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CTKA formerly published Probe Magazine. Most of the articles on this site first appeared in Probe. We will occasionally add new articles as appropriate. 

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Sirhan and the RFK Assassination
Part I: The Grand Illusion, Section B

Wolfer's Second Gun

Wolfer claimed that he had fired eight test bullets from Sirhan’s weapon after the gun was recovered. One of the bullets was not recovered. Wolfer testified that he had given four of the remaining seven to the Grand Jury to examine, while retaining the three "better" bullets to compare against other victim bullets which had not at that point been recovered. The four that were given to the Grand Jury became Grand Jury item 5B. The three that remained, however, were stored in an evidence envelope that bore something troubling. The serial number of the gun indicated did not match that of the Sirhan gun. The Sirhan gun had a serial number of H53725. The test bullets evidence envelope, however, bore the serial number of H18602. Wolfer tried to pass this off as a simple mistake, claiming he had asked someone for the number for the Sirhan gun, and this was the number given to him. But this gun had belonged, according to the LAPD’s records, to a Jake Williams. It does not make sense that someone would look up the record of the Sirhan gun and come up with Jake William’s gun number by mistake. Wolfer claimed he stored these bullets in, depending on which version you want to believe, a plain envelope, a manila envelope, or a paper bindle. He claims that the bullets were stored in his desk drawer for some time, and that he recorded them later. If this is true, Wolfer’s actions showed a remarkable disdain for the necessity of retaining an impeccable chain of possession for important evidence in a highly visible case of political assassination.

There is, of course, another possible explanation. Wolfer had marked the envelope with the correct gun number, one that differed from the Sirhan gun. Wolfer had, after all, fired gun H18602 in relation to the Sirhan case. He admitted to using that gun to fire test shots to recreate stippling patterns in order to determine the distance of the gun from Kennedy. He also used the gun to conduct sound tests. Is it possible he fired bullets from that gun and put them in an evidence envelope instead of bullets fired from gun H53725? If that is the case, Wolfer’s statement at Sirhan’s 1969 trial that "no other gun in the world fired the evidence bullets" would indicate either that gun H18602 had been fired in the pantry(!), or that Wolfer’s comparisons were simply not credible on any point.

Wolfer claims that he was not in possession of the gun H18602 until June 10, 1968. However, this is contradicted by Wolfer’s own log. He claimed that he turned four test bullets and Sirhan’s gun over to the Grand Jury on June 7, 1968. (The serial number of the gun turned over to the Grand Jury was, inexplicably and quite contrary to policy, not recorded. The gun was tagged as Grand Jury Exhibit 7. To date, there is no Grand Jury tag on the "Sirhan" gun currently in evidence, nor is there any gun tagged Grand Jury Exhibit 7 in evidence.)

It was the absence of Sirhan’s gun, says Wolfer, that necessitated his using a second gun to perform the sound and powder pattern tests. Wolfer said, in a sworn deposition statement, that he conducted tests at Cal State Long Beach. But his log places the date of this event as June 8th, contradicting his assertion that he did not withdraw gun H18602 from the LAPD until June 10th.

Blehr questioned Wolfer during a 1971 deposition about the possibility of his having used any other gun for the Long Beach tests. The exchange went as follows:

Q: How many guns did you use, other than H18602, and the Sirhan gun 53725, in your testing for sound, muzzle distance, whatever?

A: I believe this was the only gun that we used.

Q: What test exactly, did you use?

A: For the sound test – I am sorry, but that is for the sound test and the muzzle distance test. Those are the only two tests.

Q: Those were the only two tests that you ran?

A: No, I am sorry. I did run a test down at Long Beach State on the cc. Those were the three tests that I recall here today.

Q: And this gun, H18602, was used for all those tests?

A: I believe it was, to the best of my recollection here today. I am not sure.

