Sirhan's Upcoming Parole Hearing

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Larry Hancock said:

And for those who want to explore the subject with a comprehensive knowledge of both the crime scene and the related forensics, ballistics and autopsy work I suggest John Hunt's clinical study of the actual evidence:

https://www.amazon.com/Buried-Plain-Site-Search-Murder-ebook/dp/B0BR5WWY3Y

If you have not read it then you simply don't have all the facts...or at least I don't see how that would be possible and I've studied the LAPD materials extensively myself.....but that was nothing in comparison to what John did.

 

Can you give us the gist of it, Larry?

It's been a while since I read A Lie Too Big to Fail, but I recall Lisa Pease describing the forensic evidence and ballistics in considerable detail.

[Larry Hancock]

I honestly think it would be wrong of me to try and overview given the detail work John did - and the devil is in the details.  Gary Murr might jump in and give it a shot as he is more recently familiar with it).

Major takeaways - both the forensics consultant and the coroner were aware that the crime scene was been managed in a way to locate people and locations to support a Sirhan shooting scenario with fewer shots than there really were.  Evidence of holes in the ceiling and pantry doors was first ignored, then some positions were changed and then the materials themselves were destroyed.

So, way to many shots for just Sirhan.   Everybody talks about that, John demonstrates it from the crime scene itself.

Then John went into great detail on the autopsy and found paths what were not in the official report as well as strong reason to challenge the caliber of the gun used for the close range shot.  

He also had first hand access to ballistics materials and worked with Sirhan's attorneys aide Rose Lynn Magnan on it to show how the evidence was illegally handled and archived...he details that at length. 

But the real point is that he totally reconstructed (as a professional model maker) the crime scene, redid all the measurements and positioning related to the photos...and supported his findings with that level of detail.  He did not go into conspiracy, what he did was go into the police investigation and the evidence presented in the trial - and how it was presented.  You need that for context.

Also, if  you assess that Sirhan was totally unaware of what was happening in the pantry that evening,  you really need to read the police transcript of his interviews and see how sharp he was at that point in time and how he was trying to play the officers. I summarize some of that in one of the early chapters in my RFK study at: 

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Incomplete_Justice_-_At_the_Ambassador_Hotel.html

I offer all this is the spirit of providing information, not lobbying for it at all.

 

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

I think who Larry is referring to as "forensics consultant" is DeWayne Wolfer.

But let me again add, if and when you write, do not refer to the issue of innocence.

Refer to the points I listed above about him being a model prisoner etc.

Edited June 9 by James DiEugenio

[Ron Bulman]

Ha, Jim.  You and Larry likely know better than I but that should be "forensics forger".   Shame Dr. Wecht can't weigh in on it any longer.  He was there with Noguchi for the autopsy, wasn't he?

Edited June 9 by Ron Bulman

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Larry Hancock said:

I honestly think it would be wrong of me to try and overview given the detail work John did - and the devil is in the details.  Gary Murr might jump in and give it a shot as he is more recently familiar with it).

Major takeaways - both the forensics consultant and the coroner were aware that the crime scene was been managed in a way to locate people and locations to support a Sirhan shooting scenario with fewer shots than there really were.  Evidence of holes in the ceiling and pantry doors was first ignored, then some positions were changed and then the materials themselves were destroyed.

So, way to many shots for just Sirhan.   Everybody talks about that, John demonstrates it from the crime scene itself.

Then John went into great detail on the autopsy and found paths what were not in the official report as well as strong reason to challenge the caliber of the gun used for the close range shot.  

He also had first hand access to ballistics materials and worked with Sirhan's attorneys aide Rose Lynn Magnan on it to show how the evidence was illegally handled and archived...he details that at length. 

But the real point is that he totally reconstructed (as a professional model maker) the crime scene, redid all the measurements and positioning related to the photos...and supported his findings with that level of detail.  He did not go into conspiracy, what he did was go into the police investigation and the evidence presented in the trial - and how it was presented.  You need that for context.

Also, if  you assess that Sirhan was totally unaware of what was happening in the pantry that evening,  you really need to read the police transcript of his interviews and see how sharp he was at that point in time and how he was trying to play the officers. I summarize some of that in one of the early chapters in my RFK study at: 

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Incomplete_Justice_-_At_the_Ambassador_Hotel.html

I offer all this is the spirit of providing information, not lobbying for it at all.

