A coroner: I 'never said that Sirhan killed Robert Kennedy' -- By Ralph Lopez, Digital Journal

As the parole hearing for convicted assassin Sirhan Sirhan came and went, unremarked in the media are the strong doubts of the LA County coroner who performed the autopsy that Sirhan acted alone, or even delivered the killing shot. 

Thomas Noguchi, in his book King Coroner, determined that the shot which killed Robert F. Kennedy entered "through the mastoid bone, an inch behind the right ear." Noguchi determined that the shot was fired from no more than four inches from behind Kennedy's head. Sirhan Sirhan was at no time closer than three to four feet in front of Kennedy. LA chief coroner Noguchi said of the RFK assassination in his book: "Until more is precisely known...the existence of a second gunman remains a possibility. Thus, I have never said that Sirhan Sirhan killed Robert Kennedy."

Mary Ferrell Foundation

Page from RFK autopsy report describing entrance wound of shot that killed RFK.

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Nina Rhodes-Hughes, the eyewitness to the RFK shooting who spoke with CNN last year, told CNN:

  "What has to come out is that there was another shooter to my right...The truth has got to be told. No more cover-ups." 

 The omission in media coverage joins the media burial of another potential blockbuster, Robert F. Kennedy son RFK Jr's. revelation, on the Charlie Rose Show this year, that his father did not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, and that his father suspected "rogue CIA" in the murder of his brother. Various media reported the revelation after it took place in January of this year, but it then dropped out of all discussion as the 50th anniversary of the murder approached. The broadcast is no longer available in the Charlie Rose Show archives. 

As Rose probed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the slaying of his uncle, the president, Kennedy held that "I think my father was fairly convinced at the end of that that there had been involvement by somebody …" Rose suggested "organized crime, Cubans." Kennedy went on: "Or rogue CIA." Kennedy said during the interview "The evidence at this point I think is very, very convincing that it was not a lone gunman." 

The 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination passed last month with most media coverage implicitly accepting the lone gunman theory in both shootings, making casual, and at times mocking, mention, of "conspiracy theories." But the latest official committee , the 1976 House Select Committee on Assassinations, concluded that: 

 "on the basis of the evidence available to [the Committee, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy."  

Robert Kennedy said shortly after his brother's assassination:

 "I thought they’d get one of us, but Jack, after all he’s been through, never worried about it. I thought it would be me." 

 President Kennedy told his wife just hours before his assassination:

 "if somebody wants to shoot me from a window with a ri­fle, nobody can stop it. So, why worry about it?”

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