A Lie Too Big to Fail

by Lisa Pease

  Houghton’s book presented another problem for the LAPD as well. While the LAPD refused to release their files to the public, Houghton had already shared the Special Unit Senator files with one particular member of the public: his co-author Theodore Taylor.

  Taylor told Melanson he was also shocked by what was shared with him. Taylor told Melanson, “I had access to some papers that I shouldn’t have had access to.” When Melanson asked what he meant, Taylor explained:

  They were FBI … Central Intelligence. [Houghton] said, “For Chrissakes, you know, you’re looking at ’em and I’ll give ’em to you for 48 hours and then you get ’em back up here [Parker Center] and don’t copy anything down from ’em. … He just turned over everything he had.269

  Allowing Taylor, a civilian, to see and profit from the LAPD’s confidential files eventually undermined the LAPD’s claim that the files must be kept secret.

  Ironically, it was Houghton’s attempt to close the case that provided a tiny piece of evidence that cracked the case wide open, because it launched Bill Harper, the respected Pasadena criminalist who tried to warn Cooper not to trust Wolfer, into the case.

  Harper, who was then 69 years old and had testified in more than three hundred cases, had a general interest in the case from a historical perspective. But it was a note in Houghton’s book about a 12mm fragment recovered during Kennedy’s autopsy that specifically piqued his interest:

  I had some vague recollection at that time that Senator Kennedy had been shot with a twenty-two. Twelve millimeters is quite a lot larger than a [.22’s gun barrel]. So this sort of fascinated me ….”270

  The X-ray section of the autopsy report describes this fragment as follows:

  The largest metallic fragment is situated in the petrous ridge and at about the arcuate eminence. This measures 12 mm in transverse dimension, 7 mm in vertical dimension, and approximately 12 mm in anteroposterior dimension.

  In other words, this fragment measured 12x7x12 mm. Twelve millimeters is roughly .47 inches, suggesting a .47 caliber gun, not a .22 like Sirhan’s, had fired a bullet into Kennedy’s brain. A .22 gun has a barrel about 5.6 millimeters in diameter. How then could such a large piece fit through it?

  This information, coupled with Harper’s knowledge of how untrustworthy Wolfer was, caused Harper in 1970 to take a special camera capable of photographing the bullets in microscopic detail to the Los Angeles County Clerk’s office. Harper was allowed to examine and photograph the bullets because Sirhan’s attorney at that time gave him permission, even though Harper was not acting on behalf of Sirhan’s defense team but on behalf of his own curiosity.

  Harper found the “fragment,” according to a report by Dave Smith (Los Angeles Times, August 16, 1971), was actually a “flattened .22 bullet.”271 If that were true, however, that may well have been a ninth bullet—one more than Sirhan’s gun could hold. One bullet had already exploded into at least 43 fragments in Kennedy’s head. If this had been only a bullet fragment, Harper had already stated that was too large to have come from a .22 caliber gun. So it likely was a flattened bullet.

  Recall how Cooper appeared to have understood the significance of this at the trial, and how Fitts had to lead Wolfer into calling this not a bullet, as Wolfer initially had, but “fragment bullets” And why did Fitts say “fragment bullets” and not “bullet fragments”? Perhaps because there really had been bullets plural, not just fragments, in Kennedy’s head, and Fitts knew it, causing his Freudian slip.

  As strange as that charge may seem, there is compelling evidence that two bullets entered Kennedy’s head. The autopsy report indicates that there were two bullet tracks in Robert Kennedy’s head diverging from one entry point:

  There are two bullet tracks. One extends slightly anterior to the vertical dimension (15 degrees). The second extends 30 degrees posterior to the vertical dimension, so that the two tracks diverge by 45 degrees.

  In the frontal projection, both tracks extend superiorly toward the vertex at an angle of 30 degrees to the horizontal.272

  All the bullets or fragments that were removed from Kennedy’s head were removed during surgery, while Kennedy was still alive, so the autopsy report did not comment on what was removed, but only what remained: two tracks in the head that diverged by 45 degrees.

