accusations that Joseph Price, Dylan Ward and Victor Zaborsky covered up Wone’s death in their Dupont Circle town house and misdirected police.
In court Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Glenn Kirschner said Michael Price, the brother of defendant Joseph Price, “may have been” responsible for the killing, providing the motive for his brother and co-defendants.
Michael Price had a key to the house and attempted to create an alibi for himself, Kirschner said. But Kirschner also said he couldn’t prove that Michael Price stabbed Wone to death, or was even in D.C. the night of the killing.
Two experiments by trace-evidence examiner Douglas Deedrick suggested that the knife found on the scene wasn’t used to kill Wone. Prosecutors say the trio of defendants used a towel to wipe the knife with blood as part of the cover-up.
Deedrick “sufficiently and substantially re-created the circumstances of the stabbing as well as any examiner could,” Leibovitz said, adding that it was impossible to exactly replicate a human stabbing.
Leibovitz ruled that evidence about Michael Price was relevant to establishing motive for the alleged cover-up.
One part of the conspiracy charge against the defendants is that Joseph Price did not tell police his brother had a key to the house. Price, Ward and Zaborsky are also charged with obstruction of justice and tampering with evidence.
In court Tuesday, phlebotomy instructor Paula Salvador testified that the first class Michael Price missed was Aug. 2, 2006, the night of Wone’s death.
Price had attended every previous class that summer, Salvador said, but missed several later sessions.
Later this week, other witnesses are expected to testify that Michael Price had a key to the house, demonstrated violent behavior and acted oddly after Wone’s death, such as trying to create an alibi for himself.