 

ABC, not ACB

The four Grand Jury test bullets, the three withheld test bullets, and the Kennedy neck bullet were ultimately stored in evidence envelopes labeled respectively "A", "B", and "C". Envelopes are usually numbered in a logical sequence, and any reasonable person would expect that envelopes marked A, B and C would have been created and filled in a chronological order. But this presents a problem for those striving to believe Wolfer. Envelope A (the A is partially but recognizably visible), bearing the gun serial number of H53725, was dated June 5th. Envelope C is dated June 6, 1968. One would then logically expect envelope B to have been prepared sometime on the 5th or 6th, certainly not on, say the 10th. Envelope B is dated June 6th, which certainly makes sense.

But inexplicably, Envelope B bears the gun number H18602.

This presents a serious problem for those wishing to believe Wolfer. He claims he didn’t have any contact with gun H18602 until June 10th. Yet envelope B, bearing that number, is dated June 6. We know the date could not have been in error, at least not for a later date, as the following envelope, marked C, was created on June 6th. In other words, Wolfer had to have had gun H18602 as early as June 6th, contradicting his own sworn assertions, and casting doubt on his other sworn assertions.

It is easier to believe that Wolfer is wrong (or even lying) than to believe that on June 6th, someone had a premonition of the number of a gun that would not enter the case until four days later!

There is no simple excuse for the mishandling of evidence in such a case. The notion that Wolfer was simply sloppy just does not hold water. What criminalist worth his salt would not only make such mistakes, but go out of his way to leave no written or photographic record of the work he had done? Wolfer claimed to have performed all sorts of examinations and tests. But there are no extant records to support any of his assertions. In a case sure to receive extraordinary scrutiny, it is beyond belief that Wolfer just forgot to record his examinations, and suggests instead that perhaps his examinations were not producing the desired findings.

In Shadow Play, Klaber and Melanson quote from Sir Gerald Burrard’s book The Identification of Firearms and Forensic Ballistics about the caution that should be accorded any criminalist’s unsupported claims:

Mere assertions by some investigator, no matter how great his reputation as an expert, should be regarded with extreme caution.... The most ridiculous claims have been put forward on behalf of the comparison microscope, and there is a danger that the mere fact of its possession may endow a witness with all sorts of imaginary skill and knowledge, at least in the eyes of the jury and public.... If, therefore, the evidence is unsupported by photographs which clearly tell their own story, that evidence should be regarded with suspicion.27

As we saw in the Kirschke case, Wolfer certainly understood the importance of photographic comparisons, blowing up a huge, but ultimately misleading (some would say dishonest) representation of a comparison, designed to lead the jury to the conclusion of guilt. Wolfer apparently realized that sooner or later his word would not be enough. His worst fears came to pass in 1974, when County Supervisor Baxter Ward held public hearings to present evidence that shattered Wolfer’s presentation of the case.

Baxter Ward's 1974 Hearings

In 1974, Los Angeles County Supervisor Baxter Ward presented to the public a hearing on evidence from the Sirhan trial. By that time, Ted Charach with his film The Second Gun and William Harper with his 1970 findings had raised the specter of a second gun having been fired in the pantry that night. Ward conducted hearings that included the testimony of two highly respected ballistics experts: famous New York criminalistics professor Herbert Leon MacDonnell and California state crime lab veteran Lowell Bradford.

In his original 1970 affidavit, Harper had stated that he could not match either of the two most intact bullets, the Kennedy neck bullet (Exhibit 47), and the Weisel bullet (Exhibit 54) to each other, casting doubt on whether they had been fired from the same gun. MacDonnell had signed an affidavit in 1973 that presented the following as his professional conclusions:

1) The bullet removed from the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, exhibit #47, and the bullet removed from Mr. Weisel, exhibit #54, could not have been fired from the same weapon.

2) The bullet removed from the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, exhibit #47, was not fired from the Iver Johnson .22 Cadet #H53725, the revolver reportedly taken from Sirhan.

In 1974, MacDonnell was questioned about his findings, as was Bradford. Bradford explained to Ward at the hearings the significance of a problem raised by dissimilar cannelures.

