Sirhan Sirhan denied parole despite a Kennedy confidant’s call for the assassin’s release - The Washington Post Sirhan Sirhan denied parole despite a Kennedy confidant’s call for the assassin’s release The inside track on Washington politics. Be the first to know about new stories from PowerPost. Sign up to follow, and we’ll e-mail you free updates as they’re published. You’ll receive free e-mail news updates each time a new story is published. You’re all set! By Peter Holley February 11, 2016 Follow @peterjholley Paul Schrade, who was shot in the head by Sirhan Sirhan, reacts during Sirhan’s parole hearing Wednesday in San Diego. (Gregory Bull/AP/Pool) After decades of investigation, Paul Schrade has no doubt about the identity of the man who shot him in the head shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel: It was Sirhan Sirhan, the same gunman convicted of assassinating Robert F. Kennedy.

And yet, when Schrade came face to face with Sirhan for the first time in nearly 50 years, at a parole hearing in San Diego on Wednesday, he argued that the notorious gunman wasn’t Kennedy’s killer. But the panel wasn’t swayed and Sirhan was denied parole for the 15th time, according to the Associated Press, which noted: Commissioners concluded after more than three hours of intense testimony at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Center that Sirhan did not show adequate remorse or understand the enormity of his crime. Still, the AP reported, Schrade forgave his shooter during the hearing and apologized to Sirhan not doing more to win his release. “I should have been here long ago and that’s why I feel guilty for not being here to help you and to help me,” Schrade said. The AP noted that “Schrade’s voice cracked with emotion during an hour of testimony on his efforts to untangle mysteries about the events of June 5, 1968.” He said he believed Sirhan shot him, the AP noted, but that a second unidentified shooter killed Kennedy.

The 91-year-old Schrade, a Kennedy family friend, was working as the labor chairman of the senator’s presidential campaign in 1968. He was walking behind Kennedy when the Democratic candidate was shot four times. In part because Kennedy was struck from behind, Schrade has long advanced the argument that Sirhan fired shots that night — but not the ones that killed Kennedy. The fatal bullets, Schrade argued, were fired from a different shooter’s gun. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy pushed for gun control legislation in Roseburg, Ore., to a skeptical crowd during his 1968 presidential campaign. (Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post) The AP reported Wednesday that Schrade “provided much of the drama” during Wednesday’s parole hearing. He angrily ignored the commissioner’s admonishment to avoid directly addressing Sirhan and chastised the prosecution for a “venomous” statement advocating that Sirhan stay in prison. Schrade, who long advocated the second-gunman theory, recalled how he became depressed and upset after the shooting and vividly described his extensive efforts to find answers. He stopped occasionally to apologize for being nervous and emotional.

The commissioner asked Schrade to wrap up after about an hour, saying, “Quite frankly, you’re losing us.” “I think you’ve been lost for a long time,” Schrade shot back. At one point, the commissioner asked if anyone wanted a break. “No, I want to get this over,” Schrade answered from the audience. “I find it very abusive.” It was the first time the shooter and Schrade had faced each since he testified at Sirhan’s 1969 trial, according to the AP, and Schrade apologized for not going to any of Sirhan’s 14 previous parole hearings. Sirhan Sirhan reacts during his parole hearing Wednesday in San Diego. (Gregory Bull/AP/Pool) Schrade told the Saratogian last year that even all these decades later, each anniversary of Kennedy’s death renews his stubborn resolve to seek justice. “The truth is in the prosecution’s own records and the autopsy,” Schrade told the New York newspaper. “It says Sirhan couldn’t have shot Robert Kennedy and didn’t. He was out of position.” In a statement to Shane O’Sullivan , author of “Who Killed Bobby? The Unsolved Murder of Robert F.

Kennedy,” ahead of Wednesday’s parole hearing, Schrade outlined the scope of his argument. “The LAPD and LA DA knew two hours after the fatal shooting of Robert Kennedy that he was shot by a second gunman and they had conclusive evidence that Sirhan Bishara Sirhan could not and did not do it,” the statement said. “The official record shows that [the prosecution at Sirhan’s trial] never had one witness – and had no physical nor ballistic evidence – to prove Sirhan shot Robert Kennedy. “Evidence locked up for 20 years shows that the LAPD destroyed physical evidence and hid ballistic evidence exonerating Sirhan, and covered up conclusive evidence that a second gunman fatally wounded Robert Kennedy.” Sirhan, a Jerusalem native, was subdued on the ground with a gun in his hand in the chaotic moments after Kennedy was shot. Kennedy, who had just won the Democratic presidential primary in California, died the next day. Sirhan was sentenced to death in 1969, but his sentence was commuted after the California Supreme Court temporarily outlawed capital punishment in 1972.

Now 71, Sirhan has steadfastly maintained that he has no memory of the 1968 shooting, while various parole boards have asserted that he has not shown remorse for his crime or acknowledged the historic gravity of his actions. “I don’t remember pulling a gun from my body,” he told board officials in 2011. “I don’t remember aiming it at any human being. Everything was always hazy in my head. I don’t remember anything very clearly.” He added: “I’m not trying to evade anything.” On Wednesday, according to the AP, Sirhan said yet again that he didn’t remember the shooting at the Ambassador Hotel. Sirhan recalled events before the shooting in some detail — going to a shooting range that day, visiting the hotel in search of a party and returning after realizing he drank too many Tom Collins’ to drive. He drank coffee in a hotel pantry with a woman to whom he was attracted. The next thing he said he remembered was being choked and unable to breathe. “It’s all vague now,” he said. “I’m sure you all have it in your records, I can’t deny it or confirm it.

I just wish this whole thing had never taken place.” This 1968 file photo shows Sirhan Sirhan, right, with his attorney Russell E. Parsons in Los Angeles. (AP file) Sirhan may not remember what happened that night, but Schrade says he does, in exquisite detail. Before the shooting began, he recalls walking six to eight feet behind Kennedy through a hotel kitchen as the senator stopped to shake hands with several busboys, according to O’Sullivan. As Kennedy turned to continue walking, Schrade saw more than one flash and heard “a crackling sound like electricity,” according to O’Sullivan’s book, “ Who Killed Bobby? ” “I got hit with the first shot,” Schrade told the Saratogian. “I was right behind Bob. It was meant for him and got me. I thought I had been electrocuted. I was shaking violently on the floor and saw flashes.” Writing for the Huffington Post in 2013, Schrade described his final moments with Kennedy and noted how close he came to death: Bob knew I was hit first because he asked “Is everybody OK? Is Paul all right?” as he lay fatally wounded — always more concerned about others than himself. I was lucky.

If the bullet that hit me in the forehead had been a fraction of an inch lower, I would have been killed instantly. Instead, I survived and, after several years of recovery, I was asked to take part in legal efforts to discover all the facts about the shootings — specifically serious questions about whether Sirhan Sirhan had acted alone that night. As painful as it was for me to pursue, I knew that Americans deserved to know the truth about what really happened to Robert Kennedy, whose death — like the death of President Kennedy — changed the course of American history forever. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy lies on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel moments after he was shot in 1968. (Boris Yaro/Los Angeles Times via AP) For those skeptical of Sirhan’s guilt, the crux of the argument rests on the number of shots fired that night. According to O’Sullivan, Kennedy’s autopsy revealed that the senator was hit four times and that five others at the scene were wounded. If nine shots were fired, conspiracy theorists maintain, one must have been fired by someone other than Sirhan, who was carrying an eight-shot revolver.

