(dramatic music) - [Crowd] We want Kennedy!
We want Kennedy! We want Kennedy!
- Tonight, an assassin's bullet
changes the course of history.
- This was an exciting moment.
It was filled with joy
and everyone is excited about what's next.
(crowd screaming)
- [Reporter] Kennedy has been shot. Is that possible?
- And then for America, it's a nightmare repeating itself.
- [Bystander] Oh God! God!
Oh why?
- Five years after John F. Kennedy is killed by gunshot,
his brother Robert meets the same fate.
- It really left the nation reeling.
One of the leading candidates to be president was gone.
- Now we'll uncover the top theories
behind the second Kennedy assassination.
- It even sounds like a setup.
- Bobby has enemies, powerful enemies.
- The LAPD appeared to be engaging in a coverup.
- And we'll explore the latest clues
in a case still riddled with inconsistency.
- So the question is, does the official theory add up?
(dramatic music)
- Who was really behind the killing of Robert Kennedy,
and why?
(dramatic music)
(suspenseful music)
June 5th, 1968, the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
It's after midnight and Robert Kennedy has just won
the California Democratic presidential primary.
- He comes down to the ballroom to greet his supporters,
and it's packed, overflowing with people just so excited,
and he makes his way to the platform.
- This night is a big moment in Bobby Kennedy's career.
He is 42 years old.
His star is on the rise in the Democratic Party.
This night is bringing him one step closer
to the Democratic nomination.
- Robert Kennedy came from a political family.
His father was involved in politics
and had been a U.S. ambassador,
and then his brother
was a U.S. senator
and then became president,
and his brother Ted became a U.S. senator from Massachusetts.
- Bobby Kennedy got his law degree
and soon began making his name
as a hard-charging attorney.
He picks a job on a senate committee
and begins his long career
of making life uncomfortable for the mob.
- When JFK becomes president in 1961,
Bobby Kennedy becomes the attorney general
of the United States, which is the nation's top prosecutor,
and his office is investigating and prosecuting the mob
and corrupt union leaders as well.
- He's working with his brother,
and then it all ends in horror.
- [Newscaster] The sound of the muffled drums
sweeps in melancholy waves over the hushed throngs.
- [Laurence] In 1963, John F. Kennedy
is assassinated in Dallas,
and Vice President Lyndon
Johnson becomes president.
- Robert Kennedy remained in his position
as attorney general for approximately nine months
after the assassination.
- But Bobby resigns in September 1964
in order to run for state senator of New York,
and he wins the election in November 1964.
- As senator from New York,
he begins taking up liberal causes
like the betterment of life for minorities,
like protecting farm workers.
(gun banging)
- He became opposed to the war in Vietnam,
which was a pivotal issue in 1968.
- Bobby Kennedy is considering a run for president in 1968,
but he's still kind of reluctant
because he doesn't wanna go up against Lyndon Johnson.
- And so he waited, but then the Vietnam War
just became such an intense issue.
Johnson was not taking strong steps
to get America out of Vietnam,
and Bobby Kennedy saw an opening.
(crowd cheering)
- I am announcing today my candidacy
for the presidency of the United States.
(crowd cheering)
- Robert Kennedy announced that he's running
for the presidency on March 16th.
On March 31st, he arrives back in New York
after this really barnstorming tour
and he finds out that Johnson is not going to run,
and that changes everything.
- [Laurence] But at first, Bobby is a long shot
for the presidency.
- Bobby Kennedy has two possible rivals
for the Democratic nomination.
He's got Vice President Hubert Humphrey
and he's got the popularity of Senator Eugene McCarthy
to contend with.
- But as Robert Kennedy starts making speeches
around the country,
there is this rockstar type reaction to him
and people just wanting to grab him.
(crowd cheering)
I spoke to somebody once who talked to me
about just trying to keep him upright while going in cars
and people just grabbing at him and pulling at him.
