A man has been charged with murder after police said he brutally killed a woman he had been in a “nonexclusive romantic relationship” with inside a D.C. hotel room on Friday.
Romaine Maddox, 36, of Northeast D.C., was found dead at the Ivy City Hotel on New York Avenue.
She suffered multiple lacerations, blunt force trauma and deformities to her head, according to court documents.
Surveillance video from the hotel showed Maddox checking into the hotel the night before with William Barrett, 59, also of Northeast D.C.
Three hours after finding Maddox’s body, police arrested Barrett, covered in blood, in Northeast D.C.
Police said Barrett told detectives that he and Maddox had been in a nonexclusive relationship for about a year.
He said that overnight, an argument in the hotel between the two turned physical, so he choked Maddox with his belt and then struck her in the face several times with a ceramic toilet tank cover as she yelled for help, according to police.
Barrett is being charged with first degree murder.
In an unrelated incident, a woman was stabbed to death at the Ivy City hotel in D.C. in April of 2023.
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