Sirhan’s lawyers have also argued that their client was not in the right physical position to fire the shot that killed Kennedy, according to Reuters. Schrade told the Saratogian that while no live television footage captured the shooting, he believes that a second gunman could have used the chaos to conceal a weapon and fire from close range. The newspaper noted that skeptics’ arguments were seemingly bolstered by a 2007 analysis of an audio recording of the shooting. The analysis, the newspaper noted, “indicates a total of 13 shots fired, further strengthening the argument of those who believe a second gunman was involved, Kennedy’s true assassin.” “No witness saw Sirhan’s gun close to Robert Kennedy or behind him,” Schrade told the Saratogian. “He was three feet in front of Kennedy. We need to take the evidence we have in the files and try to find out who the second gunman was and if there was a connection with Sirhan. If all else fails, I’m going to have to go public and accuse the justice establishment of not bringing justice to RFK.

He deserves it and the family deserves it.” When commissioners pressed Sirhan on his memory Wednesday and asked whether he felt remorse, the AP reported, he told them: “If you want a confession, I can’t make it now. Legally speaking, I’m not guilty of anything. … It’s not that I’m making light of it. I’m responsible for being there.” Retired prosecutor David Dahle said at the hearing that Sirhan was guilty of “an attack on the American political system and the American political process,” the AP reported. “The prisoner has still not come to grips with what he has done,” Dahle said. After the hearing, the AP reported, Schrade shouted: “Sirhan, I’m so sorry this is happening to you. It’s my fault.” Sirhan tried to shake hands with Schrade but a guard blocked him, the wire service added. Sirhan will be eligible for parole again in five years. Paul Schrade during the parole hearing at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. (Gregory Bull/AP/Pool) This post has been updated.

MORE READING: Sirhan Sirhan denied parole in 1968 RFK assassination | masslive.com Sirhan Sirhan denied parole in 1968 RFK assassination comments Associated PressSirhan Sirhan, 66, convicted of assassinating Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, gestures during a Board of Parole Suitability Hearing Wednesday, March 2, 2011, at the Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, Calif. A panel of two California parole board commissioners denied parole to Sirhan. (AP Photo/Ben Margot) By LINDA DEUTSCH AP Special Correspondent COALINGA, Calif. — Parole board members refused to free Robert F. Kennedy's convicted assassin Wednesday after determining that he hadn't shown enough remorse and didn't understand the severity of a crime that was mourned by a nation four decades ago.

Sirhan, now 66, spoke at length and expressed sorrow, but said he doesn't remember shooting Kennedy or five other victims in the crowded kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, where Kennedy stood moments after claiming victory in the California presidential primary "Every day of my life, I have great remorse and deep regret," he told a panel of two parole board commissioners at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga. The panel chairman, Mike Prizmich, and the deputy commissioner, Randy Kevorkian, told Sirhan he must seek further self-help courses, come to terms with the June 5, 1968 shooting and show evidence of his improvement by his next parole hearing, which would be in five years. "The magnitude of this crime is one that a nation mourned over, and from that day on, politicians changed the way they interacted with people," Prizmich said. He noted the impact on the Kennedy family, which had endured another tragedy five years before with the killing of President John F. Kennedy. At that point, Sirhan interjected. "That's not my responsibility," he said. The chairman cut him off.

"In this way, interrupting me indicates a lack of control of yourself," he said. Sirhan, with graying hair and a missing front tooth, appeared cheerful as he entered the hearing room. He was talkative, bidding the commissioners "good afternoon" — a departure from his previous 12 parole hearings, where he rarely spoke and sometimes didn't even appear. Sirhan emphasized he's a practicing Christian who attends services every Sunday. He said he was put in solitary confinement at the Central California prison after he became a target of hatred following the Sept. 11 attacks. Fellow inmates thought he was a Muslim, he said. He pleaded with the panel to give him a release date, saying he was willing to accept the possibility of deportation to his native Jordan. He said no one in his family is involved in politics and he suggested he wouldn't be either if he was released. "I want to live, get lost in the woodwork and live out my life with my community," he said. Sirhan's attorney, William Pepper, has said he believes a second gunman shot Kennedy. He's also suggested that Sirhan was brainwashed.

Pepper told the panel he took on Sirhan's case after his former lawyer died because he became convinced that Sirhan did not fire the shot that killed Kennedy. Prizmich asked why during his trial Sirhan admitted to the crime. "He was told by everyone around him he was guilty," said Pepper. "Even his lawyers said he was guilty and said it was best to have his life saved. Pepper and Sirhan himself noted that his lawyers offered the defense of diminished capacity rather than claiming he didn't do it. Pepper said he arranged for a Harvard psychologist, Daniel Brown, to hypnotize Sirhan and conduct extensive interviews with him for the past three years. He said Brown found Sirhan has amnesia not just about the Kennedy shooting but about other segments of his life. He noted that Brown and a prison psychologist concluded that Sirhan has a low risk of violent behavior in the future. Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney David Dahle disagreed. "We believe Sirhan Sirhan released would still pose a substantial danger to the public," said Dahle. He said Sirhan has an anger problem and listed incidents of anger dating back to the 1970s when he was first incarcerated.

Dahle suggested that although the crime was not supposed to be retried at the hearing, the killing of a presidential candidate during a primary was part of the darkest chapter of Los Angeles County history. "It was the killing of the father of 11 and a member of the family that had five years earlier suffered another assassination," he said. "Standing on its own, it's sufficient to find him unsuitable for parole," Dahle added. In the decision, Prizmich said he wasn't impressed with Sirhan blaming others for all of his problems. "You have made statements that someone set you up, the CIA set you up, the DA set you up. Everything that occurred in a negative way to you, you say it was someone else's fault," he said. "We believe you minimize your conduct." Sirhan was originally sentenced to death over objections by Kennedy family members who said they wanted no more killing. The sentence was commuted to life in prison when the U.S. Supreme Court briefly outlawed the death penalty in 1972.

MASSLIVE ON SOCIAL MEDIA Sirhan Sirhan denied parole in 1968 RFK killing | Stuff.co.nz Sirhan Sirhan denied parole in 1968 RFK killing LINDA DEUTSCH Last updated 07:27 04/03/2011 AP KILLED A KENNEDY: A 2009 photo from the California Department of Corrections of Sirhan Sirhan who was convicted killing US presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Reuters PAROLE HEARING: Sirhan Sirhan pleads his case at the Corcoran State Prison in Corcoran, California, during a 1997 parole hearing after being convicted of the 1968 killing US Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Relevant offers How whistleblowing in New Zealand works Secret Service agrees to pay $24 million in decades-old race bias case brought by black agents Parole officials have refused to give Sirhan Sirhan a date with freedom, saying he hasn't shown sufficient remorse for Senator Robert F. Kennedy's death and doesn't understand the enormity of the assassination that changed US history more than 40 years ago.

During four intense hours yesterday (NZ time) in a prison's small hearing room, Sirhan told board officials of his regret but also said he could not remember the events of June 5, 1968. "I don't remember pulling a gun from my body. I don't remember aiming it at any human being. Everything was always hazy in my head," Sirhan said. "I don't remember anything very clearly....I'm not trying to evade anything." Sirhan said he underwent hypnosis at his lawyer's behest but still did not remember shooting Kennedy or five other victims in the crowded kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles where Kennedy stood moments after claiming victory in the California presidential primary. "Every day of my life, I have great remorse and deep regret," he told the panel at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga. He said a psychologist told him years ago to stop dwelling on it or he would never heal. The two-member panel of the California parole board determined that Kennedy's convicted assassin hadn't shown enough remorse and didn't understand the severity of a crime that was mourned by a nation four decades ago.