And these crowds were mammoth.
(crowd cheering)
- [Crowd] We want Kennedy! We want Kennedy!
- Clinching the California primary
is getting him one step closer
to winning the nomination that summer.
- [Crowd] We want Kennedy!
- Thank you very- - We want Kennedy!
- Thank you very much.
- [Crowd] We want Kennedy!
- We can start to work together.
We are a great country and a selfless country
and a compassionate country.
(crowd cheering)
- As Robert Kennedy is looking out over the crowd,
he's talking to them in their language.
They're seeing what he calls a better America.
If only he can make it to Chicago
and win the Democratic nomination.
- My thanks to all of you,
and now it's on to Chicago and let's win there.
(crowd cheering)
- [Laurence] At 12:15 AM, Kennedy ends his speech
and heads for the press conference room.
- [Crowd] We want Kennedy!
- [Laurence] Instead of wading through the raucous crowd
in the ballroom, Kennedy takes a shortcut.
- He stepped off the back of the stage
and then walked down a hallway and into a narrow room
which has been become called the pantry.
(suspenseful music)
- And he starts greeting employees, talking to busboys.
- Out of nowhere in the crowd,
a short, dark-haired man steps forward.
Witnesses say they saw him raise his arm.
In his hand is a gun.
(gun banging)
(crowd screaming)
People aren't quite sure what's going on.
Perhaps it's fireworks.
But eventually people realize someone's shooting.
- People are collapsing from gunshot wounds.
And finally two bystanders pinned the man to the table
and they wrestled the gun from his hand.
- [Laurence] That's when it becomes clear
Robert Kennedy has been shot.
- [Bystander] Oh god! God!
- The ambulance arrives at 12:23.
(siren wailing) (people yelling)
- Emergency workers rush into the room,
put Kennedy on a stretcher, and rush him back out.
They realize that he's been shot several times,
including at least once in the head.
(dramatic music)
- [Laurence] Kennedy is soon undergoing emergency surgery.
- Kennedy has been shot three times.
One bullet goes into his brain,
another bullet goes into his back.
Third bullet goes into his shoulder
and exits and goes up into the ceiling.
A fourth bullet passes through his suit jacket
on a steep upward angle.
- The bullet that hits him in the head shatters,
and so surgeons spend hours trying to get the bullet debris
out of his skull.
Unfortunately, even after hours of work,
Robert Kennedy slips into a coma.
- [Laurence] On June 6th, 1968,
a little over 25 hours after the shooting,
Robert Kennedy is pronounced dead.
- Five other people wounded.
Paul Schrade, a top official in the United Auto Workers,
was hit with a bullet that knocked him down,
gave him a concussion.
Other people sustained minor bullet wounds.
- At the police station, officers have brought the man
that has been tackled and held
by the workers inside the kitchen.
It's the same small, dark-haired man
that people saw holding the gun.
- They couldn't get this crazy guy to speak,
they couldn't get him to tell him his name,
and they flashed a light in his eyes
to see if there was any problem.
And his eyes were real big
and they didn't react to the light,
and officers said he was under the influence of something.
- The police release his photo to the press,
and his brother recognizes him.
- His brother calls in and identifies him as Sirhan Sirhan,
a immigrant from Palestine.
- From this point forward, the LAPD builds a case
on Sirhan and no one else.
(dramatic music)
- [Laurence] More than 20 witnesses
identify Sirhan Sirhan as the shooter.
- The gun was recovered at the scene
and then brought back to the police station.
- Sirhan had an eight-shot revolver.
He had eight bullets and made good on all eight shots,
according to the LAPD.
(police siren)
- When police go down to Sirhan's home,
they search his room
and they find a bunch of notebooks
that have the strangest writing in the world in them.
There are some passages that say, "RFK must die."
It's crazy writing
from someone who is in some sort of trance.
- Police find in Sirhan's pocket that night
a newspaper clipping about the Six-Day War
and Kennedy's support for Israel.
