While Washington D.C's Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), has largely ceased investigating the murder of Seth Rich, one group of forensics students, using the moniker "The Profiling Project," has decided to investigate the murder with or without police assistance. Twelve graduate students from the D.C based George Washington University forensic psychology department, as well as experts including a professional investigator, lawyer and public relations representative, have dedicated themselves to uncovering the true motive behind the murder of Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer Seth Rich. Rich is believed by many to have leaked emails from the DNC to Wikileaks, kicking off a PR nightmare for the Democratic Party just months before the 2016 Elections.
So far the MPD have chalked up Rich's death to a botched robbery. However, given the fact that neither his wallet, nor cellphone, were stolen, many have speculated that robbery was not the most likely motive behind Rich's murder. Frequently, people who question the narrative of Rich's death being caused by a botched robbery are dubbed conspiracy theorists. With this being said, it has been implied by Julian Assange himself, the founder of Wikileaks, that Rich was the source of the DNC emails received by Wikileaks.
The project curiously was created by veteran lawyer, GOP lobbyist, and anti-Trump leader, Jack Burkman. Burkman founded the project in February of 2017, with the sole mission of getting to the bottom of Rich's murder.
“For some reason, I thought of my mother when I thought of Mary Rich getting that terrible call that morning, just getting a 90 second call the captain of police D.C. police just saying, ‘Your son is dead. We’re sorry,’” Burkman is quoted as saying.
For Burkman, the students involved in the investigation will gain important skills doing the leg work for this operation. Students have been tasked with the role of following up leads, and talking to every potential person connected to this case.
“We’re all collaborating and conducting background research on people and places that we’ve identified as targets of interest, so we’re trying to come up with working theories as to what might have happened and then try to evaluate plausibility of those theories,” said Kevin Zhang, a second-year forensic psychology graduate student who is actively assisting with the project’s investigation.
According to Zhang, the group is investigating persons of interest, and has recovered a nearby security camera at Flagler Market that may have captured the murder on video. The footage was turned over to police by project members.
The group is currently involved in a lawsuit requesting that the police release this footage, against the MPD.
“The MPD, having mismanaged the murder of an important young man, and wanting to keep such information concealed from public knowledge, is refusing to fulfill its record-keeping obligations and public disclosure requirement and make public those records,” the complaint read.
An MPD spokeswoman, Rachel Reid, confirmed that the department has had contacts with The Profiling Project. Reid said in an email that the MPD still considers Rich's murder to be the result of a botched robbery, and that the “MPD continues to follow each and every lead that comes in, but because this is an open homicide case, we cannot comment on investigative tactics.”
This article was published minutes ago on Informaza.com.