Ray Charles, a resident of Washington, D.C., was found fatally shot inside the apartment building at 1936 3rd Street NE on the morning of June 26, 2004. Officers arrived after a call and fixed the time he was discovered at about 8:30 a.m.; the Metropolitan Police Department classified the case as a homicide and assigned it to the Violent Crimes Branch.

Detectives publicly asked for help from anyone who had been in or around the building that morning, circulating notices and a reward flyer offering up to $25,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction. The killing remains listed among the department’s major unsolved homicides for 2004, and investigators continued to appeal for witnesses, with no suspect publicly identified and no arrest announced.