- Sirhan's brother explains to police
that they are Christian Palestinians
and they've gotten caught in the battle
between Israel and Israel's Arab neighbors.
- Sirhan is distraught about his homeland
and he has fixated his anger on Kennedy.
Sirhan blames Kennedy for support of Israel
and his commitment if he's elected president
to send fighter jets to Israel.
- With all of the evidence that police have found,
they are confident that they have their man.
Sirhan had motive. He had means.
He was in the room.
People have identified him as having a gun.
And the case, according to them, is closed.
- [Laurence] On February 12th, 1969,
eight months after the shooting,
the trial of Sirhan Sirhan begins in L.A. Superior Court.
- The prosecutors lay out what they see as a slam dunk case.
They have the witnesses who place him at the scene.
They have his journal entries.
- An acquaintance of Sirhan even places him
in the Ambassador Hotel days before the fatal shooting.
Was he scouting locations?
(suspenseful music) (gun banging)
- There are also witnesses who saw him at a shooting range.
So he was somebody who knew his way around a gun.
So the crime scene analyst, Dewayne Wolfer of the LAPD,
testifies that all eight of the bullets
fired by Sirhan are accounted for.
- [Laurence] Sirhan Sirhan pleads not guilty
by reason of insanity.
- Sirhan denies remembering anything about the shooting,
but then when he's asked by the prosecutor on the stand,
"Did you shoot Robert F. Kennedy?" he says, "Yes, sir."
- Sirhan's own attorney even stands up in court
and says there is no doubt that Sirhan shot Robert Kennedy.
Sirhan's attorney is trying to keep Sirhan
out of the gas chamber
because at the time California has the death penalty
and he's trying to make sure that Sirhan only gets life.
- [Laurence] But on April 17, 1969,
Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of killing Robert Kennedy
and sentenced to death.
(somber music)
(door thudding)
- As far as the LAPD is concerned, the case is over.
- [Laurence] The case may be officially closed,
the verdict delivered,
but many say the trial left unanswered questions.
- Even as the trial is happening,
members of the media and local concerned citizens
are wondering if this all adds up.
People are troubled that Sirhan's defense
didn't challenge any of the physical evidence.
- Part of the problem is that the LAPD has promised
that they're going to have a transparent investigation,
but they don't actually release any of the investigation
to members of the media.
That's really concerning.
- The Kennedy Assassination Truth Committee
was a group of well-meaning critics of the case
who put together some evidence.
- They go back to the crime scene,
and one of the things they focus on is bullet holes.
- [Laurence] A few days after the guilty verdict,
this group publishes its findings
in an alternative newspaper
called the "Los Angeles Free Press."
- They present photographic evidence
that 10 bullets were fired, which doesn't add up
with the official investigation
that there were only eight shots.
(suspenseful music)
- [Laurence] In April of 1969,
Sirhan Sirhan is sentenced to death
for the murder of Robert F. Kennedy.
But journalists and independent investigators
challenge the lone gunman theory.
- Just days after the trial,
a newspaper,
the "Los Angeles Free Press,"
shows a photograph of a door jamb.
In that door jamb is what looks to be two bullet holes.
- Another photograph is published of an LAPD officer
pointing to a bullet hole
in another section of the kitchen a few feet away.
- [Laurence] Sirhan's gun held eight rounds,
seven bullets were recovered from the victim's bodies
and one bullet went into the ceiling.
But now there appear to be three additional bullets
buried in the walls.
(gun banging)
- With more than eight shots fired,
that means that there's a second person
who could have fired the fatal shots
that killed Bobby Kennedy.
(dramatic music)
(somber music)
- All of a sudden you have to question who Sirhan is
and what is he doing there,
and who might the second gun be and what is he doing there,
and who are the people behind this?
- A few months after the trial,
a documentary filmmaker named Ted Charach
begins his own investigation
into the death of
Robert Kennedy.
