The official diagram of Robert F. Kennedy's gunshot wounds, inflicted by a .22 caliber pistol at point-blank range froom the rear, according L.A. coroner Thomas Noguchi, who noted broad splotches of gunpowder residue around each entry point on RFK's jacket, behind his right ear, and in his hair.
The problem is that all witnesses in the crowded pantry of the Ambassador Hotel placed Sirhan Sirhan, the convicted assassin, in front of RFK, and no closer than 3 feet. In his 1983 autobiography, Coroner Noguchi stated: “Until more is precisely known … the existence of the second gunman remains a possibility. Thus, I have never said that Sirhan Sirhan killed Robert Kennedy.”
But another man in the pantry pulled a .22 pistol that night—security guard Thane Eugene Caesar, who happened to be standing immediately behind RFK when Sirhan started shooting. RFK pulled his clip-on tie off as he fell. Caesar has told multiple lies about his possession of the .22 pistol he carried that night, and the circumstances under which he drew the pistol.
Most researchers and others familiar with the case, including Dr. Eduard Simson-Kalls, chief psychologist at San Quentin Prison, believe that Sirhan was a hypnoprogrammed assassin or patsy, and may have been shooting blanks that night.
The Polka-Dot Woman identified?
Several witnesses testifed to the LAPD about seeing an attractive brunette woman, about 5/3"–5'5", wearing a white dress with dark polka-dots, in the pantry speaking with Sirhan immediately before the shooting. She and another male companion, a tall, slender male wearing a gold-colored shirt or sweater, promptly fled the pantry after the shots, where they were seen by 5 witnesses outside the building, the woman gleefully exclaiming "We shot him!" Asked whom she meant by witness Sandra Serrano, and also by an elderly couple only identified as the Bernsteins, the polka-dot woman answered, "Senator Kennedy."
The LAPD tried to suppress this information, but it was soon making national headlines. It has been speculated that this mystery woman may have been Sirhan's handler, triggering the hypnotic programming that launched his attack. She has remained an enduring mystery for almost 40 years, but writer Carl Wernerhoff may have solved it, lifting clues from Jack Nelson's book, Terror in the Night:
Three weeks after the RFK assassination, two KKK terrorists were ambushed in a joint FBI-ADL sting operation. Two Klan informers/agent provocateurs persuaded the pair, Tom Tarrants and Kathy Ainsworth to bomb the home of a prominent Jewish businessman in Meridian, Meyer Davidson. They had participated in a previous bombing of a Jewish synogogue in Meridian. Kathy Ainsworth, an attractive elementary school teacher by day, was killed instantly in a hail of bullets from FBI agents and local police. Her companion, Tom Tarrants, miraculously survived numerous wounds, and was sentenced to 30 years, but gained early release in 1976.
The case is unusual in that it appears to have been orchestrated at the highest levels, by J. Edgar Hoover, as a "clean-up operation"—as one of the Meridian officers in the ambush later told Tarrants after his parole. They were both supposed to die that night. Neither Tarrants nor Ainsworth had killed anyone prior to this, while numerous other Klansmen were known to have commited multiple murders, including the notorious Sam Bowers, and would seem to have been more likely candidates for extra-judicial execution.
Wernerhoff speculates that Ainsworth was the polka-dot woman (physically, a perfect match to eyewitness descriptions), and her tall companion in the gold shirt was Tom Tarrants. They were targeted for elimination (almost) only 3 weeks after the RFK hit, when the "polka-dot woman" legend became the subject of national obsession, and may have led to her eventual discovery.
Wernerhoff's complete argument (also a good introduction to the RFK case), can be read here: Who Was the Girl in the Polka-Dot Dress?
Scott Enyart's stolen photos
A 15-yr. old high school student in 1968, Scott Enyart was standing slightly behind Kennedy when the shooting began and snapped photographs as fast as he could. As Enyart was leaving the pantry, two LAPD officers accosted him at gunpoint and seized his three, 36-exposure rolls of film. Later, he was told by Detective Dudley Varney that the photographs were needed as evidence in the trial of Sirhan Sirhan. The photographs were not presented as evidence but the court ordered that all evidential materials had to be sealed for twenty years.
In 1988 Scott Enyart requested that his photographs should be returned. At first the State Archives claimed they could not find them and that they must have been destroyed by mistake. Enyart filed a lawsuit which finally came to trial in 1996. During the trial the Los Angeles city attorney announced that the photos had been found in its Sacramento office and would be brought to the courthouse by the courier retained by the State Archives.
The following day it was announced that the courier’s briefcase, that contained the photographs, had been stolen from the car he rented at the airport. The photographs have never been recovered and the jury subsequently awarded Scott Enyart $450,000 in damages.
This is but one more episode in the LAPD's epidemic of "lost" or destroyed evidence in this case. It is believed that Enyart's suppressed photos might have recorded Thane Caesar in the act of shooting RFK, or other evidence contradicting the official whitewash.
The most thorough presentation of the RFK case online is Lisa Pease's two-part essay: Sirhan and the RFK Assassination |
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