Sirhan, now 66, with graying hair and a missing front tooth, appeared cheerful at the outset, bidding the commissioners "good afternoon." He spoke more than he has since his trial, a departure from his 12 previous parole hearings where he rarely spoke and sometimes refused to appear. Sirhan emphasised he's a practicing Christian who attends services every Sunday. He said he was put in solitary confinement at the Central California prison after he became a target of hatred following the September 11 attacks. Fellow inmates thought he was a Muslim, he said. He pleaded with the panel to give him a release date, saying he was willing to accept deportation to his native Jordan. He said no one in his family is involved in politics and he suggested he wouldn't be either if he was released. "I want to live, get lost in the woodwork and live out my life with my community," he said. Ad Feedback But the panel chairman, Mike Prizmich, and the deputy commissioner, Randy Kevorkian, told Sirhan he must seek further self-help courses, come to terms with the shooting and show evidence of his improvement by his next parole hearing, which would be in five years.

"The magnitude of this crime is one that a nation mourned over, and from that day on, politicians changed the way they interacted with people," Prizmich said. He noted the impact on the Kennedy family, which had endured another tragedy five years before with the killing of President John F Kennedy. At that point, Sirhan interjected, "That's not my responsibility." The commissioner cut him off. "In this way, interrupting me indicates a lack of control of yourself," he said. Sirhan's attorney, William F Pepper, told the panel he took on Sirhan's case after his former lawyer died because he became convinced that Sirhan did not fire the fatal shot. He has said he believes a second gunman was involved and Sirhan may have been brainwashed. Prizmich asked why during his trial Sirhan made self incriminating statements. Pepper said everyone had told him he was guilty, even his own lawyers. Harvard psychologist, Daniel Brown who hypnotised Sirhan and conducted extensive interviews with him for the past three years, concluded in a report that he has amnesia about the Kennedy shooting and other segments of his life.

The parole panel acknowledged that Brown and a prison psychologist concluded that Sirhan has a low risk of violent behaviour in the future. Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney David Dahle disagreed. "We believe Sirhan Sirhan released would still pose a substantial danger to the public," said Dahle. He said Sirhan has an anger problem and listed incidents dating back to the 1970s when he was first incarcerated. Dahle suggested that although the crime was not supposed to be retried at the hearing, the killing of a presidential candidate during a primary was one of of the darkest chapters of Los Angeles County history. "Standing on its own, it's sufficient to find him unsuitable for parole," Dahle said Sirhan was originally sentenced to death over objections by Kennedy family members who said they wanted no more killing. The sentence was commuted to life in prison when the US Supreme Court briefly outlawed the death penalty in 1972. Outside the prison, Pepper said he was planning further legal actions on Sirhan's behalf. "This is an ongoing story" he said.

"We're not going to let him rot in here for a crime he didn't commit." - AP RealClearPolitics - Politics - Mar 04, 2011 - Sirhan Sirhan denied parole in 1968 RFK killing Sirhan Sirhan denied parole in 1968 RFK killing Linda Deutsch Parole board members refused to free Robert F. Kennedy's convicted assassin Wednesday after determining that he hadn't shown enough remorse and didn't understand the severity of a crime that was mourned by a nation four decades ago. Sirhan, now 66, spoke at length and expressed sorrow, but said he doesn't remember shooting Kennedy or five other victims in the crowded kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, where Kennedy stood moments after claiming victory in the California presidential primary "Every day of my life, I have great remorse and deep regret," he told a panel of two parole board commissioners at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga.

The panel chairman, Mike Prizmich, and the deputy commissioner, Randy Kevorkian, told Sirhan he must seek further self-help courses, come to terms with the June 5, 1968 shooting and show evidence of his improvement by his next parole hearing, which would be in five years. "The magnitude of this crime is one that a nation mourned over, and from that day on, politicians changed the way they interacted with people," Prizmich said. He noted the impact on the Kennedy family, which had endured another tragedy five years before with the killing of President John F. Kennedy. At that point, Sirhan interjected. "That's not my responsibility," he said. The chairman cut him off. "In this way, interrupting me indicates a lack of control of yourself," he said. Sirhan, with graying hair and a missing front tooth, appeared cheerful as he entered the hearing room. He was talkative, bidding the commissioners "good afternoon" _ a departure from his previous 12 parole hearings, where he rarely spoke and sometimes didn't even appear. Sirhan emphasized he's a practicing Christian who attends services every Sunday.

He said he was put in solitary confinement at the Central California prison after he became a target of hatred following the Sept. 11 attacks. Fellow inmates thought he was a Muslim, he said. He pleaded with the panel to give him a release date, saying he was willing to accept the possibility of deportation to his native Jordan. He said no one in his family is involved in politics and he suggested he wouldn't be either if he was released. "I want to live, get lost in the woodwork and live out my life with my community," he said. Sirhan's attorney, William Pepper, has said he believes a second gunman shot Kennedy. He's also suggested that Sirhan was brainwashed. Pepper told the panel he took on Sirhan's case after his former lawyer died because he became convinced that Sirhan did not fire the shot that killed Kennedy. Prizmich asked why during his trial Sirhan admitted to the crime. "He was told by everyone around him he was guilty," said Pepper. "Even his lawyers said he was guilty and said it was best to have his life saved. Pepper and Sirhan himself noted that his lawyers offered the defense of diminished capacity rather than claiming he didn't do it.

Pepper said he arranged for a Harvard psychologist, Daniel Brown, to hypnotize Sirhan and conduct extensive interviews with him for the past three years. He said Brown found Sirhan has amnesia not just about the Kennedy shooting but about other segments of his life. He noted that Brown and a prison psychologist concluded that Sirhan has a low risk of violent behavior in the future. Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney David Dahle disagreed. "We believe Sirhan Sirhan released would still pose a substantial danger to the public," said Dahle. He said Sirhan has an anger problem and listed incidents of anger dating back to the 1970s when he was first incarcerated. Dahle suggested that although the crime was not supposed to be retried at the hearing, the killing of a presidential candidate during a primary was part of the darkest chapter of Los Angeles County history. "It was the killing of the father of 11 and a member of the family that had five years earlier suffered another assassination," he said. "Standing on its own, it's sufficient to find him unsuitable for parole," Dahle added. In the decision, Prizmich said he wasn't impressed with Sirhan blaming others for all of his problems.

"You have made statements that someone set you up, the CIA set you up, the DA set you up. Everything that occurred in a negative way to you, you say it was someone else's fault," he said. "We believe you minimize your conduct." Sirhan was originally sentenced to death over objections by Kennedy family members who said they wanted no more killing. The sentence was commuted to life in prison when the U.S. Supreme Court briefly outlawed the death penalty in 1972. The Associated Press 1000+ images about Robert Kennedy Assaination on Pinterest | Jfk, Brother and Life sentence Forward 1969 – Sirhan Sirhan, a Jordanian is convicted of assassinating United States Senator, Robert F. Kennedy. Sirhan is currently serving a life sentence at Pleasant Valley State Prison in California. Robert Kennedy's support of Israel and his attempt to send 50 bombers to harm the Palestinians is believed to be the reason for the assassination.

Some scholars believe that the assassination was one of the first major incidents of political violence in the US stemming from the Arab Israeli… See More Lawrence Teeter: Sirhan's lawyer dies - Robert Kennedy - The Education Forum Lawrence Teeter: Sirhan's lawyer dies Sirhan lawyer Lawrence Teeter, 56, dies By Myrna Oliver Los Angeles Times Lawrence Teeter, a criminal defense and civil rights attorney who had tried for the last decade to overturn the conviction of Sirhan Sirhan for the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, has died. He was 56. Teeter died Sunday in Conchitas, Mexico, where he had gone to seek alternative treatment for advanced lymphoma, said attorney Frank Weiser. Sirhan was convicted and sentenced to death in the June 5, 1968, fatal shooting of Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after a celebration of Kennedy's victory in the California Democratic presidential primary. Sirhan's sentence was reduced to life imprisonment after the California Supreme Court struck down the state death penalty law that existed at that time. Sirhan, 61, is incarcerated at a maximum security state prison in Corcoran, Calif.

