Lawyer From George Mitchell/Sheila Bair Law Firm Stabbed and Killed in DC

David J. Messerschmitt,  who was an associate attorney in the Washington D.C. office of the law firm DLA Piper, was found dead in a room at the Donovan Hotel located in the 1100 block of 14th Street NW, just a few blocks from the White House.

DLA Piper is a global law firm with 4,200 lawyers, and offices in the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East.

George Mitchell is partner and chairman emeritus of the firm. He was a US Senator from 1980 to 1995 and was Senate Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995.

Sheila Bair served as Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from 2006 to 2011 and is now a senior policy advisor at Piper. According to the firms web site, in her position at DLA Piper, "Sheila is focusing attention on international financial regulatory concerns." She is not an attorney.

Ray LaHood, the former US Department of Transportation Secretary, is also a senior policy adviser at the firm.

Messerschmitt lived, with his wife, in an apartment building in the 400 block of East Capitol Street NE, so it is unclear what he would be doing in a hotel room.

Police have released surveillance video of a person of interest in the case, who is seen in the hotel's lobby around 7:45 p.m. Monday night, within the time range of when the murder was committed.

The person  hit the elevator button, but then decided to take the stairs and appears to cover his/her face when noticing a camera in the stairwell. The person exited the stairwell on the floor where Messerschmitt was found dead.

Sources told News4's Pat Collins, police are looking into the possibility Messerschmitt was set up.

A 2002 yearbook photo of Messerschmitt

In 2007, Messerschmitt interned with Susan Dlott, a judge for the U.S. District Court Southern District of Ohio in Cincinnati.

He was a star, an absolute star," Dlott told The Cincinnati Enquirer.

"I'm just so sick about this. He was the nicest, most wonderful kid you could ever want to meet."

  He graduated from Boston University School of Law in 2009.




  -RW