How much deeper does the ice run and how much darker? What do we know about 1968? And about 1963? The Second Gun: Who Really Killed Robert Kennedy? 1998
It’s mass chaos here. ibid. original TV commentary
We know what happened. ibid. chief rozzer TV interview
Sirhan’s presumption of innocence guaranteed by law suffered considerably. ibid. TV investigation
I remember that she had on a polka-dot dress. ibid. witness TV interview
A girl was seen with Sirhan and police could not find her. ibid.
I strongly suspect the notebooks are a forgery. ibid. Dr Simpson
There was an abundance of powder, a deposit, on the edge of the right ear … muzzle distance would be one inch from the right ear edge and no more than three inches. ibid. Dr Noguchi TV interview
Dr Noguchi was fired and accused of being derelict in his performance. ibid.
This strongly suggests that the Senator was not really in the position shown by the [court] diagram. ibid.
Two ceiling tiles are missing from the same area; it so happens that none of the panels removed from the pantry ceiling were introduced as evidence during the trial. Why? It so happens that the entire left sleeve of Senator Kennedy’s coat, the left sleeve of his shirt, and left cufflinks seem to have been lost during the investigation. ibid.
Kennedy’s bodyguard fired back. ibid. CBS report of Don Schulman witness statement within minutes of assassination
This would bring the total to 12 bullets. ibid.
Chief defense counsel for Sirhan – Grant Cooper himself – he forfeited many times the opportunity of full disclosure and meaningful cross-examination. ibid.
2 x .22 calibre revolvers were involved in the assassination. There are two distinct sets of bullet trajectories roughly ninety degrees apart in a horizontal plane. ibid. Bill Harper, firearms expert’s review of evidence
In fact photographs were taken of police officials and others pointing proudly to bullet holes in the walls and ceiling. But by the next day it was known that five bullets had been recovered from the five wounded bystanders. And that Kennedy had been struck three times, with another bullet passing through his suit jacket. The problem for the LAPD was that Sirhan’s Iver Johnson .22-caliber pistol held only eight bullets ... Not only had the door frames and the ceiling tiles been removed the night of the murder they had been secretly destroyed in June of 1969. Evidence of Revision IV, 2006
The official explanation offered was that these evidences were too large to be kept in a filing cabinet. ibid.
Briefly stated, the autopsy found that the wounds inflicted upon Senator Kennedy were inflicted from behind, at a sharp upward angle and at extremely close range. Using powder-burn analysis Noguchi determined that the fatal bullet was fired at a distance of about one and three inches behind the right ear. ibid.
As he went to testify before the Grand Jury, Noguchi was reportedly approached by an assistant district attorney and asked to change his calculations on the firing distance from inches to feet. Noguchi refused. He then became the target of a vicious campaign to destroy his credibility. In the autumn of 1968 he was suspended as coroner, and defense attorneys prevented the details of his autopsy from being introduced at the trial of Sirhan. ibid.
If we follow the paths of the bullets that struck Robert Kennedy, they seem to point not to Sirhan but to an assassin directly behind and to the right of the Senator. Though the police initially claimed that there were no other guns drawn in the pantry, there was a person directly behind Robert Kennedy to his right with a gun drawn – Scott Anders saw him. Suspicion directed at Thane Eugene Cesar, an employee of Ace Security Service, is not new. ibid.
Sandy Serrano was a twenty-year-old Kennedy campaign worker; she went to the Ambassador Hotel with a few friends on primary night, but after a while she decided to get out of the heat and retreated to an exit staircase outside the hotel. At about 11.45 she claimed three people, a woman and two men, one of whom she would later identify as Sirhan, pushed by her on the staircase and went into the hotel. About a half hour later she said that the same woman and one of the men came running down the stairs. The woman seemed exuberant, and she and Serrano had a bizarre exchange of words, which Serrano described live on TV. ibid.
Sirhan’s diary does repeatedly refer to mind control. ibid.
The candidate seemed unstoppable. Then in the blink of an eye it was over. Robert Kennedy lay mortally wounded in a Los Angeles hotel. No-one could believe it had happened again. Unsolved History s2e13: Who Shot RFK? Discovery 2004
As Kennedy and his entourage entered a narrow pantry, a Palestinian immigrant named Sirhan Sirhan approached from the opposite direction ... It all happened in seconds. Robert Kennedy died twenty-six hours later. ibid.