Teeter, who signed on as Sirhan's lawyer in 1994, repeatedly petitioned state and federal courts to grant Sirhan a new trial and to conduct it in Fresno rather than Los Angeles, where Teeter said his client could never be tried fairly. The lawyer maintained that Sirhan at the time of the slaying was in the wrong position and too far away to have fired the bullets that killed Kennedy, and that, although he did fire a gun that night, he did so in a hypnotic trance akin to the fictional film "The Manchurian Candidate." Teeter said Sirhan was hypnotized and framed, either by the CIA or "the military industrial complex," which feared Kennedy would be elected president and quickly end the Vietnam War. The lawyer also said the Los Angeles Police Department and others destroyed evidence that would have pointed to the real killer. Among Teeter's other colorful clients was Norma Jean Almodovar, a former Los Angeles Police Department traffic officer turned call girl who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1986.

Teeter tried futilely to save her from a mandatory three-year state prison term for pandering, arguing that the 1982 law specifying the sentence was unconstitutional. His argument was rejected by the state's 2nd District Court of Appeal. Teeter also handled environmental law cases, including representing a group that opposed the recent remodeling of the Hollywood Bowl concert venue in Los Angeles, and took on many cases without a fee, Weiser said. Teeter, a Los Angeles native, is survived by his mother, Marian Teeter of Los Angeles, and a half-brother, Anthony Way of Sacramento, Calif. I wonder who, if anyone, will speak for Sirhan Sirhan now. I wonder about a lot....why he has died so young...how long he had this cancer, and its genesis. I wonder if he was "Jack Ruby'd". Dawn Statement of Lawrence Teeter, Current Attorney for Sirhan Bishara Sirhan "Sirhan Sirhan was out of position and out of range and therefore could not have shot Kennedy." The following is the statement Sirhan Sirhan's current lawyer, Lawrence Teeter, released on the 30th anniversary of the murder of Robert Kennedy.

Teeter is the first lawyer Sirhan has had to have ever proclaimed Sirhan's innocence. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, changed the course of world history. Senator Kennedy had promised to end the war in Vietnam if elected as President, as seemed likely to happen following his victory in the June 4 California Democratic Presidential primary election. At first glance, the RFK case seems open and shut. After all, Sirhan Sirhan was arrested with a gun in hand at the scene. There the simplicity ends, however. There is an abundance of evidence which refutes the official version of this crime. 1. Sirhan was out of position and out of range and therefore could not have shot Robert Kennedy. The Senator was shot from behind, but all witnesses place Sirhan in front of him in a face-to-face position. All witnesses placed Sirhan's gun at between 1.5 and 5 feet from Senator Kennedy, but the autopsy findings clearly establish that the Senator was shot from a weapon held somewhere between less than 1 inch and no more than three inches away.

All witnesses describe Sirhan's gun as having been held horizontally in a normal standing position, but the autopsy report describes all bullet tracks in Senator Kennedy's body as angled sharply upward, as though fired from below. 2. An armed security guard with strong anti-Kennedy views admitted that he was standing directly in contact with the Senator to the rear, that he dropped down when the shooting began and that he then pulled his gun. One witness ignored by police claimed he saw the guard fir. The guard's weapon was never checked. Meanwhile, the one person who photographed the assassination, Jamie Scott Enyart, was tackled and arrested at gun point. His camera was seized by police, and his photographs have never been recovered. Los Angeles Police secretly burned 2, 410 assassination-related photographs in a county hospital incinerator long before Sirhan's trial. A Los Angeles jury later awarded Enyart a substantial verdict for the loss of his photographs. 3. The official autopsy report devastates the prosecution theory that Sirhan shot Robert Kennedy. However, prosecutors illegally withheld this critical document from defense counsel for four months until after the defense had unnecessarily conceded Sirhan's identity as the killer during opening statements to the jury. 4.

Bullet holes in a door frame at the crime scene which are documented in FBI photographs show that more bullets were fired than could have come from "Sirhan's" gun. The police never disclosed these bullets, even though their removal by LAPD criminalists was observed by other police personnel. The door frame in question was then destroyed under color of a court order issued immediately after Sirhan's trial without notice to the defense. 5. Police switched bullets in order to fabricate evidence lending apparent support to their theory of the case. As has been noted by Sirhan case researcher Lynn Mangan, Los Angeles police manufactured a comparison photomicrograph using substitute victim bullets and then falsely presented this photograph as evidencing a match between the bullet removed from Senator Kennedy's neck and a test bullet fired from "Sirhan's" gun. The use of substitute bullets in this exhibit (Special Exhibit 10) is clear from the fact that identifying markings on the bases of the involved bullets differ from those recorded by physicians when the bullets were recovered. 6. Police behaved as though two guns were recovered at the crime scene, because they fired two revolvers and obtained test bullets from both weapons. The second gun had been in LAPD custody before the assassination.

Despite police denials, official records confirm that this gun was destroyed by the LAPD long before Sirhan's trial. 7. Dr. Herbert Spiegel, a New York psychiatrist who teaches at Columbia University and who is widely regarded as among the country's leading experts on hypnosis, has concluded that Sirhan was probably acting out hypnotic commands when he fired a gun in Senator Kennedy's presence that fateful day. Sirhan himself was so disoriented following his arrest that he did not even know he had yet to be arraigned. During pre-trial psychiatric examinations in his cell, Sirhan proved to be the ideal hypnotic subject, climbing the bars without knowing that he was carrying out post-hypnotic commands. Expert trial testimony established that notebook passages containing repetitions of the phrase "RFK Must Die" were written in a hypnotic trance, and Sirhan spontaneously reproduced this phrase under hypnosis when asked in his cell for a description of the Senator. Sirhan's amnesia about the crime was unshaken by hypnosis and has consistently remained intact. These and other issues of constitutional dimension are currently before the California Supreme Court, which is considering a habeus corpus petition seeking an evidentiary hearing and a new trial for Sirhan.

Meanwhile, this historic crime remains unsolved. Its true perpetrators have never been brought to justice. One victim was killed, and five others were wounded. The seventh victim of this dastardly plot, Sirhan Sirhan, has been confined to thirty years for a crime he did not commit. ~ Lawrence Teeter, Attorney for Sirhan Sirhan Return to the Robert Kennedy Assassination Collection (This statement is being reprinted from Lisa Pease's web site) Dawn [right] <{POST_SNAPBACK}> [/right] Hi John, No I have not read that book, Been meaning to. Dr. Phil Melanson's "The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination- New Revelations of the Conspiracy and Cover-Up", is a pretty definitive book I believe. Does Marrow deal with the MC issue? (I hope). I have long thought this is the easiest case to "solve". But with Larry Teeter gone, I wonder who will step in to speak for Sirhan. He had the most amazing "trial" I have ever heard of: The DA and defense "STIPULATED" that Sirhan's gun had killed RFK!!

I noted in another thread that John was taking issue with Tim Gratz insinuating that lawyers are honorable, and abide by attorney/client privilege. Not the ones in these cases. (Until Teeter and and James Earl Ray's atty. Dr. Pepper). Dawn December 11, 2005 I met Larry Teeter briefly in Dallas last year, and he appeared to be in very poor health, taking only a few steps between stops. His lung problems were clearly in evidence. I doubt there is anything suspicious about his death. Teeter lived in a bad section of LA, Cheech and Chong territory, and when he died, some blacks, claiming to be his family, evicted the live in maid/housekeeper, took over the house and began selling the computers, TVs, furniture, etc. COPA secretary John Judge, in DC, got a lawyers group to get a court to order to force LAPD to secure the house and lock it up. I don't know what happened to the comptuers and files, but I would hope they were retrieved. BK December 15, 2005 Pat, Dawn, John,....