- He discovers that the medical examiner, Thomas Noguchi,
who performed the autopsy on Robert Kennedy
filed a 62-page report that was never entered into evidence
during the trial.
- For the first time, Noguchi introduces evidence
that has never been talked about.
- One gunshot wound was found behind right ear.
And after test firing, we came to conclusion
that the muzzle distance would be one inch
from the right ear edge and no more than three inches.
- Sirhan, who's approaching Kennedy from the front,
never gets within a couple of feet of Kennedy
because all these other guys tackled him
after the first two shots.
Sirhan's never close enough to put a shot
into the back of Kennedy's head.
- This new evidence from Ted Charach's film
is really explosive, its own news story,
and it provokes this really big media reaction.
- [Laurence] After Sirhan's trial,
his appellate lawyers hire an independent ballistics expert
to reanalyze the three intact bullets
recovered from Kennedy and two other victims.
- What he finds is that the bullet
that enters Kennedy's neck
and a bullet that hit a bystander don't match.
If those two bullets don't match,
that means there had to be another gun
and another gunman in the room.
(people yelling)
- But the district attorney just falls back on the fact
that a jury convicted Sirhan
while the police stood by their analysis
that the bullet in Kennedy came from Sirhan's gun.
- With the files locked away from the public,
no one can actually fact-check their work,
so there are now calls for release of these LAPD files.
- [Laurence] Almost two decades later, in 1986,
Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley announces that the files
will be released to the public at last.
- 50,000 police documents.
There's 1,000 photographs to go through
and there's hundreds of hours of audio and video materials.
- In 2004, an audio file is found in this treasure trove.
That audio file was made by a Polish journalist
the night of the shooting.
On this audio file, popping sounds are heard.
A audio engineer named Philip Van Praag
begins to remove some of the ambient noise from it
so he can actually count the number of shots that he hears.
(gun banging) (people screaming)
- He found 13 shots on the tape.
13 shots is about five shots more
than Sirhan's gun could have handled,
so that would again indicate
that a second person was firing inside that pantry.
- [Laurence] Based on this new evidence,
Sirhan's lawyers file papers in 2011
requesting a new trial.
- Finally, in 2013, a magistrate judge takes the case.
- He says there's no evidentiary support
that there's a second shooter,
and he questions how a second shooter could shoot
and then escape completely unnoticed.
- So the appeals are denied, but it doesn't end the question
of whether or not there was a second gun.
(somber music) (water dripping)
- [Laurence] In evidence never presented in court,
the medical examiner in Robert Kennedy's assassination
concludes the senator was killed by a gunshot
fired from an inch away and from behind.
Yet witnesses say the man who was convicted, Sirhan Sirhan,
was not behind Kennedy
and never got closer than two or three feet.
But who else was close enough to shoot Kennedy?
- In 1968, the Secret Service
did not provide protection
for presidential candidates,
so there wasn't massive security
like you see at political rallies now.
(crowd chattering) - Senator! Senator!
- Kennedy did have his own sort of informal security outfit.
- A retired football player by the name of Rosey Grier
and Olympic medalist Rafer Johnson,
they provided security for Bobby.
- As Kennedy heads into the kitchen,
he gets separated from Rafer Johnson.
- A security guard independent from RFK's informal outfit
ends up taking Kennedy's right elbow
and he escorts him through the pantry.
His name is Thane Eugene Cesar.
- He had been hired by the Ambassador Hotel
for the purpose of crowd control that night.
- This would put him in position
to be the perfect person to
shoot Robert Kennedy from behind.
(dramatic music)
- After the revelation of additional bullets,
people start looking into Thane Cesar
to see if he had a possible motive.
- [Laurence] Cesar is a 26-year-old
part-time security guard.
- Cesar had clearance to carry a weapon that night.
He had a .38.
- [Laurence] After the shooting,
Cesar is among those questioned by police.