Bradford: It appeared from these photographs [the photographs of the bullets taken by criminalist Harper] that there was one cannelure of the knurled type, and let me stop for just a moment and explain cannelures. A cannelure is defined as any circumferential groove around a bullet or cartridge case, and that refers then not only to the knurled types of grooves which are placed there by the manufacturer as you depicted in your earlier sketches, but it also includes the groove which is placed there for the purpose of receiving a crimp by the cartridge case – and I’ll limit myself to the knurl cannelures now....And I noticed that the photograph No. 47 portrays an image which appears to be that of one of these knurled cannelures, whereas 54 has an image which appears to portray two.

In addition to this evidence, Bradford went on to present his conclusions, or lack thereof, regarding matching the bullets to each other:

I could find no evidence of any specific identification marks of the type which would be necessary to identify one bullet as having been fired from the same weapon as the other.

The following exchange summarizes MacDonnell’s findings regarding these two bullets:

MacDonnell: The only two that I have really had an opportunity to compare are 47 and 54, and I could not find sufficient agreement in individual characteristics to consider it a positive identification.

Ward: In the layman’s consideration or evaluation, of what you’ve just said, are you suggesting then that the bullets were not fired from the same gun?

MacDonnell: I’m suggesting that they were not fired on the same gun, based upon the photographic evidence....I could not positively identify them as being fired in the same weapon.

MacDonnell, like Bradford, also noticed the differing number of cannelures. Ward and MacDonnell shared the following exchange on this matter:

Ward: To go back, the cannelures between 47 and 54 are different in number?

MacDonnell: That is correct.

Ward: Would that suggest they are from a different manufacturer?

MacDonnell: Yes.

Ward: Trial testimony, as I recall, in the Sirhan case indicated that all of the bullets used in the Sirhan gun came from the same manufacturer and also from the same batch of lead development. If you state that the cannelures are numbered differently, would this rule out the possibility of their being from the same manufacturer and same batch of lead?

MacDonnell: For all practical purposes, yes. However, I must qualify that by saying that it is reasonably common for the manufacturer to purchase projectiles from another manufacturer, but it is extremely unlikely that if, for example, Omark Industries did in fact purchase a single-caliber projectile from Federal, that just one or two in the Sirhan revolver happens to be the one that hit Kennedy, and the other ones are consistent with their normal manufacture. It is an astronomical improbability, but it is a probability.

Ward’s motives in presenting these hearings was to urge a reexamination of the ballistic evidence by a panel of experts. Such proposals had been made in the past, but with the momentum gained by such strong statements from respected experts, and with Allard Lowenstein’s persistent efforts, it became necessary to create just such a panel, which could either conclusively refute or support the findings to date. Dr. Robert J. Joling, then President of the American Academy of Forensic Science, called for the same, stating that "Only an independent, non-governmentally controlled body of experts can really be relied upon to let the arrows of truth come to rest wherever that may be."

The efforts of Ward et al. in conjunction with a suit filed by victim Paul Schrade finally came to fruition in September of 1975, when Superior Court presiding Judge Robert A. Wenke formally ordered a retesting of the firearms evidence.

From the start, there was something odd at work with this panel. Joling’s warnings concerning the importance of finding an impartial panel apparently went unheeded. One of the experts appointed, Alfred Biasotti of the state crime lab, had been on record as backing Wolfer’s shenanigans in the Jack Kirschke case. Considering the panel was convened specifically to reexamine Wolfer’s evidence in the Kennedy case, Biasotti’s past record implied a conflict of interest. Attorney General Younger, the one who had claimed that the important distance problem between the gun and Kennedy was nothing more than a minor "discrepancy," picked another expert whose objectivity left something to be desired: Courtland Cunningham of the FBI. Cunningham had been one of the FBI men involved in the investigation of the John Kennedy assassination evidence. In that case, Cunningham tried to explain away the negative results of a paraffin test on Oswald’s cheek. While false positives could be expected, false negatives seemed odd. Cunningham created a test condition that produced false negatives; however, to do so, he used a scenario where the gun was cleaned between shots and handed to the shooter. Cunningham failed to explain how this situation approximated Oswald’s "loner" act. 28

Beyond the conflict of interest issues, even more serious problems were at hand. In the original court order, Wenke had asked the panel to examine not just the bullets, but the shell casings as well. Yet when the order was conveyed to the panel, the reference to shell casings had been curiously, and without explanation, deleted.