After Teeter died, a group of people entered his home, evicted his live-in housekeeper, and ransacked the house for three days before Teeter's girlfriend and mother could get the local Bar Association to intervein and take custody of his papers. When the housekeeper and Teeter's girlfriend first complained to the LAPD, they considered it a domestic issue and not a criminal one, especially when told it was SBS's attorney, and only acted with the Bar Association, who now has custody of the hard copy documents and records. Teeter's computer disapeared, and was probably sold. If any attorney would like to inquire about this further, I can provide names and numbers. I also have the auto license plate numbers, descriptions of cars and names of those who did this, which the LAPD consideres a petty crime. BK [quote name='William Kelly' date='Dec 15 2005, 08:33 PM' post='48954'] Pat, Dawn, John,....

After Teeter died, a group of people entered his home, evicted his live-in housekeeper, and ransacked the house for three days before Teeter's girlfriend and mother could get the local Bar Association to intervein and take custody of his papers. When the housekeeper and Teeter's girlfriend first complained to the LAPD, they considered it a domestic issue and not a criminal one, especially when told it was SBS's attorney, and only acted with the Bar Association, who now has custody of the hard copy documents and records. Teeter's computer disapeared, and was probably sold. If any attorney would like to inquire about this further, I can provide names and numbers. I also have the auto license plate numbers, descriptions of cars and names of those who did this, which the LAPD consideres a petty crime. BK bkjfk3@yahoo.com Bill, Given the manner that the LAPD dealt with this case, destruction of evidence and all, I would not be surprised if that's who is really behing this crime. Burg. of a Habitation is a second degree felony here in Tx. (highest felony is first degree).

Carries 2-20 years in the pen and up to a $10,000 fine. I suspect it's the same level in CA. Hardly "petty". Very disturbing. If you have this info I am assuming the LAPD has it too. Any arrests? thanx, December 16, 2005 Bill, Given the manner that the LAPD dealt with this case, destruction of evidence and all, I would not be surprised if that's who is really behing this crime. Burg. of a Habitation is a second degree felony here in Tx. (highest felony is first degree). Carries 2-20 years in the pen and up to a $10,000 fine. I suspect it's the same level in CA. Hardly "petty". Very disturbing. If you have this info I am assuming the LAPD has it too. Any arrests? thanx, Dawn Dawn, There was a women attorney from North Calif.

who submitted a peition-request for a grand jury to investigate the LAPD's action/inaction regarding the RFK assassination, which failed because no prosecutor worth his salt is going to ask a grand jury to investigate the cops he has to work with every day.I would have asked the grand jury investigate the psycho-doctors who screwed with SBS before and after the assassination. Teeter was also trying to get some new legal action for Siran, they wanted to preserve the Ambassador kitchen as a crime scene, and Phil Melanson talked to Donald Trump about getting in there before the demolished it. There was some more legal action being contimplated though I'm not familiar with the details -gee I can only try to solve one political assassination at a time. While the LAPD were told whose home was being vandalized, they were reluctant to act for a number of reasons, but were not behind the theft of the computer. That's one of the things that had some value for fencing, while the paper files didn't. No arrests, but like I said, I got licenses plate #s, etc., though I don't think it worth pursing, though Teeter's girlfriend might need some help now in securing the files from the bar association.

BK Dawn, "Stipulations" is a legal term which has nothing to do with interpretation of it. William Pepper did a great diservice to the MLK case - see the MLK links on this forum. As far as Morrow's book is concerned, it is one of the most ridiculous I have ever read. The information below needs to be read by everyone before they start to grasp Morrow's silly theories: In its issue of April 4th 1989 Globe magazine published a story which implicated Khalid Khawar in the assassination of Robert Kennedy.The article gave an abbreviated summary of Robert Morrow’s book “The Senator Must Die” (1988) in which the author accused Khawar of having been an Iranian intelligence agent who had been present at the Ambassador Hotel on the night of June 5th and who assisted conspirators in killing Kennedy.The Globe article included a photograph from the Morrow book showing a group of men standing near Kennedy as the Senator gave his victory speech in the Embassy Ballroom.Globe enlarged the image of these men and added an arrow to one of them identifying him as the assassin Ali Ahmand.

In August 1989 Khalid Khawar sued the Globe and Morrow alleging he was the person depicted in the photographs and identified by Morrow as Ali Ahmand.The evidence at the trial showed that in June 1968 when Kennedy was assassinated Khawar was a Pakistani citizen and a free-lance photojournalist on assignment for a Pakistani magazine.At the Ambassador Hotel’s Embassy Room he stood on the podium near RFK so that a friend could photograph him with Kennedy.When Kennedy left the podium Khawar did not follow him and was still in the Embassy Room when Kennedy was shot.Both the FBI and the LAPD questioned Khawar about the assassination but neither agency ever regarded him as a suspect. In 1989 when the Globe published its article, Khawar was a naturalised American citizen living with his wife and children in Bakersfield, California where he owned and operated a farm.After Khawar read the article he became angry he had been implicated in the assassination.Khawar even received threatening phone calls and his property was vandalised.

The trial soon revealed that Morrow’s allegations were false and that the Globe’s article was not ‘an accurate and neutral report of the statements and charges made in the Morrow book’.Khawar was awarded damages of $1.2 million. Share this post Los Angeles Morgue Files: Robert F. Kennedy Assassinated at Ambassador Hotel 1968 Monday, June 6, 2011 Robert F. Kennedy Assassinated at Ambassador Hotel 1968 Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968), also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic Senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism, he was a younger brother of President John F. Kennedy and acted as one of his advisers during his presidency. From 1961 to 1964, he was the U.S. Attorney General. Following his brother John's assassination on November 22, 1963, Kennedy continued to serve as Attorney General under President Lyndon B. Johnson for nine months.

In September 1964, Kennedy resigned to seek the U.S. Senate seat from New York, which he won in November. Within a few years, he publicly split with Johnson over the Vietnam War. In March 1968, Kennedy began a campaign for the presidency and was a front-running candidate of the Democratic Party. In the California presidential primary on June 4, Kennedy defeated Eugene McCarthy, a fellow U.S. Senator from Minnesota. Following a brief victory speech delivered just past midnight on June 5 at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Kennedy was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan. Fatally wounded and unconscious, he survived for nearly 26 hours, dying early in the morning of June 6. The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, a United States Senator and brother of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, took place shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968 in Los Angeles, California. After winning the California primary election for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy was shot as he walked through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel and died in the Good Samaritan Hospital twenty-six hours later.

The assassin was a twenty-four year old Palestinian immigrant named Sirhan Sirhan, who remains incarcerated for this crime as of 2010. The shooting was recorded on audio tape by a freelance newspaper reporter, and the aftermath was captured on film. Kennedy's body lay in repose at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York for two days before a funeral mass was held on June 8. His body was interred near his brother John at Arlington National Cemetery. His death prompted the protection of presidential candidates by the United States Secret Service. Hubert Humphrey went on to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency, but ultimately narrowly lost the election to Richard Nixon. As with his brother's death, Robert Kennedy's assassination and the circumstances surrounding it have spawned a variety of conspiracy theories, particularly in relation to the existence of a supposed second gunman. Thanks to JFK1963 for the video. Assassination Boris Yaro's photograph of Robert F. Kennedy lying wounded on the floor immediately after the shootingFour hours after the polls closed in California, Kennedy claimed victory in the state's Democratic presidential primary. At approximately 12:15 a.m.