After the speech Robert Kennedy was led back stage. His campaign aides had made a fateful last decision. ibid.
But critics claim that police work was flawed and as a result mysteries remain. Why didn’t the police confiscate any of the other guns in the pantry? ibid.
The details of the investigation were kept secret for twenty years. ibid.
Noguchi performed ballistics tests to verify the distance that would cause these powder marks ... So the presence of microscopic soot in Kennedy’s hair does not in itself place the gun next to Kennedy’s head. ibid.
The security guard who was right behind Robert Kennedy ... The hotel hired a private security service, all of whom carried side-arms. One of these was Thane Eugene Cesar. When the senator entered the room Cesar moved in behind him and stayed close as they moved through the small room. In interviews Cesar gave several different versions of his actions that night. ibid.
The LAPD believes that one bullet was lost in the ceiling: that makes eight. But some investigators including the FBI reported that there were more bullet holes at the scene which matched Sirhan’s line of fire. One month after Sirhan’s conviction a police photograph came to light. It shows a detective examining bullet holes in the west pantry doors. And there are several more crime scene photos of apparent bullet holes. ibid.
He had just celebrated winning the California primary. Like with his brother John and with Martin Luther King, Robert F Kennedy’s assassination is shrouded in mystery. The Second Dallas: Who Killed RFK? PSTV 2008
While searching his house the police find a diary in which Sirhan has repeatedly written Robert Kennedy Must Die. His neighbours however describe Sirhan as a quiet young man who would never hurt anybody. ibid.
Sirhan’s amnesia appears genuine. ibid.
When Sirhan is confronted with the pages of his diary Sirhan recognises his handwriting but does not remember writing the words. ibid.
He is not allowed to take the stand or fire his attorney. ibid.
This body of evidence strongly suggests both the presence of a second shooter in the pantry and a subsequent cover-up of this fact by the Los Angeles Police Department. ibid.
The first problem with the official version is the actual number of bullets that were fired during the assassination ... A minimum of eleven. ibid.
The Polka-Dot Dress Girl: As Kennedy completed his speech Sandra Serrano, a campaign assistant, went out to get some fresh air on the fire escape of the hotel. After a few minutes she saw an excited young couple rush down the stairs. The same exchange was heard by two bystanders, the Bernsteins. ibid.
The Polka Dot girl has never been found. Even though the list of witnesses who saw her was very conspicuous the LAPD chose not to pursue this lead. ibid.
After many hours of harassments and threats Sandra Serrano finally broke down. ibid.
In private she has never changed her version of events. ibid.
Scott Enyart: After obtaining false credentials from a friend, Enyart managed to insinuate himself into the press corps covering Kennedy’s speech. Standing right in front of the podium, Enyart unknowingly took some of the last pictures of Robert Kennedy alive. After the Senator completed his speech Enyart followed him through the hotel pantry ... After the trial the police returned to Scott some of his pictures but not all of them ... The ones he shot during the assassination are all missing. ibid.
Destruction of Evidence: right after the shooting different people noticed the bullet holes in the door jamb behind Kennedy and in the ceiling panels above him ... These elements were never introduced at the trial. After the trial ended, the Los Angeles police chose to incinerate them. ibid.
A few years after the trial someone discovered that the serial number written on the envelope that contained Sirhan’s gun did not match the one on the gun itself. ibid.
Doctor Noguchi’s Autopsy: the most cumbersome piece of evidence against the official version remains Robert Kennedy’s autopsy, performed by Los Angeles coroner Thomas Noguchi, among the best in his profession ... Noguchi found that all the bullets that hit him travelled from below to above, and originated behind the Senator on his right-hand side ... The fatal shot to the head was fired at close range from a few inches at most. ibid.
Karl Uecker: ‘The bullet which killed Kennedy it was an inch away from his head; this bullet did not come from Sirhan.’ ibid.
Karl Uecker was the Maitre ‘d at the Ambassador Hotel. At the end of Kennedy’s speech he grabbed the Senator by the wrist and led him away from the crowd. In the pantry Sirhan appeared and started to shoot. Uecker let go of Kennedy’s arm and threw himself against Sirhan pushing him against the metal table. ibid.