When Warren Asher Jr. failed to show up to his downtown D.C. office in January 2005, his colleagues grew concerned. Asher, a media analyst at the Office of Property Management, wasn’t the sort of person to miss work without telling anybody. A co-worker stopped by his nearby high-rise apartment at D and 8th Street NW, but no one was home.
When Asher, 57, didn’t show up four days later after a long Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, his co-workers panicked.
Recommended Stories
Several friends rushed back to his apartment. Again no one answered. They pleaded with a building maintenance worker to let them in to his place.
Inside, they found Asher’s body.
Authorities determined that Asher had been strangled. Members of D.C. police department’s cold case unit are still searching for information to find Asher’s killer.
Detectives said there was no sign of forced entry and the apartment had not been ransacked. Some items had been overturned, suggesting there might have been a struggle.
Police at the time were investigating that Asher, who was gay, may have been killed by a male prostitute. Asher was known to pick up male prostitutes just a few blocks from his apartment, police said. Detectives believe one of them may have killed him.
Police are asking anyone with information to call cold case detectives through the tip line at 888-919-2776 or by text messaging 50-411. The city offers rewards of as much as $25,000 for tips that lead to arrests and convictions in homicide.