  Whatever was initially removed from Kennedy’s head was originally entered into the LAPD evidence log as items 24 and 25. Yet on the evidence log page, these items appear after item 23 as items 26 and 27. Entries 13–23 on this page were entered by Officer J.A. Roach. Entries 26 and 27, however, were entered by Sergeant Dudley Varney, per a note on the back of this page. Two other items not related to the bullets were logged on a separate sheet as items 24 and 25. See Figure 2 below.

  Figure 2: A portion of the LAPD evidence log showing items entered out of sequence by a different person on the same sheet

  Source: Scan of the LAPD evidence log page from the California State Archives

  Due to the odd change of writing in a few places in the evidence log, I asked an archivist at the California State Archives to inspect the original document to tell me whether the pages were originals or copies, whether pen or pencil had been used, and if some sort of substance had whited out the initial entries. She sent me clear scans of the requested pages and wrote she believed this sheet was not a copy, that there was no white-out of any kind, and that the writing appeared to have been done in pencil, “although this is inconclusive.” That would make sense, because in the photograph of the original document sent to me (Figure 1), you can see the faint outline of what looks be a “24” behind entry 26, as if someone had started to erase it but then just written over it instead. And despite the date on the log being June 5, note that the first number in the log appears to have originally been “138,” but was changed to “13,” indicating this page was either written out of order or possibly remade at some later date, either of which would be a violation of the chain of evidence.

  There’s another problem here. Given that the item numbers of #24 and #25 had been issued by the LAPD Property division and were already written onto the glass vials containing the fragments and the one acknowledged head bullet, why were those item numbers changed in the log? Why weren’t the items eventually logged as 24 and 25 renumbered instead? Those were on a page by themselves and could more easily have been renumbered. Could there be something in the original items 24 and 25 that necessitated a little obfuscation of that evidence? Bullet fragments needed no obfuscation, suggesting something else may have been originally logged.

  And why were two vials used for the bullet fragments instead of one? In all other cases, the fragments from others, such as Paul Schrade, had been entered as a single evidence item, not as two evidence items. Why were two containers used for the fragments of one tiny .22 bullet? Perhaps because originally each had contained a bullet?

  Amazing, Wolfer’s log supports the hypothesis that two bullets, not one, were found initially. In two successive places in his log, Wolfer wrote of the “bullets” plural, not “bullet fragments,” from Kennedy’s head. Wolfer made clear distinctions between bullets and fragments elsewhere in his records. And the bullet recovered from Kennedy’s neck is not confused with these, as Wolfer made clear distinctions between the bullet from the neck and the “bullets” from the head. Consider, then, these entries excerpted from Wolfer’s log, and note how the “bullets” became a “bullet” after Wolfer ran ballistics tests and cleaned the “fatal bullets”:

  June 13, 1968 - Thursday

  9:30 A.M.

  —

  Received Items #24 and #25, bullets from Kennedy’s head (Lodola, Patchett and MacArthur)

  12:30 P.M.

  —

  Coroner’s office

  June 14, 1968 - Friday

  8:00 A.M.

  —

  Ballistics tests and clean fatal bullets.

  1:00 P.M.

  —

  Photos taken in color of Kennedy’s head bullet by Wats
on.

  June 17, 1968 – Monday

  8:00 A.M.

  —

  Bullet comparison Kennedy’s head.

  12:00 A.M.

  —

  Cartridge study - CCI Kennedy’s bullet weight.

  Making these entries even more peculiar was the fact that items 24 and 25 had been removed from Kennedy’s head before Kennedy died, and on June 5. The neck bullet was not deemed fatal, and given its precarious location in the spine at the back of his neck, was left in place until Kennedy’s death and not removed until the autopsy on June 6. So why did it take until June 13 for the “bullets from Kennedy’s head” to reach Wolfer? Where did they go in the interim?

