On June 1, 1981, a well-known Capitol Hill staffer for two decades was found beaten to death in his Northeast apartment. More than 27 years later, police still don’t have a motive for the killing and no arrests have been made in the case.
A roommate discovered Raymond N. Nelson’s body around 7:30 a.m. in their 701 Quincy St. home. Police said at the time that Nelson, 59, was killed by blunt force to his head.
Nelson became a Senate staffer in 1961 after leaving the Providence Journal, where he was the bureau chief in the Rhode Island newspaper’s largest suburban bureau.
Sen. Claiborne Pell hired Nelson as his administrative assistant.
In 1974, Nelson joined the staff of the Senate Rules Committee. “He was the person mainly in charge of room space allocation in the Senate building,” John B. Childers, then deputy staff director for the committee, told The Washington Post. “He probably knew more people in the Senate than any single person, and more people knew him.”
His family remembered him as kind, loving and full of life. He was a dapper dresser with a penchant for hats he wore cocked to one side. Nelson joined the Providence Journal in 1946 after serving as an aviation machinist in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
There’s a $25,000 reward for anyone who offers information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for Nelson’s death. Anyone with information should call D.C. police at 202-727-9099.
