My theory on the Robert Wone case
I’ve followed this case before, but today was the first time I heard the full seven-minute 911 call on the podcast. Viktor’s voice strikes me as very performative and almost scripted, but listening to the entire call gave me a new theory about why the three of them were so ironclad about covering for each other.
My theory is that Dylan and Viktor may both have been involved in Robert’s death, possibly unintentionally, and Joe then helped them cover it up. A lot of the theories seem to struggle to explain their motive, but I wonder if it was rooted in jealousy and insecurity toward Robert, especially because of his long history with Joe. Perhaps drugging Robert was initially meant to give them some sense of power or control over someone they perceived as a potential romantic rival for Joe’s affection, only for things to escalate far beyond what they intended.
The reason I think it could have been both of them is that Dylan and Viktor, being in a throuple and both in relationships with Joe, may have had some kind of underlying competition with each other. They also knew that Robert and Joe went way back, and that Joe had even hosted a surprise birthday party for him, which suggests Robert was someone particularly important to Joe. So I wonder if there may have been some jealousy or insecurity toward Robert on the part of Dylan and Viktor.
I know some people assume that jealousy shouldn’t really exist in a polyamorous relationship, but I don’t think being poly necessarily makes people immune to jealousy, insecurity, or competition. If anything, I wonder whether that dynamic could have made Robert’s presence particularly uncomfortable for both of them. Robert wasn’t just some random friend visiting DC. He was someone with a long history with Joe, someone Joe clearly cared about, and now he had moved to DC and was staying in their own home. I could imagine that creating a sense of territoriality or resentment toward Robert, especially if both Dylan and Viktor were independently sensitive about Joe’s relationship with him. In that sense, I wonder whether the underlying jealousy between the two of them, rather than simply one person acting alone, could have contributed to a growing hostility toward Robert.
I also wonder whether Dylan might have been the one capable of inflicting the unusually precise stab wounds. I read in his bio that he trained at the Culinary Institute of America as a chef, which is obviously a very knife-intensive profession. Another detail that caught my attention is that he had also trained in massage in Thailand. Obviously, that doesn't prove anything by itself, but it made me wonder whether he might have been more comfortable than the average person with handling the body and dealing with the physical aftermath of an injury, including potentially cleaning up blood or disturbing the scene afterward.
That said, if Dylan had killed Robert entirely on his own, I have a hard time understanding why the other two, especially Viktor, would go to such lengths to cover for him at their own expense. Viktor even called 911 and essentially put on a performance that would become part of the official record.
Think about it: if Dylan was the only one responsible, why would Viktor, who was arguably in a complicated relationship dynamic with him, voluntarily put himself in the middle of it instead of simply letting Dylan make the call himself?
That’s why I’m starting to wonder whether Dylan and Viktor were both involved in whatever happened to Robert, perhaps with some kind of jealousy or conflict over Joe as the underlying motive, and Joe then helped them cover it up.