PDT, he addressed his campaign supporters in the Ambassador Hotel's Embassy Room ballroom, in the Mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles. At the time, the government provided Secret Service protection for incumbent presidents but not for presidential candidates. Kennedy's only security was provided by former FBI agent William Barry and two unofficial bodyguards, former professional athletes. During the campaign, Kennedy had welcomed contact with the public, and people had often tried to touch him in their excitement. Kennedy had planned to walk through the ballroom when he had finished speaking, on his way to another gathering of supporters elsewhere in the hotel. However, with deadlines fast approaching, reporters wanted a press conference. Campaign aide Fred Dutton decided that Kennedy would forgo the second gathering and instead go through the kitchen and pantry area behind the ballroom to the press area. Kennedy finished speaking and started to exit when William Barry stopped him and said, "No, it's been changed. We're going this way." Barry and Dutton began clearing a way for Kennedy to go left through swinging doors to the kitchen corridor, but Kennedy, hemmed in by the crowd, followed hotel maître d' Karl Uecker through a back exit.

Uecker led Kennedy through the kitchen area, holding Kennedy's right wrist but frequently releasing it as Kennedy shook hands with those he encountered. Uecker and Kennedy started down a passageway narrowed by an ice machine against the right wall and a steam table to the left. Kennedy turned to his left and shook hands with busboy Juan Romero as Sirhan Sirhan stepped down from a low tray-stacker beside the ice machine, rushed past Uecker, and repeatedly fired what was later identified as a .22 caliber Iver-Johnson Cadet revolver. After Kennedy had fallen to the floor, security man Bill Barry hit Sirhan twice in the face while others, including maître d's Uecker and Edward Minasian, writer George Plimpton, Olympic gold medal decathlete Rafer Johnson and professional football player Rosey Grier, forced Sirhan against the steam table and disarmed him. Sirhan wrestled free and grabbed the revolver again, but he had already fired all the bullets.

Barry went to Kennedy and laid his jacket under the candidate's head, later recalling: "I knew immediately it was a .22, a small caliber, so I hoped it wouldn't be so bad, but then I saw the hole in the Senator's head, and I knew." Reporters and photographers rushed into the area from both directions, contributing to the chaos. As Kennedy lay wounded, Juan Romero cradled the senator's head and placed a rosary in his hand. Kennedy asked Romero, "Is everybody safe, OK?" and Romero responded, "Yes, yes, everything is going to be OK." Captured by Life photographer Bill Eppridge and Boris Yaro of the Los Angeles Times, this moment became the iconic image of the assassination. Ethel Kennedy stood outside the crush of people at the scene, seeking help. She was soon led to her husband and knelt beside him. He turned his head and seemed to recognize her. After several minutes, medical attendants arrived and lifted Kennedy onto a stretcher, prompting him to whisper, "Don't lift me." He lost consciousness shortly thereafter. Kennedy was taken a mile away to Central Receiving Hospital, where he arrived near death.

One doctor slapped his face, calling, "Bob, Bob," while another massaged Kennedy's heart. After obtaining a good heartbeat, doctors handed a stethoscope to Ethel Kennedy so she could hear her husband's heart beating, much to her relief. After about 30 minutes, Kennedy was transferred several blocks to the Hospital of the Good Samaritan for surgery. Surgery began at 3:12 a.m. PDT and lasted three hours and 40 minutes. Ten and a half hours later, at 5:30 p.m. PDT on Wednesday, spokesman Frank Mankiewicz announced that Kennedy's doctors were "concerned over his continuing failure to show improvement"; his condition remained "extremely critical as to life." Kennedy had been shot three times. One bullet, fired at a range of about 1 inch (2.54 cm), entered behind his right ear, dispersing fragments throughout his brain. Two others entered at the rear of his right armpit; one exited from his chest and the other lodged in the back of his neck. Despite extensive neurosurgery at the Good Samaritan Hospital to remove the bullet and bone fragments from his brain, Kennedy died at 1:44 a.m.

PDT on June 6, nearly 26 hours after the shooting. Five other people were also wounded: William Weisel of ABC News, Paul Schrade of the United Auto Workers union, Democratic Party activist Elizabeth Evans, Ira Goldstein of the Continental News Service and Kennedy campaign volunteer Irwin Stroll. Although not physically wounded, singer Rosemary Clooney, a strong Kennedy supporter, was present in the ballroom during the shooting in the pantry and suffered a nervous breakdown shortly afterward. Perpetrator Sirhan Sirhan was a strongly anti-Zionist Christian. A diary found during a search of Sirhan's home stated, "My determination to eliminate RFK is becoming more and more of an unshakable obsession. RFK must die. RFK must be killed. Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated...Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated before 5 June 68." It has been suggested that the date of the assassination is significant, because it was the first anniversary of the first day of the Six Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

When Sirhan was booked by police, they found in his pocket a newspaper article that discussed Kennedy's support for Israel, and at his trial, Sirhan testified that he began to hate Kennedy after learning of this support. This interpretation of his motives has, however, been criticized as an oversimplification that ignores Sirhan's deeper psychological problems. During his trial, Sirhan's lawyers attempted to use a defense of diminished responsibility, while their client tried to confess to the crime and change his plea to guilty on several occasions. Sirhan testified that he had killed Kennedy "with 20 years of malice aforethought," although he has maintained since being convicted that he has no memory of the crime. The judge did not accept this confession and it was later withdrawn. Sirhan was convicted on April 17, 1969, and six days later was sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972 after the California Supreme Court, in its decision in California v. Anderson, invalidated all pending death sentences imposed in California prior to 1972. In 2006, he was denied parole for the thirteenth time and is currently confined at the California State Prison in Corcoran.

at Panel denies parole to Sirhan, assassin of Robert F. Kennedy - News - Tuscaloosa News - Tuscaloosa, AL Panel denies parole to Sirhan, assassin of Robert F. Kennedy Wednesday Feb 10, 2016 at 7:15 PM Feb 10, 2016 at 7:16 PM For the 15th time, officials denied parole for Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, after hearing Wednesday from another person who was shot that night and called for Sirhan’s release. By ELLIOT SPAGAT SAN DIEGO (AP) — For the 15th time, officials denied parole for Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, after hearing Wednesday from another person who was shot that night and called for Sirhan’s release. The decision came after Sirhan answered questions from a California parole panel during a hearing that lasted more than three hours in a small, windowless conference room. Commissioners concluded Sirhan did not show adequate remorse or understand the enormity of his crime.

“This crime impacted the nation, and I daresay it impacted the world,” commissioner Brian Roberts said. “It was a political assassination of a viable Democratic presidential candidate.” During the hearing, the 71-year-old Sirhan stuck to his previous account that he did not remember the shooting in 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after Kennedy won the Democratic presidential primary in California. He said he recalled being in the hotel then going to his car and returning after realizing he had too much to drink. He said he became interested in a female and they drank coffee in a hotel pantry. “It’s all vague now,” Sirhan told the parole panel. “I’m sure you all have it in your records, I can’t deny it or confirm it, I just wish this whole thing had never taken place.” Sirhan, a native of Jerusalem, listened intently during most of the hearing, turning testy when commissioners pressed him on his memory. He said he felt remorse for any crime victim but added that he couldn’t take responsibility for the shooting. “If you want a confession, I can’t make it now,” Sirhan said. “Legally speaking, I’m not guilty of anything. ... It’s not that I’m making light of it.