  An entry in the evidence log after item 37 in the evidence log appears to answer that question:

  Items 26-34 inclusive were released to F.B.I. Special Agent E. Rhoad Richards Jr. Credential #4560 on 6-5-68 3:00pm by Sgt. W. E. Brandt # 10004.

  Apparently the two “bullets” went to the FBI before being returned to the detectives at Rampart, who then took the “fatal bullets” to Wolfer. Someone must have realized that two bullets was one bullet too many for Sirhan to have fired, which would explain why the flattened bullet became a “fragment” in the record and the second “bullet” was replaced with fragments.

  Similarly, Wolfer seemed to have forgotten to lie about this at the trial, referring to the 12mm “fragment” as a “bullet,” a point on which Fitts had to correct Wolfer by suggesting Wolfer must have meant “fragment bullets.”

  This would also explain why Cooper had tried so hard to keep the large blow-up of this exhibit from the jury. He claimed it would be prejudicial, but he may also have believed that someone on the jury might have recognized that as a flattened bullet rather than a fragment and wondered about where the other fragments then came from. A bullet doesn’t both shatter and flatten. If it shatters, then fragments of the bullets flatten, not the original bullet. If one of the “fragments” was a flattened bullet, the other fragments must have come from a second bullet in the head.

  Earlier in this book I mentioned that there could be an innocent explanation for some of the cover-up. But in this instance, it seems clear Wolfer, at least, was aware that two “bullets” was one bullet too many than could be accounted for by Sirhan’s gun, because after receiving the “bullets” from “Lodola, Patchett and MacArthur,” at 9:30 A.M., Wolfer’s next entry in his log was a visit to the coroner’s office at 12:30 P.M. He had already finished his muzzle distance tests with Noguchi two days earlier. Why did he need another trip? Was he curious whether Noguchi had figured out that two bullets must have entered the brain?

  Satisfied perhaps that Noguchi hadn’t, Wolfer then ran ballistics tests, perhaps to determine which bullet to keep and which to lose, after which the “bullets” become a single “bullet” that was then photographed in color. Then Wolfer made a “bullet comparison,” meaning a comparison under a microscope between the Kennedy head bullet and a test bullet. If there had been a match, you can be certain that photo would have been taken and used at the trial. That no such photo now exists strongly suggests Wolfer couldn’t match the bullet—perhaps either bullet—to Sirhan’s gun.

  Next, Wolfer did something related to the bullet’s weight. The sum total weight of fragments and the flattened bullet or bullet fragment could not be allowed to exceed the total weight of a single bullet. Was Wolfer here tying up loose ends? The 44 fragments the autopsy report noted are not all in evidence. Many of them were not retrieved from the brain. But might Wolfer have been concerned that the retrieved fragments alone collectively might have exceeded the weight of a single bullet?

  Based on the totality of the evidence, it appears two bullets, not one, entered Kennedy’s brain from the same near-contact entry point. Bang-bang. That would explain everything that is—and isn’t—in Wolfer’s records. That would explain why the evidence was stored in two glass vials rather than one. That would explain why the log entries were obfuscated. That would also explain why the evidence went to the FBI. The FBI could hardly have been concerned about bullet fragments. But they would have been very interested in bullets, plural, removed from Kennedy’s head. But they would have kept this secret, for reasons that will be clear by the end of this book.

  In a footnote to this obfuscation, the items eventually booked as 24 and 25 are listed as photographs and negatives provided to the LAPD by George Ross Clayton. But when Scott Enyart, who, as a teenager, had taken pictures in the pantry during the shooting, took the LAPD to court years later to recover his photos, the LAPD said they had found that Clayton’s photos were really Enyart’s photos, and that one side of the tag had listed Clayton and the other side had listed Enyart.

