Three decades after police first questioned a D.C. teen about a grisly murder, investigators have charged him with the crime.
Ron Wright, who was 17 at the time, tortured and killed another teen inside his Northwest D.C. apartment before dumping the victim's body in Maryland, the Metropolitan Police Department said. DNA evidence now links Wright to the crime, according to police.
Wright was living in Florida when detectives arrested him in August and charged him with the brutal murder of Ricardo Burbano, a 19-year-old from Falls Church, Virginia.
Burbano disappeared in March 1992 after a friend dropped him off outside an apartment on Q Street NW. His body was found on a street in Hyattsville, Maryland, wrapped in plastic and a blanket. His hands and feet were bound, and there was evidence he had been tortured.
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D.C. police questioned Wright in 1992 and again in 2002, when he agreed to give police his DNA.
Police believe Burbano was tortured and killed in 1992 inside an apartment at 107 Q Street NW. According to a court affidavit, police executed two search warrants at the apartment in 2001 and 2002, and when they lifted a rug in the living room, they found blood that has now been positively identified as the victim's.
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Wright lived in that apartment with his parents, police said.
According to the court affidavit, police say Wright's DNA cannot be excluded from two pieces of evidence found at the crime scene: a bag with duct tape on it, and hair found on the blanket in which Burbano's body was wrapped.
Nowhere in the affidavit is it explained why police only now conducted the DNA testing.
On Thursday, Wright appeared in D.C. Superior Court and was ordered held without bond. Court records show he has hired a defense attorney. News4 reached out to the attorney for comment, but has not yet heard back.
So far, News4 has not been able to reach the victim's family.