I’m responsible for being there.” Sirhan said incriminating statements he made at trial were the result of an ineffective defense attorney who pressured him into thinking he was guilty. Paul Schrade, 91, told the panel that he believes Sirhan shot him at the hotel but an unidentified second shooter killed Kennedy. Schrade was alongside the candidate when five people were injured in the June 5 shooting. Schrade was shot in the head. Schrade pleaded for the release of Sirhan at the hearing and apologized to him for not doing more over the years to secure his freedom. Schrade’s voice broke with emotion at times during his hour of testimony that recounted his efforts to unravel questions about the shooting. “I forgive you for shooting me,” Schrade told Sirhan. “I should have been here long ago and that’s why I feel guilty for not being here to help you and to help me.” The two men faced each other for the first time since Schrade testified at Sirhan’s 1969 trial. Schrade was western regional director of the United Auto Workers Union and labor chair of Kennedy’s campaign at the time of the shooting. On Wednesday, Sirhan nodded politely each time Schrade sought his forgiveness.

Schrade showed flashes of anger against Roberts, who admonished him for violating protocol by addressing Sirhan directly. Schrade also criticized a representative of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office for making what Schrade called a “venomous” statement against the release of Sirhan. Roberts at one point asked Schrade to wrap up his presentation, saying “quite frankly, you’re losing us.” “I think you have been lost for a long time,” Schrade shot back. Earlier in the hearing, the commissioner asked if anyone wanted a break. Schrade spoke up from the audience and said, “no I want this to get over, I find it very abusive.” Retired Deputy District Attorney David Dahle argued at the hearing for the district attorney’s office. “The prisoner has still not come to grips with what he has done,” Dahle told the panel. Sirhan is serving a life sentence that was commuted from death when the California Supreme Court briefly outlawed capital punishment in 1972. In one of many emotional outbursts during his 1969 trial, Sirhan blurted out that he had committed the crime with 20 years of malice aforethought.

That and his declaration when arrested, “I did it for my country,” were his only relevant comments before he said he didn’t remember shooting Kennedy. Sirhan told the panel Wednesday that if released, he hoped he would be deported to Jordan or live with his brother in Pasadena, California. His hope, he said, was “just to live out my life peacefully, in harmony with my fellow man.” “This is such a traumatic experience, it’s a horrendous experience that for me to keep dwelling on it is harmful to me,” Sirhan said. As Sirhan left the hearing, Schrade shouted, “Sirhan, I’m so sorry this is happening to you. It’s my fault.” Sirhan tried to shake his hand but a guard prevented it. About Us Robert Kennedy Assassination apparent bullet hole in doorframe, with closeup from photo Freed's account in fact matches Robert Kennedy's autopsy report. Coroner Thomas Naguchi determined that RFK had been shot three times, all from the rear at a steep upward angle, with powder burns indicating that the fatal shot being fired from 1 or 2 inches away . Sirhan's Iverson .22 revolver held a maximum of 8 bullets.

Two bullets were removed from RFK, and five from other victims. One of the three bullets to strike RFK grazed him and was determined by LAPD to have gone into the ceiling, though it was never recovered. That accounts for all 8, even conceding the LAPD's reconstruction which explained away bullet holes found in ceiling tiles, by positing that one of the bullets had ricocheted back down and struck victims (causing two ceiling holes in the process). What is not accounted for are bullet holes in the doorframe where RFK's party had entered the pantry. Photographs taken by the FBI, LAPD, and AP show apparent bullet holes, which have been circled and initialed. Some pictures show police officers pointing at them; one AP photo is labeled "Bullet found near Kennedy shooting scene." Two police officers depicted in the photos told author Vincent Bugliosi that they had observed an actual bullet embedded in the wood of the center door frame. Hotel waiter Martin Patrusky said that police officers told him that they had dug two bullets out of the center divider. FBI agent William Bailey, in the pantry within hours of the shooting, said he could see the base of the bullet in the center divider.

Other confirmation comes from photographers and even the carpenter who assisted in removal of the door frame for police evidence. Special Unit Senator What did the LAPD do with all this evidence of conspiracy, and more not mentioned here? The files of their investigation, released twenty years after the assassination, show that the evidence was ignored, and in some cases actively countered. The LAPD set up a Special Unit Senator (SUS) group to handle the investigation, and the tactics of some of its members have been called into question. Enrique Hernandez, who conducted polygraph exams for SUS, was among the most aggressive. Sandy Serrano, one of the prime witnesses to the girl in the polka-dotted dress and a male companion, was browbeaten by Hernandez into retracting her story. The following exchange is typical of the treatment given Serrano in lengthy interview sessions: Hernandez: "I think you owe it to Senator Kennedy, the late Senator Kennedy, to come forth, to be a woman about this. If he, and you don't know and I don't know whether he's a witness right now in this room watching what we're doing in here. Don't shame his death by keeping this thing up. I have compassion for you.

I want to know why. I want to know why you did what you did. This is a very serious thing." Serrano: "I seen those people!" Hernandez: "No, no, no, no, Sandy. Remember what I told you about that: you can't say you saw something when you didn't see it..." Eventually Serrano went along with the LAPD. And once she had retracted her story, the "fact" that Serrano had made up the story was apparently used to discredit other corroborating witnesses, who generally didn't know that their story was being repeated by others. The pattern of isolation and even intimidation recurs repeatedly in the transcripts and tapes of interviews, many of whom retracted statements under pressure. In other cases, like Evan Freed, the interviews in the record do not contain information that the witness has later stated he or she told the police, and it is not always clear where the truth lies. Some evidence was simply ignored - or lost. This missing evidence included the memo of Paul Sharaga, the officer who interviewed the elderly couple who also saw a woman and man fleeing the scene of the shooting gleefully shouting "We shot him!

We shot him!" Sharaga had enough presence of mind to retain the original mimeograph. The door frames, which according to many witnesses had bullets embedded in them, were destroyed by the LAPD after Sirhan's trial. They were not admitted into evidence in that trial. Other evidence, including photographs taken in the pantry by a teenager named Scott Enyart , never saw the light of day. The LAPD Summary Report deals with many of the witnesses to accomplices or other evidence indicating conspiracy, and dismisses them all in a variety of ways. In some cases, for example polka-dotted dress girl witness Booker Griffin, witnesses are said to have admitted making up their story, but inspection of the raw LAPD files fail to substantiate the alleged retractions. The Trial of Sirhan Sirhan But what about Sirhan's defense team? Wouldn't this evidence have to be given to his lawyers, and then come out a trial? Several factors worked against this. First, not all evidence was shared with Sirhan's lawyers. Even the autopsy report, whose conclusion of point-blank shots from the rear would seemingly exonerate Sirhan of RFK's actual murder, was not given to the defense until they had already stipulated Sirhan's guilt.

The defense early on decide to pursue a "diminished capacity" defense, and the autopsy report didn't change that strategy. It is important to understand the motivations of each side in the legal system's "great engine of truth." Neither side had anything to gain by bringing in evidence of conspiracy. For the prosecution, it would simply muddle what otherwise seemed a simple case. And for the defense, conspiracy implies pre-meditation, and thus knowing guilt. Introducing evidence of accomplices would not be helpful to their client. Sirhan Sirhan was his own worst enemy at the trial, using it as a platform for expressing anti-Semitic political views and touting the Arab cause. Whether these issues were really motivation for a shooting he claims not to remember executing remains a mystery. The late Lawrence Teeter, attorney for Sirhan Sirhan. Finally, Sirhan's later attorney Lawrence Teeter uncovered evidence that Sirhan's lead trial lawyer, Grant Cooper, was compromised. Cooper was on one of the defense teams in the Friar's Club scandal case, a defendant in which was none other than Johnny Roselli, and one day grand jury papers were found on Cooper's desk at counsel table, possibly planted there, perhaps by Roselli himself.

