http://www.snopes.com/seth-conrad-rich/
D.C. Metro police press release, as we contacted the department and confirmed that release contained all known information about Rich's death:
Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch are investigating a fatal shooting that occurred in the 2100 block of Flagler Place, Northwest on Sunday, July 10, 2016.
At approximately 4:19 am, members of the Fifth District were patrolling the area when they heard gunshots. Upon arrival on the scene, members located an adult male victim conscious and breathing, and suffering from gunshot wounds. The victim was transported to an area hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead.
The decedent has been identified as 27-year-old Seth Conrad Rich, of Northwest, DC.
Police reported that Rich was conscious and breathing at the time of the shooting. Had he any information about his murder having been a set-up, he likely would have conveyed such to attending officer before he died of his wounds shortly thereafter. Contemporaneous news reports suggested that Rich's murder was indeed perplexing, as elements of the incident were dissonant with the appearance of a robbery gone awry:
“If it was a robbery — it failed because he still has his watch, he still has his money — he still has his credit cards, still had his phone so it was a wasted effort except we lost a life,” said Joel Rich, Seth’s father.
Immediately after that portion, the article quoted the elder Rich regarding the moments prior to his son's death. According to Joel Rich, Seth was on the phone with his girlfriend when the shooting started, and Rich indicated to his girlfriend that he was nearly home and not headed out for an FBI meeting implausibly scheduled in the middle of the night on a Saturday:
Rich said Seth was talking to his girlfriend on the phone outside when the incident happened.
“Asked him if he was home yet and he said just about, and then she heard some noise, he said he had to call her back — I don't know when that conversation ended but at 4:18 two shots were fired,” said Rich.
According to Washington, D.C. television station WUSA, a string of robberies had occurred in the area where Rich was killed, and police believe that spate of crime was likely connected with his death. The station also reported that the 27-year-old staffer worked in voter expansion, helping people "find their polling places"; Rich's age and the relatively minor scope of his duties made him an unlikely linchpin in a conspiracy involving election fraud or any purported testimony against Hillary Clinton. The young staffer had only been employed with the DNC since 2014, making his tenure (not just his age) again an unlikely match-up with possession of crucial information for which he was supposedly killed.
Rich was the second deceased individual "connected" to Clinton by WhatDoesItMean.com and the third inaccurately reported as endangered by the candidate. The same outlet falsely claimed hacker Guccifer (Marcel Lazăr Lehel) was missing and presumed dead after he purportedly hacked into Clinton's e-mail, and just prior to that the site claimed former UN official John Ashe had been murdered on the eve of his providing scheduled testimony against Clinton. Guccifer was confirmed alive and well by officials at the facility in which he was housed, and a federal prosecutor's office affirmed Ashe's legal troubles were in no way connected to Clinton.
A common thread between the three rumors was a blogger known by the nom de plume "Sorcha Faal." RationalWiki describes Faal's WhatDoesItMean.com conspiracy site as "sensational" and "outrageous":
Sorcha Faal is the alleged author of an ongoing series of "reports" published at WhatDoesItMean.com, whose work is of such quality that even other conspiracy nutters don't think much of it.
Each report resembles a news story in its style but usually includes a sensational headline barely related to reality and quotes authoritative high-level Russian sources (such as the Russian Federal Security Service) to support its most outrageous claims. Except for the stuff attributed to unverifiable sources, the reports don't contain much original material. They are usually based on various news items from the mainstream media and/or whatever the clogosphere is currently hyperventilating about, with each item shoehorned into the conspiracy narrative the report is trying to establish.
While it's true police maintain an open investigation into Seth Rich's death, the claim connecting him to Hillary Clinton was the third of its sort to emerge from the same conspiracy-monger in mid-2016. All those rumors were variations on the long-circulating (and false) "body bags" claims that the Clintons habitually do away with once-loyal associates turned political liabilities. Prior to publishing the trio of Clinton-related fabrications, the same site and blogger held that President Obama had ordered the military to nuke the city of Charleston (which didn't happen), that Rear Admiral Rick Williams was fired because he revealed Obama's purchase of a mansion in Dubai (Williams was actually terminated for misconduct), and that Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama were enmeshed in a potentially conflict-starting dispute over the practices of the Monsanto agribusiness corporation.