- Cesar said that he saw an arm and a gun
which had started firing at Kennedy.
(gun banging)
- According to Cesar,
Kennedy collapses right in front of him.
(people screaming) - Oh god!
- Cesar says he reaches for his .38 but never fires it.
In fact, he says he fell over against an ice machine.
- [Laurence] After giving his statement to police,
Cesar is cleared.
- From the beginning, Cesar is treated as a witness
and not a suspect.
- Well, the police never asked for Cesar's .38
or test fired it.
There were no indications that a .38 had been used.
- But Donald Schulman of CBS News told police
that he saw one of the security guards return fire.
Cesar was the only security guard in the room with a gun.
- It turns out Gene Cesar had a .22 caliber pistol
that was very similar to Sirhan's .22 caliber pistol.
- [Laurence] With interest in the second gunman theory
growing, in 1971, the district attorney's office
summons Thane Eugene Cesar for another interview.
- Here's where it gets really interesting.
Cesar says he sold the gun to a friend
before the assassination,
but a reporter tracks this friend down
and finds out that Cesar sold the gun
a few months after the assassination.
This friend even produces a bill of sale
that has Cesar's signature on it.
- So not only was Cesar in the right place
at the right time to have shot Kennedy,
but he also had the right kind of gun.
- However, the DA takes no action.
- In 1973, documentary filmmaker Ted Charach
interviews Cesar, and Cesar reveals in this interview
something really interesting.
- He finds out that Cesar might also have a motive
for shooting Kennedy.
- [Cesar] I definitely wouldn't have voted for Bobby Kennedy
'cause he had the same ideas as John did,
and I think John sold the country down the road.
He gave it to the commies.
He literally gave it to the minority.
I'm not a Democrat. (laughs)
- He has these far-right leanings,
and the guy he was supporting in the 1968 election
was actually former Alabama governor George Wallace,
who's a known racist.
- And I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow,
and segregation forever.
- Cesar felt that Black people
were having too many people advocating for them
and that their equal rights were being shoved down
people's throats, and that there was going to be a time
where people pushed back against that.
- When Ted Charach's documentary "The Second Gun"
comes out in 1973, many people watch this documentary
and come away with the idea
that Cesar must have had something to do with it.
- [Laurence] In the years that follow,
Cesar gets more tight-lipped
and eventually moves to the Philippines
where he resides until his death in 2019.
- But while Cesar was well-positioned
to fire the fatal shots,
there was at least one other person in the pantry that night
who had no business being there.
(suspenseful music)
- In 1969, Sirhan Sirhan is convicted
of killing Robert Kennedy and locked behind bars,
but in the years that follow the evidence mounts
that there may have been holes in the investigation.
Then in 1986 the official police files are finally released,
including details of a forgotten eyewitness interview
from 1968, an interview which may shed light
on the identity of a new suspect.
- Sandy Serrano is a 21-year-old volunteer
working for the Robert Kennedy campaign.
That fateful night, she's sitting on the back stairs
of the Ambassador Hotel getting some fresh air.
- Around 11:30 or so,
Sandy Serrano is outside behind the Ambassador
and she says that she saw a woman in a polka dot dress
and a man who matches Sirhan's description
going into the pantry together.
- And then this woman in a polka dot dress comes out
after the shooting shouting,
"We shot him, we shot him. We shot Senator Kennedy."
(police siren)
- Even though the police have Sirhan in custody,
they start looking for this woman.
She could be an accomplice.
She could be a second shooter.
- [Laurence] At least 25 witnesses recall seeing a woman
in a polka dot dress at the hotel that night,
and several people saw her in the company of Sirhan Sirhan.
- One witness even remembers the woman helping Sirhan Sirhan
get into his position in the pantry
before the fatal shooting.
- The woman appears to have said something
in his ear and smiles.