  Although this sounds like a convenient way to have “found” Enyart’s photos, there may be some truth to this. In a report by Officer C. Craig, he claimed George Clayton offered his photos to the LAPD and was then transported with the other witnesses to the Rampart Station to be interviewed. But Clayton wasn’t interviewed by the LAPD until October of that year. Enyart was interviewed immediately after the assassination, so maybe the tag really did have both names on it at some point. Likely Craig had met both and had mistakenly merged their two stories into one in his mind, not unlike what witnesses may have done after encountering evidence of multiple shooters, as you will see in the next couple of chapters.273

  These photos were purportedly stolen from a courier’s car at a gas stop on the way between the California State Archives in Sacramento to the courthouse where Enyart’s case was in session in Los Angeles. Given that nothing else from the car was stolen, we have to ask who wanted to keep Enyart from receiving these photos, and what the photos may have shown that was worth pilfering in an elaborate operation.274

  It wouldn’t be the first time evidence was sabotaged. Less than two months after the assassination, the LAPD took the extraordinary step of burning some 2,400 photos from the case in Los Angeles County General’s medical-waste incinerator.275 Why destroy thousands of photos in an incinerator if there was nothing to hide? The LAPD kept hundreds of innocuous crowd scene photos that showed no girl in a polka dot dress and no suspicious activities or individuals. Why were those photos preserved? Perhaps because those photos had nothing in them that warranted their destruction?

  The fragment or flattened bullet that initially launched Harper on his private investigation into the Robert Kennedy assassination soon became the least of the anomalies Harper found in the ballistics evidence.

  Harper was the first to note that the test bullets entered into evidence at the trial, which Wolfer swore had come from the gun that shot Kennedy, had been placed in an envelope that bore a wholly different gun number: H18602. The Sirhan gun was H53725. Harper realized that if Wolfer’s testimony at the trial had been accurate, if the bullets in that envelope truly had matched the gun used in the pantry “and no other,” then the shots that killed Kennedy came from a gun that had no connection to Sirhan whatsoever.

  The gun H18602 had been in the possession of the LAPD at the time of the shooting. Either Wolfer had sworn, accurately, that a gun from the LAPD’s lockers killed Kennedy, or Wolfer had committed perjury on the stand by connecting bullets from a different gun to Sirhan, or—and this is Wolfer’s explanation—he had sealed and dated the envelope but neglected to add the gun number until weeks later, when he claimed he asked someone for the number of the Sirhan gun and was given the wrong gun number.

  But Wolfer’s explanation makes little sense, as there are literally hundreds of SUS records with the correct gun number (H53725) and none, save this gun envelope and a gun destruction receipt, with the incorrect number (H18602) on it. It’s not only possible but vastly more plausible that the reason the number H18602 is on that envelope is because that was, in fact, the actual gun number of the gun from which those “test” bullets were fired.

  Harper found numerous other problems with Wolfer’s evidence. Harper closely examined the evidence envelope in which
Noguchi had placed the bullet from Kennedy’s neck. On the envelope, Noguchi had indicated that the bullet within had five grooves. But when Harper examined the neck bullet in evidence, he found six grooves. Had the bullets been switched? Harper was hesitant to draw such a conclusion without more investigation, but he felt the issue deserved an explanation “because bullets don’t grow grooves.”276 (At a hearing in 1974, Noguchi claimed he had examined the bullet too hastily, and when he looked at what he believed to be the same bullet years later, he, too, found six grooves on it. It’s not clear, however, how closely Noguchi examined the bullet presented in court. He said he saw something reasonably similar to his markings on the bullet.)

  Harper also found “no individual characteristics establishing that Exhibit 47 [the Kennedy neck bullet] and Exhibit 54 [the Goldstein bullet] had been fired from the same gun.” Harper also noted there was an issue with the rifling angle.

  In fact, my examinations disclosed that bullet Exhibit 47 had a rifling angle [of] approximately 23 minutes (14%) greater than the rifling angle of bullet Exhibit 54. It is, therefore, my opinion that bullets 47 and 54 could not have been fired from the same gun.