Police detective Bryan Kasul testified on Wednesday about investigators’ decision to finally stop playing nice with the housemates of 1509 Swann Street NW the night attorney Robert Wone was found dead in an upstairs guest room in 2006.

Video footage of police interrogations shows Kasul kicking into bad cop mode shortly after another detective left the room to fetch suspect Victor Zaborsky a glass of water. Zaborsky and housemates Joe Price and Dylan Ward stand accused of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and tampering with evidence in connection to Wone’s killing.

“It was appropriate at this point of the interview to change the tone to something more aggressive,” Kasul testified.

The defendants have long maintained that an unknown intruder broke into the house and stabbed their friend to death.

Kasul told Zaborsky he didn’t buy it: “With absolute certainty, based on scientific physical evidence, no one came into that house.”

Throughout the interrogation, the video shows, Kasul tried various methods to get Zaborsky to change his story, even suggesting that fellow suspects Price and Ward had failed a polygraph test.

Zaborsky didn’t budge: “I know for a fact that Joe, Dylan and I didn’t do this,” he says on the video.

“Look at you, you’re sitting in front of me shaking…I’m reading your body language,” the detective went on. 

“You would not last in D.C. jail,” Kasul told Zaborsky. “Those boys will eat you alive.”

Ironically, the detective intimated that the investigation, which authorities now describe as a mystery that might never be fully solved, was an open and shut case. “As far as murder cases go, this is one of the easier ones,” he says on the video.

Zaborksy just sighed. “I’m telling the truth,” he says on the video, “and I think I’m done.”