- Outside the Ambassador,
a police sergeant bumps into this woman
who again says, "We shot Kennedy,"
and he helps put out a description of this woman.
- [Laurence] That same night,
police put out an all-points bulletin
for this mysterious woman.
- In the APB that's put out,
the woman is described as a white woman aged 23 to 27,
and she's wearing a white dress
with black polka dots and heels.
- Shortly after Sirhan is arrested,
police cancel the bulletin.
LAPD investigators are convinced that Serrano
and their own officer have misinterpreted
what this woman said.
(people yelling)
- They assume that what they actually heard
was, "They shot Senator Kennedy."
- But Sandy Serrano goes to the national media
and she refuses to change her story.
- This girl said, "We've shot him. We've shot him."
And I says, "Who did you shoot?"
And she says, "We shot Senator Kennedy."
I can remember what she had on and everything.
She had on a white dress with polka dots
and she has a funny nose.
- [Laurence] Two weeks later, with Sirhan behind bars,
police announce that Sandy Serrano has recanted her story.
- Police say that Sandy is changing her story
and maybe didn't quite remember what was said.
- And that's how it stands for about 20 years
until Sandy's original account is rediscovered
when the police released the files to the public.
- And people go and interview her
and she once again renews her claim that she saw this woman
and this woman said, "We killed Kennedy."
Serrano also gives a very detailed description
of how she was pressured by the police to change her story.
- When looking at the transcript
of that Sandy Serrano interview,
you can see that the detective is accusing her
of trying to bring down the investigation
of who killed Robert Kennedy.
(record button clicks)
- Sandy Serrano says after being browbeat by this detective,
she was willing to tell them whatever they wanted to hear
just for it to be over.
- But a lot of people criticize
the investigators' tactics here,
that they never told her that 25 other people
actually saw the same woman that she said she saw.
- For decades, the identity of the woman
in the polka dotted dress remained a mystery.
- [Laurence] Then in 2011, the woman comes up again,
mentioned in a parole hearing
by none other than Sirhan Sirhan.
- Sirhan does recall that he met this woman
he describes as pretty.
Sirhan does remember being
with the woman in the polka dot dress
and saying that she led him into the kitchen
and that then his mind started to play tricks on him.
- He says he has a flashback to the shooting range,
(bullets pop)
but then he doesn't have any recollection
of actually shooting Kennedy.
(gun banging)
- He also says he has no memory of the name of the woman
in the polka dotted dress and has no idea
why she was at the Ambassador Hotel that night.
- [Laurence] A year later, in 2012,
a new clue emerges when Paul Schrade,
a union leader and ally of Robert Kennedy
who was also shot that night, gets a cryptic letter.
- It comes with a photo from a person claiming
that their aunt was the woman in the polka dot dress.
- Paul Schrade gives the photo to a reporter, Brad Johnson,
and he begins taking the photo
to witnesses who were at the Ambassador Hotel that night.
They all tell Johnson
that it looks like the woman in the polka dot dress.
- [Laurence] In 2018, after a five-year investigation,
Brad Johnson and his co-author Tim Tate
identify the woman in the polka dot dress
for the first time.
- The woman is Elayn Neal,
and she is a white woman with a pug nose.
- The journalists begin digging
into Elayn Neal's background.
They find out she was about 19 when RFK was shot
and her first husband was away fighting in Vietnam.
Elayn's family reports
that she always seemed haunted by something.
She begins drinking heavily.
She ends up divorcing her soldier husband
and she does get remarried.
- [Laurence] Journalists start delving into the life
of Elayn's second husband, Jerry Capehart.
- Jerry Capehart was quite a character
and he had a couple of songwriting hits in the 1950s.
His son revealed that shortly before Jerry Capehart died,
he told him that in addition to being in the music business,
he'd also been in the CIA.
- [Laurence] She's been called the woman
in the polka dot dress,
but some say she may have been in the wrong place
at the wrong time.