This becomes a significant point because there has always been a problem surrounding the shell casings. SUS leader and chronicler Robert Houghton wrote about the importance of shell casings, describing them as:

used brass, each branded with the indentation mark of the firing pin, a brand as unique and infallible in matching spent shells to the guns which fired them as fingerprints are in identifying people.29

How could such "infallible" evidence have been omitted in the new version of Wenke’s court order? And was this omission a mistake, or a deliberate act?

Lending credibility to the notion that the deletion of the reference to the shells was deliberate was the fact that Wolfer was given over 489 expended shell casings from the range where Sirhan allegedly spent June 4th, 1968, firing his gun. Wolfer’s comment at the bottom of this evidence report, dated 7/8/68, reads: "None of the above shells were fired in the Iver Johnson 22 caliber revolver H53725". This was apparently such a serious problem that a week later, Sgt. McGann of the LAPD brought 37,815 more shell casings from the range into evidence. The comment on this report reads: "I was unable to find any shell casings which were fired from the weapon taken from arrestee Sirhan Sirhan (Iver Johnson, 22 caliber revolver #H-53725)."

In the daily log of the Commander of Detectives for the Bureau of Investigations, the August 27, 1968 entry displays concern at this failure:

One hole that has been overlooked that should be checked was discovered in this reading. The FBI, within a day or two after the Kennedy assassination, sent agents to the Pistol Range in San Gabriel and they gathered some 40,000 shell casings which were forwarded back to the FBI Crime Lab. They threw up their hands, and at our request, the brass was sent back to us. Wolfer reports he examined all of these casings and could not connect any of them to Sirhan’s gun. This means that if Sirhan shot several hundred rounds at the San Gabriel range, either he took the brass with him or someone else picked it up. Neither of these conclusions appears at this time to make sense. More investigation is needed. There is a possibility that Wolfer really did not examine all of this brass (this should be checked) or that the FBI still has brass in Washington (this should be checked.) [Emphasis added.]

Apparently this was checked, and SUS continued to come up empty, for Wolfer’s failure to match any shells to the gun is reported in a footnote in Houghton’s 1970 book Special Unit Senator.30

Despite the presence of a few experts with questionable independence, their findings were in the end, at best, inconclusive, and as supportive to the notion that the bullets from the victims were not fired from the Sirhan gun as to the notion that they were. While several of the experts said it was their belief that the bullets did indeed come from the Sirhan gun, not one of them was willing to say the evidence proved such.

One thing the panel uncovered, however, was significant. Wolfer misrepresented to the Panel surprise evidence in the form of a long hidden photograph that became the panel’s Special Exhibit 10. And for all the panel found regarding this exhibit, the truth is worse yet. For in this little item lay the heart of the case against Sirhan. And it contained a two-tiered deception.

Notes

1. Robert A. Houghton with Theodore Taylor, Special Unit Senator (New York: Random House, 1970), p. 42

2. Robert Morrow, The Senator Must Die (Santa Monica: Roundtable Publishing, Inc., 1988), p. 279. Morrow was sued by a person he claims in this book was the real killer, using a special camera that was rigged to fire bullets (Morrow is himself an ex-CIA operative who claims to have known of such weapons). Morrow lost his suit. I viewed footage of the Ambassador from that night and found that Morrow’s suspect did not even enter the pantry at the time of the shooting, but was clearly visible on the stage the Senator had left, with camera still in hand. As a result of this lawsuit, the judgment required Morrow to destroy all remaining copies of this book. I am including the quote here on the assumption that Morrow has accurately represented Yaro’s comments to him in the transcript included in his book, and primarily because Yaro’s statements correspond to the record of that of other witnesses at this moment.

