Intermezzo: The RFK murder case. . . . The key controversies, lessons learned
The LAPD solved the murder, but I solved the case, because, for the first time, I explained how police errors gave rise to claims that two gunmen were present
As the author of the 1995 book, The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy: An Investigation of Motive, Means and Opportunity, I made my case that Sirhan Sirhan committed the murder and acted alone on "KNBC New Conference" with legendary television anchorman Jess Marlow in Los Angeles, June 2, 1995. (There are blackouts between segments where commercials appeared during the original broadcast. The entire recording is approximately 26 minutes and 30 seconds long.
The recent disclosures
Please note that this Mobology column—my thirteenth related to the RFK murder, which references the March 18 release of previously withheld JFK-MLK-RFK documents—is based on an updated compilation of published excerpts from my body of work.[1]
Last week, on March 16, 2025, I published my statement about the specific anticipated release of the JFK documents.
The newly available—but still incomplete—files are located in the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection at the National Archives.
At 12:15 A.M. on June 5, 1968, an assassin shot and mortally wounded Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York in a narrow kitchen pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Just moments earlier, the 42-year-old Kennedy had left a ballroom celebration in the wake of winning the California Democratic presidential primary. No fewer than 77 people were crowded in the pantry when twenty-four-year-old Palestinian immigrant Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, using an eight-shot, .22-caliber revolver, opened fire on the senator. Kennedy was struck three times and died early the following day, June 6. Five other people were each shot once, but all survived.
In April 1969, a Los Angeles County jury convicted Sirhan of murder.
What really happened?
Complicated investigations sometimes have straightforward solutions. However, to recognize and appreciate the simple solution in the Robert Kennedy murder case, investigators must pass through a gauntlet of intricate and often contradictory evidence.
The LAPD’s probe appears to provide substantial evidence of Sirhan’s guilt. But, simultaneously, a close study of the controversies in this case—such as challenges to the ballistics and firearms evidence—seems to provide equally persuasive evidence that a second gun was fired at the crime scene.
When I entered this case in 1987, I published an article in Regardie’s, hoping to help force open the official case file. In that first investigation, I concentrated my research on eyewitness testimony and on my exclusive interviews with Gene Cesar, the controversial security guard whom many believe was the second gunman.
But, without the LAPD’s sealed investigative files, numerous questions remained unanswered. In effect, this case became more complicated than necessary due to the LAPD’s stubborn insistence on keeping its files secret.
Notably, my article in Regardie’s triggered the decision by the city of Los Angeles to transfer the files to the California State Archives for public release. However, many documents and photographs were missing or mysteriously destroyed. Consequently, suspicions about the LAPD’s investigation and ultimate conclusions persisted. Yet, despite problems with the condition of the existing files, the LAPD and the district attorney’s office continued to be cavalier and high-handed with those civilian investigators who asked reasonable questions about apparent discrepancies.
Instead of making good-faith efforts to resolve these matters, the LAPD provided its critics, like me, with more ammunition for accusations that a cover-up was still in progress.
After getting criticized by LAPD homicide detectives for relying on the statements of eyewitnesses who were “not trained or experienced or qualified to make judgments” about what they saw at the crime scene, I located and interviewed no fewer than 114 law-enforcement personnel directly involved in the original LAPD investigation.
To my surprise, nearly all of my best evidence of a possible second gunman came from many of these officials, who identified what appeared to have been extra bullets at the crime scene. In other words, the FBI, among others in the law-enforcement community, unwittingly provided what turned out to be false evidence of more bullets than Sirhan’s eight-shot revolver could hold.
Because of the overwhelming quasi-official corroboration that two guns were fired, my “new evidence” of a second gunman nearly constituted conclusive proof. And I was not alone in this opinion. To me and others who examined my work, a simple solution to this case did not seem likely since the supposed evidence of extra bullets made it appear that a second gun appeared to have been fired.
Reconsideration
Personal and professional restrictions forced me as an independent investigative journalist to fade in and out of this case, depending on how much time and money I could afford to spend satisfying a basic curiosity: Do we know the truth about Robert Kennedy’s murder?
It was not until I received a $75,000 advance from a major publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, that I could address the issues that had been troubling me about this case.
Had I settled for the mere appearance of proof—such as alleged extra bullets at the crime scene and the inability of independent firearms experts to match victim bullets with Sirhan’s gun—my book would have had a very different ending. . . .
And I would have been wrong.
In my defense, I decided not to settle for the sensational without examining more mundane considerations: the simple explanations for why the evidence appeared as it did in this particular murder case, which was characterized by an astonishingly complex and contradictory array of data.
To achieve this, I had to re-interview key law enforcement personnel while gaining a deeper understanding of the official version of the case.
These numerous interviews and record searches, as well as the polygraph test I arranged for Gene Cesar, and my three interviews with Sirhan, brought me to the point where I could recognize and appreciate the simple solution to this complex case.[2]
And, based upon my independent investigation, I concluded that, after many years of being wrongly accused, Gene Cesar was an innocent man and that Sirhan Sirhan knowingly shot and killed Robert Kennedy.