Others say she was exactly where she was supposed to be
playing her role in the RFK assassination.
(gun banging) (people screaming)
- From a family photo, witnesses believe
that 19-year-old Elayn Neal is the woman
in the polka dot dress.
She later marries a man
who makes a startling deathbed confession.
The man once worked for the CIA
and his specialization was mind control experimentation.
The claim that Jerry Capehart, Elayn Neal's second husband,
worked in the CIA in mind control could provide a link
between Elayn and the RFK assassination.
It could even be a link to something much bigger
than Elayn and Sirhan.
(dramatic music) (words beeping)
At the time of the assassination,
the CIA is conducting illegal human experimentation
called MK-Ultra.
- The CIA began doing a lot of odd and nefarious experiments
trying to see if they could control people.
And so the CIA by the 1960s had gotten universities involved
in helping them with research, finding them subjects,
people to be hypnotized or drugged.
They actually took people off the street to do this.
Theoretically, they would wanna use this
to infiltrate other countries,
but there's talk that the CIA was using this
to create robot assassins.
- The Manuchurian Candidate theory
from the movie by the same name
is a theory that says a person can be programmed
to become an assassin and never even know that they did it.
(gun banging)
(dramatic music)
- Sirhan would've been a perfect candidate for MK-Ultra.
He's an impressionable young man
and it's possible that he's suffering from a brain injury.
Two years earlier, he'd fallen from a horse.
And who better to draw him into the program
than a pretty young woman.
- Elayn Neal might have been a perfect person
to recruit into this operation.
She's home alone.
She's young and impressionable.
Elayn's family thought
that maybe this would explain her odd behavior
after the assassination where she would disappear
for long periods of time.
- When the woman in the polka dot dress
whispered in his ear, that could have been
what triggered Sirhan's assassination programming.
- Sirhan had a totally glassed-over look on his face
like he wasn't totally in control of his mind.
That's something very unusual that are clues
to what might or might not be happening here.
- The question is, where's the evidence
that Sirhan was part of this mind control program?
His defense team wants answers.
- [Laurence] In 2008, with the mind control theory
gaining interest, Sirhan's lawyers arrange for him
to undergo a new psychological evaluation.
- Harvard Medical School professor Dan Brown,
a forensic psychiatrist,
is one of the world's leading experts on hypnosis,
and he spent more than 120 hours with Sirhan Sirhan.
- Dan Brown discovered that Sirhan
is about the most easy person in the world to hypnotize.
Brown's conclusion was that Sirhan
had been put under hypnosis.
He thinks he's an innocent man.
- [Laurence] But even if it is possible
that Sirhan was under some kind of CIA control,
what could possibly be the reason why?
- Leading up to this assassination,
there are many people in the CIA
who have it out for Robert Kennedy.
- Bobby Kennedy has made quite a few enemies in the CIA,
starting with his time as attorney general.
He doesn't believe that the CIA should be doing
some of the things they're doing around the world,
that they're abusing their power.
- Kennedy is upset that the CIA
is attempting to assassinate Fidel Castro in Cuba.
Kennedy even wonders if the CIA had something to do
with the assassination of his brother.
- Within the intelligence community,
there certainly is concern about Bobby Kennedy
and his potential rise to power.
The only thing worse than Bobby Kennedy as attorney general
would be Bobby Kennedy as president of the United States.
- As president, Robert Kennedy would be privy
to all of the CIA's secrets.
In fact, he could force them to shut down operations
and perhaps even shake up the entire agency.
- If Sirhan was really programmed to murder,
then his defense team argues he deserves a lighter sentence.
- [Laurence] In a 2011 hearing,
Sirhan's lawyers take a new tack.
- Sirhan's lawyers accused the CIA
of making him an unwitting foil
for their operation to kill Kennedy.
- The magistrate, however, rejects this theory.
He says there's inference,
but there's no actual proof of what happened.