3. Paul Schrade in a 1975 petition to the Superior Court of California.

4. Philip Melanson, The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination (New York: SPI Books, 1994) p. 55.

5. This letter, dated November 2, 1977, appears on the last microfilm reel of the SUS files from the California State Archives (SUS hereafter.) I have yet to find any official response in any of the files I have viewed. Philip Melanson discovered this letter and wrote about it The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination (pp. 46-47). He pursued this by writing the FBI in 1985. He received a response from Assistant Director William M. Baker, who stated, "Neither the photographic log nor the photographs were ever purported to be a ballistics report," an interesting non-denial of the evidence.

6. Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1993), p. 350.

7. Turner and Christian, p. 178, citing LAPD Deputy Chief Daryl Gates in an August 22, 1975 NBC network interview.

8. From Ted Charach’s video, The Second Gun.

9. LAPD Interview of Sandy Serrano, 4:00 a.m., June 5, 1968, p. 12. On p. 15 she explains that by "boracho" she didn’t mean he was drunk, but that he "looked messy" and "he looked like he didn’t belong there."

10. LAPD Interview of Sandy Serrano, 2:35 a.m., June 5, 1968, p. 27.

11. Dan Moldea, The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995), p. 40.

12. APB from SUS files. This one was dated 6/5/68, and was not cancelled until 6/21/68.

13. Telephone and Radio Transmissions Log (H-XIII), Radio transmission, reel 6 from the California State Archives SUS Files Microfilm Collection (SUS hereafter). The man who knocked over the people while running out of the room was Michael Wayne, a curious figure to be discussed in the second half of this article (to follow in the next issue of Probe).

14. Houghton, p. 32.

15. Melanson, The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination, p. 33.

16. Turner and Christian, Copy of Patrusky’s signed statement, p. 350.

17. Klaber and Melanson, Shadow Play: The Murder of Robert F. Kennedy, the Trial of Sirhan Sirhan, and the Failure of American Justice (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997, p. 96.

18. The New York Times (2/15/69), p. 12.

19. Klaber and Melanson, p. 96.

20. LAPD Interview of Richard Aubrey, June 5, 1968, p. 16.

21. Melanson, p. 33.

22. Klaber and Melanson, p. 96.

23. LAPD case summary, p. 25.

24. As a side note to those who follow the John Kennedy assassination, it’s interesting to find the reappearance of Pierre Finck, one of the autopsists in the John Kennedy assassination, as well as Russell Fisher. Fisher was the Maryland Coroner who made the preposterous claim that a bound, gagged, and weighted man found in the ocean was really a suicide victim, the sensitively positioned CIA officer William Paisley. Fisher’s improbable verdict of suicide prevented what would have led to an uncomfortable examination that could have embarrassed the CIA. Fisher, in 1968, was part of the Clark Panel, a panel convened to examine the autopsy photographs from the John Kennedy assassination. The Clark panel had suspicious origins, and was timed to discredit the growing voices critical of the Warren Report, as well as the investigation of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. Both Finck and Fisher provided advice and assistance in the autopsy of Robert Kennedy.

25. Klaber and Melanson, p. 94.

26. New York Post?5/21/75.

27. Klaber and Melanson, p. 102, citing Sir Gerald Burrard, The Identification of Firearms and Forensic Ballistics (New York: A.S. Barnes, 1962), pp. 154-155.

28. Warren Commission Hearings, Vol. III, p. 494.

29. Houghton, p. 266.

30. Houghton, p. 266.

31. Jack Gallivan’s Testimony, Sirhan Trial Transcript, p. 3351.

32. Bill Barry’s Testimony, Sirhan Trial Transcript, p. 3451.

33. Ibid.

34. Morrow, p. 279. No fingerprints of any kind were recovered from the gun, despite it having been held by Sirhan, Grier, Johnson, Barry, and others at the shooting range earlier that day.

35. Roosevelt Grier’s Testimony, Sirhan Trial Transcript, p. 3310.

36. Mangan’s record of a conversation she had with Rafer Johnson during a chance meeting. He told her he had the gun number, and gave her his unlisted number, saying if she called he would read to her the number. Mangan called many times after that, but Rafer’s mother always answered, and always told her he was not available, but that she would take a message.

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