Lessons learned
Placing into a new context what I had known all along about this case, I realized that even law enforcement officials—who possess the training, qualifications, and experience to determine the significance of crime scene evidence—do make mistakes if their abilities are not put to the test under the proper circumstances and conditions.
In other words, if one does not account for occasional official mistakes and incompetence, then nearly every such political murder could appear to be a conspiracy, particularly if a civilian investigator with limited access and resources is looking for one.[2]
To be clear, I have never fully endorsed the official version of the Kennedy case. However, I did conclude that the LAPD reached the correct conclusion, albeit for some of the wrong reasons.[3]
The law enforcement community should have been much more vigilant in its handling of such crime scene evidence as photographs, door frames, and ceiling tiles.[4] It should have minimized its bullying tactics against individuals like Sandy Serrano and Donald Schulman, which ultimately caused more speculation than their stories warranted. It should have expedited the release of its ten-volume report on the case, as well as the central records supporting it—instead of suppressing this information for twenty years and allowing so many important questions to remain unanswered. And it should have been more complete and definitive in its probe of Gene Cesar, who became a lightning rod for people who believe that a second gun might have been fired.[5]
Finally, the dismal manner in which official records were handled implied disorganization within the LAPD, which also explained its reluctance to be candid in later years. LAPD officials knew they had made serious errors but didn’t understand why they had been made.
But, to be sure, the most serious mistakes made by the LAPD were errors of omission rather than commission. I found nothing nefarious, no criminal intent.
Once again, indeed, the LAPD solved the RFK murder. . . . But I solved the case in my 1995 book, The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy—because, for the first time, I explained how evidentiary errors made by the law-enforcement community led to the false appearance that two guns were fired at the crime scene.
Remarkably, the numerous positive reviews I received for my book—including a solo daily review in the New York Times and a second in its Sunday Book Review—corroborate that bold statement.
ENDNOTES
1. Here are my previous installments about the RFK murder case on Mobology:
* My interview with former L.A. County Coroner Thomas Noguchi about the RFK murder case: The tragedy occurred 57 years ago this week (June 1, 2025)
* “June 5 with the 30th anniversary of my third and final interview with Sirhan Sirhan: Contrary to what RFK Jr. says, Sirhan did it and did it alone” (June 2, 2024)
* “Challenging RFK Jr.’s bullshit about his father’s tragic 1968 murder: Does the Harvard man have the guts to take on the Akron U grad?” (April 18, 2024)
* “If RFK Jr. lies about his own father’s murder, then he will lie about anything” (March 24, 2024)
* “PolitiFact names RFK Jr's "campaign of conspiracy theories" as the biggest lie of 2023” (December 31, 2023)
* “Gavin Newsom discusses RFK Jr. on Meet the Press today” (September 10, 2023
* “RFK Jr. on his father’s murder: A fantasy” (June 28, 2023)
* “RFK Jr. on RFK’s murder: False facts and half-baked opinions” (June 22, 2023)
* “Catalog to my ten-part series on the RFK murder: Establishing my credentials before addressing RFK Jr’s false claims” (June 20, 2023)
2. To clarify, I am the only person in the world, living or dead, who has interviewed both Sirhan and Cesar, who died in 2019.
3. Even though I do not believe that Sirhan participated in a conspiracy to murder Senator Kennedy, I believe that the LAPD and the FBI were negligent for not thoroughly investigating organized crime in a possible conspiracy amid its more massive investigations of such red herrings as the polka-dot-dress girl, horse-selling ministers, Arab hit squads, Sirhan’s passing interest in the occult, and speculation that Sirhan may have been mind-controlled. Clearly, of all the groups studied by the law enforcement community for their possible involvement in this murder, the underworld had the strongest motive, means, and opportunity to eliminate Senator Kennedy.
And, like author Robert Blair Kaiser before me, I still have questions about Sirhan’s racetrack connections— all of which should have been resolved by the LAPD and the FBI years ago.
4. California state archivist John Bums told me:
Based on the records on file at the California State Archives, LAPD appeared to conduct exhaustive inquiries into every alleged conspiracy connection, no matter how seemingly remote or tangential. Predictably, most of these resulted in quick dead ends. . . . The archives have a large array of documentary and audio materials. The files that we have do not support a presumption of conspiracy, nor do they prompt one to think that further study of the subjects investigated would be productive, since these files appear relatively complete. This is in contrast to those records relating to the crime scene, for which the LAPD admits to destroying a substantial amount of material that may have possessed evidential value.
6. During the spring of 1993, Los Angeles film producer Beaux Carson found and recovered Gene Cesar’s Harrington & Richardson .22 revolver in a swamp near Jim Yoder’s home in Blue Mountain, Arkansas. One of the young men who had stolen the gun from Yoder in 1969, now fully grown, had tipped Carson off as to its location.
FINAL NOTE: My friend and colleague, British historian Mel Ayton, and I own the Robert Kennedy murder case. Later this year, Mel will release his fascinating new book, The Making of an Assassin: Why Sirhan Sirhan Murdered Robert Kennedy (Frontline Books).
