Do you know who murdered Warren Asher? In the winter of 2005, concern grew among colleagues of 57-year-old Warren 'Rusty' Asher Jr. when the typically punctual federal worker failed to appear for his job as a public affairs specialist at the Office of Personnel Management in Washington, D.C. His absence on January 13th was uncharacteristic, prompting his supervisor and coworkers to try and reach him without success.
A colleague who went to his upscale apartment building, The Lexington, on D Street NW, was initially assured he had been seen around, temporarily quelling their fears. However, when he still hadn't returned to work after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, their worry intensified.
On January 18, 2005, a group of his frantic colleagues returned to his apartment building and persuaded the staff to check on him. Upon entering his sixth-floor apartment, they made a grim discovery; Asher was found deceased. Initially, with some items in the apartment overturned, police considered the possibility of a medical emergency causing a fall. However, the D.C. medical examiner's office later ruled his death a homicide, determining the cause to be asphyxiation by compression of the neck.
Investigators from the Metropolitan Police Department found no signs of forced entry and noted that Asher's wallet, credit cards, cash, and cell phone were still in the apartment, suggesting that robbery was not the primary motive. Police began to explore personal aspects of Asher's life for clues, revealing that he was gay and known to frequent an area a few blocks from his home to seek out male prostitutes. This led them to investigate the possibility that he was slain by a male prostitute he may have brought back to his apartment.
Asher, a native of Mississippi with no family in the area, was described by his colleagues as a special person and a rose aficionado. They held a memorial service for him at their office, placing a dozen roses on his desk. Despite their efforts, the investigation into Warren Asher's murder grew cold. As of 2012, the case remained unsolved, with D.C. police's cold case unit continuing to seek information from the public regarding any frequent visitors or details about his personal life that might lead to the identification of a suspect. No arrests have been made in connection with his death.
