Parents of DNC staffer Seth Rich vow to find his killer; reward now $125,000 By Joseph Morton / World-Herald Bureau Nov 23, 2016
WASHINGTON —
Omahans Joel and Mary Rich returned to the nation’s capital last weekend to canvass the neighborhood where their son Seth was fatally shot earlier this year.
“We have to get the word out to the people who might know something who don’t watch the 10 o’clock news,” Joel Rich said as they plastered the area with updated fliers offering reward money for information in the case.
Helping distribute the fliers were area residents and friends, including Donna Brazile, interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, where Seth Rich worked on helping people vote.
The 27-year-old was shot at 4:19 a.m. on July 10. Police have suggested the possibility of a botched robbery, but the case remains unsolved with no arrests or even suspects announced.
On Monday his parents held a D.C. press conference alongside Republican lobbyist Jack Burkman, who has offered a $100,000 reward in the case. The fliers mention that reward and an additional $25,000 — the customary police reward in D.C. homicides.
The Riches did not include the $20,000 that has been offered by WikiLeaks, saying they could not verify its validity.
At the press conference, Joel and Mary Rich discussed the information they have at this point:
Seth was walking home, talking to his girlfriend on his cellphone. He was about a block from his place when
his girlfriend heard voices or something in the background.Seth said he had to go. Two minutes later, he was shot.
“What happened in those two minutes?” Joel Rich asked. “We’d love to know.”
They said it’s clear there was an altercation because Seth had bruises on his hands and his face. Joel Rich said his son would not have risked his life in such a struggle if a gun was apparent from the start.
“So he was just trying to defend himself, and then he turned and he was shot,” Joel Rich said.
Seth would have been aware of robberies in the area in recent weeks, Rich said, and noted that the signs of struggle included damage to Seth’s watch.
“There were no shell casings — it was a revolver,” Joel Rich said. “So it wasn’t, quote, ‘a professional’ kind of weapon.”
In addition to seeking information from the public,
Burkman raised the possibility that more private security video could be discovered, and said there are plans to do a re-enactment of the crime.Burkman said that re-creating the crime scene is a way both to garner more information and generate additional public interest in the case.
Mary Rich reiterated her call for those in the neighborhood to contact police if they saw anyone running through alleys around the time of the shooting or if they saw anyone come home bruised or bloodied that morning.
In talking about her resolve for solving her son’s killing, she noted the advice to hikers when they see a bear cub: to look around for its mother.
“You don’t get between a mother and her cub,” she said, her voice breaking. “My cub is dead. It doesn’t mean anything: I will, we will, find his murderer.”
Burkman said he stepped in because the case reminded him of when he arrived in Washington as a young man and his own mother warned him to be careful of crime in the city.
“When I saw the story about Seth, the heartbreaking story, all I could think of was my mother getting the call that Mary Rich got,” Burkman said.
Mary Rich talked about how her son would have approved of that kind of bipartisan sentiment, of people working together across the political divide.
And they all swore not to give up.
“We’ll come back in February and do this in our snowsuits,” Joel Rich said.
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