(dramatic music)
But Robert Kennedy still has enemies,
not enemies just in the CIA,
but enemies who are willing to kill,
especially people who cross them.
- ...attorney's in no position to override-
- [Laurence] Before becoming attorney general
under his brother,
Robert Kennedy first makes a name for himself
as general counsel for a Senate committee
going after organized crime in the late 1950s.
- As the Senate committee's top lawyer,
Robert Kennedy personally questioned
the witnesses pretty aggressively,
and these hearings were televised.
- Kennedy put himself in the crosshairs
of some of the most merciless men in the United States.
And some people wonder,
did these men finally get their revenge?
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- One of Kennedy's targets is Sam Momo Giancana.
He's the mob boss in Chicago.
- Giancana is known for being particularly merciless,
sometimes even hanging his victims by meat hooks.
And Robert Kennedy on national television
accuses him of murder to his face.
- Giancana responds by pleading the fifth
with a sinister smile.
- And this infuriates Giancana.
- When Robert Kennedy becomes attorney general
targeting those same Mafia guys
who he starts to eat for lunch and dinner, too.
Bobby Kennedy was the greatest crime fighter
this country has ever had.
- There's a member of the Giancana family
who has said that the Kennedys' attacks on the mob
were such that Giancana ordered a hit
on both John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy.
And the mob would certainly have the means
and the opportunity and the motive to kill Robert Kennedy.
(dramatic music)
- Perhaps Sirhan is just the patsy.
So a Mafia hit man can take the fatal shot at Kennedy
and escape while Sirhan is being ganged up by the crowd.
- [Laurence] Kennedy also makes an enemy of Jimmy Hoffa,
the powerful head of the Teamsters Union.
- Bobby was convinced that Jimmy Hoffa
had connections to organized crime,
and Bobby truly believed
that it was a conspiracy of organized evil.
- The two of them going up against each other,
I mean, it really was intense and they hated each other.
- And Hoffa finally snaps
and he says to Kennedy, "You're sick.
"That's what's the matter with you, you're sick."
- In September of 1962,
Jimmy Hoffa is on trial for extortion.
- Hoffa gets a hung verdict,
but he's still livid about all of this,
and people say that he wants
to fire bomb Bobby Kennedy's house.
- After Sirhan's arrest,
the organized crime theory is quickly dismissed.
Some say that the legal blowback from killing Kennedy
is something that the mob would want to avoid.
- Some say that organized crime may have been in cahoots
with the CIA, and it wouldn't have been the first time
that they had worked together on an assassination plot.
- But still in the end, there's no evidence showing
the Mafia was directly involved,
and Sirhan Sirhan himself has never brought it up.
(dramatic music)
- [Laurence] Whoever is responsible
for Robert Kennedy's death, one thing is certain.
That his assassination robbed America
of one of her greatest statesmen.
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- I think that one of the things
that we can admire about Bobby is that he had this awakening,
being committed to those who were poor,
to those who are not sharing in our democratic life,
and decided to try his best to get to know people
who are so different than him,
and I find that to be extremely inspirational.
And unfortunately,
that willingness to be close to people
is part of his demise.
- [Crowd] RFK! RFK!
- [Laurence] Today, more than five decades later,
only one person has been charged and convicted
in Robert Kennedy's assassination, Sirhan Sirhan.
- Sirhan Sirhan still sits in prison to this day.
He's exhausted all of his legal appeals,
yet he still comes up for parole
and he still insists
that he doesn't remember shooting Robert Kennedy.
(dramatic music)
- In August of 2021,
Sirhan appears before the parole board for the 16th time.
This time the board finds the 77-year-old Sirhan
no longer poses a threat to society.
They vote to release him on parole,
but the governor of California overrules the decision
and Sirhan returns to his prison cell.
His next parole hearing is in 2026.
I'm Laurence Fishburne.
Thank you for watching
"History's Greatest Mysteries."
(dramatic music)