On Tuesday afternoon, Fox News retracted its story connecting murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich with Wikileaks.

“The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting,” says a statement on the Fox News site. “Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed.”

The Rich family thanked Fox News “for their retraction on a story that has caused deep pain and anguish to the family.”

Sean Hannity, the prime time Fox News host who has dedicated ample screen time to covering the thoroughly debunked story, said on his show Tuesday evening that he was dropping the thread “for now,” before pledging on Twitter to keep investigating.

But the outlet that began this recent burst of attention into the still-unsolved murder of 27-year-old Rich in D.C. this past July has neither retracted its story nor updated it since last week. The latest news cycle about Rich can be traced back to a story from local D.C. Fox affiliate published on May 15.

The story from reporter Marina Marraco claimed that Rich had leaked DNC emails to Wikileaks, based on an interview with Rod Wheeler, a former D.C. Police officer who has been a Fox News contributor for many years. Wheeler, who said he was hired by the family to conduct a parallel investigation into the murder, said he had “tangible evidence.”

Here’s why all this became a national story rather than a local D.C. crime story: if Rich were the source of the emails, like conservative pundits such as Hannity say, then it would throw a wrench into the idea of Russian collusion in the 2016 elections (ignore for a second that, in addition to the DNC, the DCCC and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta were also hacked).

But the story quickly fell apart. Wheeler wasn’t hired by the Rich family, but instead by a third party, for one. And more pressingly, there were no emails connecting Rich to Wikileaks. Wheeler recanted the next day. (It wasn’t his first time apologizing for providing false information on-air.) He has since been sent a cease-and-desist by the Rich family.

By May 17, Fox 5 appended an editor’s note to the story stating that “Rod Wheeler has since backtracked.” But while the Rich family called the note a good start, “it does not reach the bar we are looking for in terms of a formal retraction and an apology,” said Brad Bauman, a spokesperson for the Rich family.

We’ve reached out to Fox 5 through its corporate spokesperson and to news director Paul McGonagle for comment. We haven’t heard from them since May 16, a day before they added an editor’s note. “We stand by our story,” a spokesperson said. The affiliate also still has its report about the Fox News story, which was retracted, on its site.

It wasn’t the first time Fox 5 peddled conspiracy theories about Rich’s death. In March, the Fox 5 morning show let GOP lobbyist Jack Burkman talk for five minutes about how Russians killed Rich, without any pushback.

Bauman, the Rich family spokesperson, declined to comment on Fox 5 leaving its story up “to give [Fox 5] the greatest amount of space for them to do the right thing” and to keep the Rich family’s legal options open. He added that Fox 5 being owned by Fox News led to “legally murky waters.”

Does the Fox News retraction apply to Fox 5? No, according to Christopher Chambers, a professor of media studies at Georgetown.

“I think Fox 5 local is being lazy and they’re playing with fire,” Chambers says. “Rather than just ‘fess up and move on, they’re just hoping that since the heat has been on Fox News nationally, they feel that they can sneak through and just not talk about it anymore.”

Indeed, Fox News continues to feel the heat—several advertisers have pulled their ads from Hannity.

But Fox 5 is also facing a boycott movement. More than 1,700 people have called on Fox 5’s advertisers to pull their ads “until they hold Ms. Maracco and her superiors, including News Director Paul McGonagle and Assistant News Director Kyle Carmean, accountable for their actions.”

Karl Frisch, the D.C. metro resident and political operative who started the petition, says he hasn’t heard back from Fox 5 or any advertisers yet, but “it needs to be aired out, because people trust the local news to get the story right and this exposes Fox 5 for being reckless and careless.”

Chambers says that Fox 5 is also leaving itself open to litigation by keeping the story up. “The family can basically sue over false statements,” he says. “The standard that they’re going to look at here is just negligence, which is easy to prove. Seth Rich is not a public figure in life. He became a public figure because of their bogus stories.”

He says that calling the story hearsay is a stretch, because “even hearsay might be legit, we just have no way of corroborating it. It wasn’t just hearsay—it was bullcrap. It seemed to be something invented out of thin air. There wasn’t anything there.” Chambers says that, if he were advising Fox 5, he’d tell them to “scrub the story.”

The Rich family penned an op-ed in The Washington Post on Tuesday, begging “those purveying falsehoods to give us peace, and to give law enforcement the time and space to do the investigation they need to solve our son’s murder.”

Seth’s death has been turned into a political football. Every day we wake up to new headlines, new lies, new factual errors, new people approaching us to take advantage of us and Seth’s legacy. It just won’t stop. The amount of pain and anguish this has caused us is unbearable. With every conspiratorial flare-up, we are forced to relive Seth’s murder and a small piece of us dies as more of Seth’s memory is torn away from us.

Police want people with information about Rich’s murder to call 202-727-9099 or text 50411. MPD is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information on this case that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible.

More:

Fox News Finally Retracts Its Discredited Story About Seth Rich’s Death
Fox 5 Continues Peddling Shameful Hearsay On Murder Of DNC Staffer
GOP Lobbyist Now Opening ‘War Room’ Dedicated To Solving Seth Rich Murder
‘It’s Hurtful’: Seth Rich’s Family Responds To Latest Conspiracy Theory About His Murder
‘We Need Your Help’: Family Of Murdered DNC Staffer Pleas At Crime Scene
Seth Rich’s Family Demands Immediate Retraction Of Debunked Fox 5 Story