3 – It Is Alleged That There Was a Second Gun
According to this theory, there is eyewitness testimony of a second shooter. According to a Dr. Marcus McBroom, there was a man at the scene with a pistol partially concealed in his hand; this man apparently was running from the pantry. Evan Freed, a photographer, swore out an affidavit in 1992 that he had witnessed another gunman, not Sirhan, fire his weapon at the senator from behind. Sirhan was in front of Kennedy and no more than a few feet away from the victim.
The report of the coroner, Thomas Noguchi, makes for interesting reading. He wrote that Kennedy had been shot three times from behind at a steep upward angle. The powder burns suggest that the senator was shot from a distance of no more than a few inches. Sirhan never got that close. The apparent murder weapon, an Iverson .22 revolver contained a maximum of eight bullets. Two of the bullets were removed from Kennedy (another one had exited his chest), and five more from other people. Another bullet had grazed RFK and hit the ceiling but was never recovered.
According to the LAPD, one of the bullets ricocheted down from the ceiling and had hit some victims which means all eight bullets in the gun were accounted for. However, there were also bullet holes in the doorframe where the Kennedy party had entered the pantry. According to the author, Vincent Bugliosi, two police officers admitted seeing an additional bullet lodged in the wood of a door frame. Martin Patrusky, a waiter at the hotel, claimed that the officers told him they dug two bullets out of the center divider.
Photographers, and a carpenter who helped the police by removing the door frame for evidence, also claim to have either seen or been told about bullets being recovered. A pair of forensic audio specialists confirmed that there were more than eight gunshots fired (13 in fact) at the scene although other acoustic specialists dispute these findings. If more than eight shots were fired, and Sirhan did not get the chance to reload, was there a second gunman?