Videotaped police interviews with two of three men accused of covering up a fatal stabbing in their home were played in a D.C. courtroom Tuesday.
Joseph Price, Dylan Ward and Victor Zaborsky are charged with obstruction of justice and tampering with evidence in connection with the August 2006 death of 32-year-old Robert Wone. No one has been charged with murder.
In a police interview taped hours after Wone was killed and shown in court Tuesday, Price repeatedly insists that none of the housemates had anything to do with killing Wone, a friend who had been spending the night.
PRICE: He is one of my oldest and best friends. What reason would anybody do something like this?
DETECTIVE: You know the reason. You're making me say it now. You've got three homosexuals in a house and one straight guy. You're sitting around drinking wine. And you know what's going to happen tonight. You're going to come to Jesus tonight."
PRICE: That's insulting. Robert is a happily married man.
DETECTIVE: But Dylan Ward isn't.
Local
Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia local news, events and information
PRICE: Yes, he is.
DETECTIVE: To whom?
PRICE: To me.
The detectives insinuate that Price or the others might have been physically attracted to Wone, who was happily married. Price, who was in a three-way relationship with Ward and Zaborsky, appears exasperated by the line of questioning.
PRICE: Robert is an earnest, good-natured person. He didn't even cuss … like something out of a TV show. No doubt he was straight as the day is long. I didn't find him physically attractive.
DETECTIVE: What about Dylan?
PRICE: Robert wasn't Dylan's cup of tea.
DETECTIVE: What's Dylan's cup of tea?
PRICE: I would say, "Me."
Ward's videotaped interview also was played in court Tuesday. Nothing was taken from the home, so Ward said someone in the house must have done it, but that would be shocking to him.
Detective Sgt. Daniel Wagner testified he was surprised a straight man would spend the night with three gay men when he had a wife at home.
Defense attorneys maintain that Wone was killed by an intruder who jumped a fence into the backyard and entered the home through an open back door, took a knife from the kitchen, went to an upstairs guest bedroom and killed Wone.
Wagner said a layer of dirt and cobwebs on that back fence indicates that no one jumped over it.
