suggested his death was retribution for his supposed leak. the private investigator enlisted to develop the story now claims it was all designed to discredit u.s. intelligence which, of course determined that russia had hacked the dnc. the story was later retracked from the fox news website, but the story was also far from over. let's get more now from cnn's randi kaye. >> reporter: when democratic national committee staffer seth rich was killed, a conspiracy was born, caught up in it, this man. >> i do believe i was used as a pawn in this entire thing. >> reporter: his name is rod wheeler. he's a former dc homicide detective and fox news contributor. and now he's filed a lawsuit against fox news. wheeler claims he was used to help fabricate a story connecting the murder of seth rich to the wikileaks release of thousands of e-mails from the democratic national committee.