 

 

 

LH--

Always glad when you add to RF-JFKA conversations. Agree or disagree, you always add to the total sum. 

[Pete Mellor]

8 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Ha, Jim.  You and Larry likely know better than I but that should be "forensics forger".   Shame Dr. Wecht can't weigh in on it any longer.  He was there with Noguchi for the autopsy, wasn't he?

No, Noguchi spoke to Wecht by phone and suggested he fly to L.A. & take part in RFK's autopsy.  He did not.  However, Wecht flew to L.A. days later reviewing the autopsy photographs & microscopic slide tissues and the preliminary draft of Noguchi's autopsy report.

Edited June 9 by Pete Mellor

[Johnny Cairns]

11 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

I honestly think it would be wrong of me to try and overview given the detail work John did - and the devil is in the details.  Gary Murr might jump in and give it a shot as he is more recently familiar with it).

Major takeaways - both the forensics consultant and the coroner were aware that the crime scene was been managed in a way to locate people and locations to support a Sirhan shooting scenario with fewer shots than there really were.  Evidence of holes in the ceiling and pantry doors was first ignored, then some positions were changed and then the materials themselves were destroyed.

So, way to many shots for just Sirhan.   Everybody talks about that, John demonstrates it from the crime scene itself.

Then John went into great detail on the autopsy and found paths what were not in the official report as well as strong reason to challenge the caliber of the gun used for the close range shot.  

He also had first hand access to ballistics materials and worked with Sirhan's attorneys aide Rose Lynn Magnan on it to show how the evidence was illegally handled and archived...he details that at length. 

But the real point is that he totally reconstructed (as a professional model maker) the crime scene, redid all the measurements and positioning related to the photos...and supported his findings with that level of detail.  He did not go into conspiracy, what he did was go into the police investigation and the evidence presented in the trial - and how it was presented.  You need that for context.

Also, if  you assess that Sirhan was totally unaware of what was happening in the pantry that evening,  you really need to read the police transcript of his interviews and see how sharp he was at that point in time and how he was trying to play the officers. I summarize some of that in one of the early chapters in my RFK study at: 

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Incomplete_Justice_-_At_the_Ambassador_Hotel.html

I offer all this is the spirit of providing information, not lobbying for it at all.

 

 

 

Larry, 

is John’s book only on Kindle? 

[Larry Hancock]

Yes, given the size of the work and the limited potential audience I'm told the cost/price of a print version was considered prohibitive.  We are fortunate to have it at all given his sudden death and the fact that Stu Wexler had to work with John's sister to reclaim his files, I had to work reordering them since he had anticipated doing more work with the book and Gary Murr played a major role in editing the whole thing. Unfortunately the huge collection of photos and illustrations he had obtained in his research to support it is not available due to limitations on Lacer's resources associated with Debra's health condition.

https://www.amazon.com/Buried-Plain-Site-Search-Murder-ebook/dp/B0BR5WWY3Y

 

[Benjamin Cole]

21 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

I honestly think it would be wrong of me to try and overview given the detail work John did - and the devil is in the details.  Gary Murr might jump in and give it a shot as he is more recently familiar with it).

Major takeaways - both the forensics consultant and the coroner were aware that the crime scene was been managed in a way to locate people and locations to support a Sirhan shooting scenario with fewer shots than there really were.  Evidence of holes in the ceiling and pantry doors was first ignored, then some positions were changed and then the materials themselves were destroyed.

So, way to many shots for just Sirhan.   Everybody talks about that, John demonstrates it from the crime scene itself.

Then John went into great detail on the autopsy and found paths what were not in the official report as well as strong reason to challenge the caliber of the gun used for the close range shot.  

He also had first hand access to ballistics materials and worked with Sirhan's attorneys aide Rose Lynn Magnan on it to show how the evidence was illegally handled and archived...he details that at length. 

But the real point is that he totally reconstructed (as a professional model maker) the crime scene, redid all the measurements and positioning related to the photos...and supported his findings with that level of detail.  He did not go into conspiracy, what he did was go into the police investigation and the evidence presented in the trial - and how it was presented.  You need that for context.