Cooper faced a potential indictment over this incident, which could be grounds for disbarment, and the matter was left pending for the duration of the Sirhan trial. Afterwards, Cooper was let off with a $1000 fine. Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. While he was on death row, California abolished the death penalty, and commuted his sentence to life in prison, where he remains. Attorney Lawrence Teeter was fighting for a retrial at the time of his own death in 2005. Ballistics Reviews Ted Charach produced a documentary entitled "The Second Gun" in 1970, and questions continued to grow around the RFK case in the early 1970s. Criminalistics professor Herbert MacDonnell had signed an affidavit in 1973 stating that a bullet removed from RFK's neck, exhibit #47, could not have been fired from Sirhan's gun. He further stated that, based on the differing number of cannelures (grooves), it could not have been fired from the same gun as exhibit #54, a bullet removed from victim William Weisel.

In a 1974 public hearing, California state crime lab veteran Lowell Bradford concurred. Paul Schrade, one of the victims, and Congressman Allard Lowenstein. Both pursued the RFK case for many years. In 1975, a court-appointed panel of seven ballistics experts was convened. While the headlines coming from the panel's work read "RFK Second Gun Theory Ruled Out," the reality was more subtle. Lowell Bradford, one of the panel members, said the question of a second gunman was "more open than before." Subsequent research has uncovered serious problems with the marking of evidence bullets. Following the trail of Pasadena criminalist William Harper, researcher Rose Lynn Mangan discovered evidence of a switch of crime scene bullets. For example, she found that the Kennedy neck bullet (#47), which should have a "TN31" etched in its base, instead says "DWTN." There is reason to believe that even the Sirhan gun was swapped with another gun. LAPD criminologist DeWayne Wolfer had in fact introduced into evidence at Sirhan's trial the test gun, and represented it as the murder weapon, despite the different serial numbers.

It is worth noting that the 1975 panel discovered that two bullets allegedly removed from Sirhan's car contained traces of wood on both the base and the tip. Were these bullets dug out of the door frame? In 2004, a tape recording which featured the gunfire in the pantry surfaced. Made by Polish freelance journalist Stanislaw Pruszynski, the tape was analyzed by a team led by Philip Van Praag, who announced that the tape revealed thirteen shots fired in the space of five seconds. Sirhan's gun could hold only eight bullets. As in the JFK acoustics evidence, this finding is the subject of debate . Stalking RFK? Such malfeasance on the part of the LAPD may be hard to believe. But the dismissive treatment of witnesses to Sirhan's accomplices is hard to refute, despite attempts to do so . There were pre-assassination sightings of Sirhan in the company of a woman whose description matches the polka-dotted dress girl, and these sightings indicate that they were stalking Robert Kennedy. On May 20, night manager Albert LaBeau of Robbie's Restaurant in Pomona encountered a man with a coat thrown over his arm - in the company of young woman.

The pair were aggressively trying to gain access to a lunchroom where RFK would be - climbing over a stair railing in one of multiple attempts. LaBeau picked Sirhan's photo out of a set of 25 pictures of young dark-skinned males. Ten days later, a campaign worker named Laverne Botting was approached by a young woman and two men, trying to get a copy of Robert Kennedy's schedule. Her story was corroborated by another volunteer, Ethel Crehan. Portion of Sirhan's May 18 diary entry (click to enlarge) On June 1, three days before the primary, Dean Pack was hiking with his son in the Santa Ana mountains when they came upon a young man who resembed Sirhan, shooting a pistol in the company of a girl and another man. The three were quite hostile; Pack had a "funny sensation that it would be possible for them to put a bullet in your back." Several witnesses saw a similar-looking girl, in a polka-dotted dress, in the Ambassador Hotel on the night of the primary. Irene Gizzi saw three people, matching the trio seen by others, and noted that they didn't seem to fit in with the exuberant crowd.

As noted before, the girl and another man were seen in the pantry, rushing out of it, and leaving the hotel gleefully shouting "We shot him!" The "Walking Bible" Another strange story in the RFK case concerns Jerry Owen, the "Walking Bible." Owen himself went to authorities shortly after the assassination, with the story that he had happened to give Sirhan and another man a lift, and had subsequently gone to the Ambassador Hotel to collect $300 for a horse he was going to sell to Sirhan. Owen said he encountered there a blonde girl and two other men. In the end, the LAPD determined that Owen, whose background of criminal violations included a conviction for arson in conjunction with a church building, was telling a tale. But why would he make up such a story? Authors Bill Turner and Jonn Christian researched the Owen story and interviewed Bill Powers, a cowboy who ran Wild Bill's Stables less than a mile from where Owen lived. Powers told them that Owen had told him, before the assassination, about a horse trainer named Sirhan, and further that Powers had seen Sirhan in the back seat of Owen's car during a visit where Owen flashed large bills to pay off a pickup truck Powers had sold him.

If Owen knew Sirhan, was his story a pre-emptive cover story for meeting up at the Ambassador Hotel, possibly to supply a getaway vehicle? Who Killed RFK? Sirhan Sirhan was in the pantry firing a gun that night at Robert Kennedy, with intent to kill. But the autopsy report, coupled with dozens of eyewitnesses to the scene, cast grave doubt on the otherwise obvious conclusion that Sirhan actually fired the shots that hit RFK. Furthermore, the evidence is strong that Sirhan was stalking Kennedy in the company of a young blond girl and another male companion. Many researchers have cast suspicion on Thane Eugene Cesar, a security guard with right-wing views on race who was escorting Kennedy by the arm through the pantry, was seen drawing his gun and possibly firing it, and told false stories about a .22 he owned (that he had sold it before the assassination, rather than after). But at least one witness claimed to see a different gunman to the rear of Kennedy firing the fatal shots. The girl in the polka-dotted dress was never found - the LAPD insisted that campaign worker Valerie Schulte was the girl seen by some, despite differences in her appearance and clothing.

There was another man, Michael Wayne, who was seen running from the pantry and subsequently tackled and taken away for questioning. Wayne had similarity in appearance to one of the individuals reported to have been seen in the company of Sirhan, and more intriguingly he had in his possession the business card of radical Minuteman Keith Duane Gilbert. John and Robert Kennedy Sirhan may be lying when he claims to have no memory of the assassination. Journalist Robert Kaiser, who worked with Sirhan extensively as part of the defense team, caught him in several lies and presents in his book R.F.K. Must Die! a nuanced treatment of Sirhan as having multiple sides: at different times clever and evasive, mystical, ingratiating, studious, and schizophrenic. Sirhan may be lying about his lack of memory; it is also at least possible that he and his accomplices did stalk RFK, but that the highly suggestible Sirhan had been hypnotically programmed to block memory of the shooting and his associates. Who were the accomplices? The LAPD decided not to try to find out. Sirhan's sometimes-stated contention that he killed Kennedy for political reasons, in particular RFK's support for Israel, doesn't hold up well under analysis.

For one thing, the TV documentary he cited as provoking him was seen in L.A. on May 20, and Kennedy's speech supporting fighter jets to Israel wasn't given until the 26th. But it was on May 18 that Sirhan wrote "RFK must die" over and over in his notebook. Political views related to the Arab-Israeli conflict may have motivated Sirhan Sirhan. But that motivation was not necessarily that of his accomplices, whoever they were. The tenuous conspiracy leads that exist, including Jerry Owen and perhaps Michael Wayne, point toward right-wing religious extremists, but there is not enough to go on to make any definitive statement. The giddy behavior of the polka-dotted dress girl and her companion seem hardly that of professional killers. But Robert Kennedy had accumulated many powerful enemies during his career - CIA officers, organized crime bosses, Vietnam war hawks, ardent segregationists. Given the fear that Kennedy's achieving the Presidency could induce in them, it is not at all clear who the ultimate sponsors of Sirhan and his accomplices might have been. Search RFK Documents

Question: On June 5, 1968, noted asshat Sirhan Sirhan killed what presidential candidate in the kitchen of The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles?
Answer: Robert F Kennedy