THE RFK ASSASSINATION

THE CLAIM

That Sirhan Sirhan did not fire the shot that killed Robert Kennedy, that a second gunman was present, and that the physical evidence supporting this was set aside.

THE THEORY, AS ITS PROPONENTS TELL IT

The proponents' case here rests on physical evidence rather than on speculation, which distinguishes it from most assassination files in this cabinet.

The autopsy was performed by Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi, whose competence is not in question and who has never withdrawn his findings. He concluded the fatal shot entered behind the right ear on an upward, back-to-front trajectory, fired from approximately one inch away, with powder residue on the skin to match.

No witness placed Sirhan behind Kennedy. Every account, including those of people restraining him, put him in front and at a distance of at least a foot and a half, and several put him further. Karl Uecker, who grabbed Sirhan's arm, maintained for the rest of his life that Sirhan never got closer and never got behind.

There is also a count problem. Sirhan's revolver held eight rounds. Reconstructions by analysts including Philip Van Praag, working from the Pruszynski audio recording made in the pantry, have argued for at least ten shots and for two guns with different acoustic signatures. Sirhan himself has consistently said he has no memory of the shooting, and his defence has long argued he was in a dissociated state, which is where this file brushes against OSA-001.

WHAT IS KNOWN

Sirhan fired a weapon in the pantry, wounded five other people, and was disarmed at the scene. None of that is disputed by anyone, including him.

Noguchi's autopsy findings are the crux and have never been overturned. The prosecution's answer at trial was that Kennedy must have turned, and that the geometry could be reconciled. Critics hold that this does not account for the one-inch muzzle distance.

The Los Angeles Police investigation destroyed material, including ceiling tiles and door frames that may have carried bullet holes, and burned thousands of photographs. That destruction is documented and was later criticised in official reviews. Whether it was routine or deliberate is the argument in miniature.

The Pruszynski recording is real and has been analysed repeatedly, with expert conclusions diverging sharply on whether it contains more than eight shots. It is the only audio of the shooting.

EVIDENCE FOR

• Noguchi's autopsy: a contact-range wound fired from behind, which no witness account supports.
• The unanimous witness placement of Sirhan in front of Kennedy at more than arm's length.
• Documented destruction of physical evidence and photographs by the investigating force.
• Sirhan's consistent and never-abandoned amnesia for the event, across fifty years and many parole hearings.

EVIDENCE AGAINST

• Sirhan brought a loaded revolver to the location, fired it at Kennedy, and had written repeatedly in a notebook about killing him. Intent and action are not in dispute.
• Acoustic analysis of the Pruszynski recording is genuinely contested, and other qualified analysts have found no evidence of more than eight shots. The recording is poor and the room was highly reverberant.
• No second gunman has ever been identified in fifty-seven years, and the pantry was crowded with witnesses, several of them journalists.
• The trajectory conflict can be partially reconciled if Kennedy turned his head sharply to his left at the moment of the shot, which several accounts suggest he did while shaking hands.

ASSESSMENT

Contested, and one of the few files in this cabinet where the forensic evidence itself, rather than its absence, is the problem. This office takes no position on a second gunman, and notes that no such person has ever been identified. It does note that the coroner's finding and the witness testimony cannot both be straightforwardly correct, that this was apparent in 1968, and that the investigating agency destroyed evidence which might have settled it. Compare OSA-022, where the physical evidence broadly supports the official account and the argument is about everything around it. Here the official account has a hole in the middle of it.

WHAT WOULD CHANGE THE GRADE

• To CONFIRMED for a second gunman: identification of one. None has emerged in fifty-seven years, in a crowded pantry that contained working journalists.
• The forensic conflict is the live issue and is genuinely unresolved. Noguchi's autopsy places the fatal shot at roughly one inch behind the right ear, and no witness placed Sirhan behind Kennedy or nearer than about eighteen inches.
• To CLOSED: nothing now can be. The Los Angeles Police destroyed ceiling tiles, door frames and thousands of photographs, which is documented, and those were the items that might have settled the shot count.
• The Pruszynski recording is the only audio of the shooting, and qualified analysts have reached opposite conclusions from it. Better methods applied to that same poor recording are the one realistic route left.

FURTHER READING

• Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy · Wikipedia
• Thomas Noguchi, Coroner (1983) · the pathologist's own account
• Mel Ayton, The Forgotten Terrorist (2007) · the fullest case for the lone gunman