Also, if  you assess that Sirhan was totally unaware of what was happening in the pantry that evening,  you really need to read the police transcript of his interviews and see how sharp he was at that point in time and how he was trying to play the officers. I summarize some of that in one of the early chapters in my RFK study at: 

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Incomplete_Justice_-_At_the_Ambassador_Hotel.html

I offer all this is the spirit of providing information, not lobbying for it at all.

 

 

 

LH and all---

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Incomplete_Justice_-_At_the_Ambassador_Hotel.html

I just gave the above a quick read at the MFF website. 

Per usual, LH delivered a professional and circumspect review of the RFK1A. 

A few take-aways, but please the read the series. It is not long, and dense with info.

My take-aways (based on LH's commentary)---- 

1. Sirhan had companions, and had been stalking RFK1, sometimes in the company of those companions. Likely those companions, and others, were co-conspirators. 

2. The LAPD did a snuff job on a true investigation. 

3. Sirhan was a little liar. He would say he did not remember what happened in the pantry, and but would slip up and refute that he had asked anyone the anticipated time of RFK's arrival, while in the pantry. If he did not remember anything, how could he deny he had asked about RFK1's arrival, as per witnesses? Sirhan was described a lucid and intelligent by the LAPD after arrest.

4. Sirhan curiously did not carry ID on the night of the RFK1A, and refused to verbally provide his ID to LAPD, after arrest. This seems planned, and undercuts the idea that suddenly, and compulsively, Sirhan shot RFK1. 

5. Sirhan hated Jews, and regarded RFK1 as a friend of the Jews/Israel. That seems to have been his motivation for the RFK1A. 

6. More than eight shots were fired in the pantry. 

Conclusion--

1. Not sure about attempts to exonerate Sirhan, or even give him parole. He seems to have planned out, and attempted to murder RFK1. Not only a murder, but one thwarting democratic processes to satisfy his own personal, political and racial hatreds. 

2. Sirhan has evidently never identified who his companions were. Of course, maybe he was never asked, but if he wants parole, he should tell everything he knows, including who were his companions. A full confession of his true motivations and enablers. 

3. The angle that Sirhan was hypnotized and a Manchurian assassin is less believable. Sirhan had been stalking RFK1. As stated, if a Manchurian assassin was possible---where are the other such assassins, in the near 60 years since the RFK1A? Other nations would also deploy such assassins, were it possible. 

All in all, Larry Hancock provides a snappy read and synopsis of the RFK1A. 

 

Edited June 9 by Benjamin Cole

[Stu Wexler]

Ben. I think you did a nice summary. And I have long been on the side of C2. My guess (look who bought/gave Sirhan the gun) is that he was protecting family. But I would absolutely say-- tell us what you *really* know and we will commute.

[Joe Bauer]

23 minutes ago, Stu Wexler said:

 My guess (look who bought/gave Sirhan the gun) is that he was protecting family. 

Protecting family? Please elaborate.

His own family? So, the RFK killing was a family operation?

If only the LAPD had taken the paper bag of clothes, including the polka dot dress more seriously and kept it as part of the RFK evidence cache.

Maybe down the road they could have found some DNA material from it?

Or maybe tracked where such clothing and other accessory items could have been sold in the LA area around that time. Who knows...maybe a sales clerk would have remembered selling the dress combo and related items and to whom?

 

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Stu Wexler said:

Ben. I think you did a nice summary. And I have long been on the side of C2. My guess (look who bought/gave Sirhan the gun) is that he was protecting family. But I would absolutely say-- tell us what you *really* know and we will commute.

Stu,

     The question, technically, is what Sirhan remembers.  Amnesia is the sine qua non of dissociation.

     Have you studied the history of Sirhan's apparent dissociative disorder and pre-assassination hypnotic programming?

     Susceptible people can perform complex, sustained behaviors as a result of post-hypnotic compulsions.

    They can also have total psychogenic amnesia for post-hypnotic suggestions, if amnesia is effectively induced during hypnosis.

    Thirdly, they tend to confabulate explanations for otherwise inexplicable post-hypnotic compulsions.

     See, for example, Dr. Bernard Diamond's hypnotic session with Sirhan, where he told Sirhan to climb on the bars of his cell when Diamond pulled out his handkerchief.

     Per instructions, Sirhan had amnesia for the hypnotic suggestion.

     So, when he was asked why he climbed on the bars of his cell, after Diamond pulled out his handkerchief, Sirhan confabulated.

     He said he was, "trying to exercise."

     Hypnotized subjects with dissociative tendencies are typically lucid and even rational. 

     Sirhan was not psychotic or otherwise mentally ill, as Dr. Daniel Brown documented with a battery of psychological tests.

     We know that Sirhan was hypnotically programmed to go into "range mode," and fire a gun at RFK, in response to a cue-- being pinched by a girl in a polka dot dress.

     He could have also been programmed to take a gun to the Ambassador Hotel on June 6th and seek out a girl in a polka dot dress.

     He could also have been programmed to have total amnesia for his hypnotic sessions.

     So, superficially, he would look like a normal, sane malingerer.

Edited June 9 by W. Niederhut

[Nick Bartetzko]

1 hour ago, Joe Bauer said:

Protecting family? Please elaborate.

His own family? So, the RFK killing was a family operation?

If only the LAPD had taken the paper bag of clothes, including the polka dot dress more seriously and kept it as part of the RFK evidence cache.

Maybe down the road they could have found some DNA material from it?

Or maybe tracked where such clothing and other accessory items could have been sold in the LA area around that time. Who knows...maybe a sales clerk would have remembered selling the dress combo and related items and to whom?

 

Interesting as to the family issue. Years ago, I heard just a couple of minutes of an interview with a witness who claimed it was Sirhan's brother who fired the shots. I can't recall the name of the radio show nor the name of the witness and whether he was shown photos or how the brother was specifically identified. 

[Johnny Cairns]

17 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

I honestly think it would be wrong of me to try and overview given the detail work John did - and the devil is in the details.  Gary Murr might jump in and give it a shot as he is more recently familiar with it).

Major takeaways - both the forensics consultant and the coroner were aware that the crime scene was been managed in a way to locate people and locations to support a Sirhan shooting scenario with fewer shots than there really were.  Evidence of holes in the ceiling and pantry doors was first ignored, then some positions were changed and then the materials themselves were destroyed.

So, way to many shots for just Sirhan.   Everybody talks about that, John demonstrates it from the crime scene itself.

Then John went into great detail on the autopsy and found paths what were not in the official report as well as strong reason to challenge the caliber of the gun used for the close range shot.  

He also had first hand access to ballistics materials and worked with Sirhan's attorneys aide Rose Lynn Magnan on it to show how the evidence was illegally handled and archived...he details that at length. 

But the real point is that he totally reconstructed (as a professional model maker) the crime scene, redid all the measurements and positioning related to the photos...and supported his findings with that level of detail.  He did not go into conspiracy, what he did was go into the police investigation and the evidence presented in the trial - and how it was presented.  You need that for context.

Also, if  you assess that Sirhan was totally unaware of what was happening in the pantry that evening,  you really need to read the police transcript of his interviews and see how sharp he was at that point in time and how he was trying to play the officers. I summarize some of that in one of the early chapters in my RFK study at: 

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Incomplete_Justice_-_At_the_Ambassador_Hotel.html

I offer all this is the spirit of providing information, not lobbying for it at all.

 

 

 

Larry, 

Thanks for sharing your article on the RFK case. I really enjoyed it. 
 

Best 

Johnny 

[James DiEugenio]

Michael Wayne resembled Sirhan.

And he was asking for the location of RFK throughout that night.

Sirhan's brother fired the shots? What is the source for this?  Neither Adel, Munir or Sharif were there that night.

As per a precedent, in her book Lisa describes the case of Luis Angel Castillo (pp. 428-33)

In John Marks' book, he describes how a hypnotist could, through skilled application, walk a chosen patsy through a series of events, "such as a visit to a store, a conversation with a mailman, picking a fight at a political rally, to lay in a history that could make him look guilty after the fact. "

Quoting directly now from Marks: "The subject would remember everything that happened to him but be amnesiac only for the fact that the hypnotist ordered him to do these things...The purpose of this exercise is to leave a circumstantial trail that will make the authorities think the patsy committed a particular crime." (Marks, p. 204). 

And just remember, Marks is one of the more conservative authors on the subject of hypnotic suggestion.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 9 by James DiEugenio