Although it would have no binding power over the case, a positive finding could be used to push California authorities to reopen the case. Lawyers for Sirhan are currently using the theory that he was a hypnotized distraction for the actual killer of Kennedy in a pending appeal to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. To others, it’s reflective of the United States’ thirst for conspiracies, for a belief in a larger, more complex narrative to explain a cataclysmic tragedy, when a simple plotline will suffice. To some, including Sirhan’s current lawyers, Brown’s theory explains why a mild-mannered Palestinian immigrant with no criminal history suddenly showed up at a hotel and shot one of the United States’ leading political lights. Sirhan is one of the most hypnotizable individuals I have ever met, and the magnitude of his amnesia for actions under hypnosis is extreme.” Brown said he has spent another 60 hours with Sirhan in the years since his 2011 affidavit, further confirming his conclusions.īrown researched not only Sirhan’s background but also the details of the case, and wove together the CIA’s notorious “ MKUltra” mind-control experiments of the 1950s and 1960s the Mafia the famed “girl in the polka-dot dress” seen with Sirhan before the shooting and an unknown “Radio Man” who secretly directed Sirhan to write the incriminating “RFK must die!” statements in a notebook found in his bedroom.
#Youtube the fall guy professional
“I have written four textbooks on hypnosis,” Brown wrote, “and have hypnotized over 6,000 individuals over a 40-year professional career. Sirhan did not act under his own volition and knowledge at the time of the assassination and is not responsible for actions coerced and/or carried out by others.” He was, Brown said, a true “Manchurian Candidate,” hypno-programmed into carrying out a violent political act without knowing it. In a lengthy affidavit filed with Sirhan’s last appeal in 2011, Daniel P. (AP)īut the hypnosis angle gained momentum in recent years after Sirhan was examined for more than 60 hours by a Harvard Medical School professor with vast expertise in forensic psychiatry and hypnosis. After making a short speech, Kennedy was fatally shot in an adjacent pantry. Kennedy speaks to campaign workers at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968. The lawyers chose to use a diminished mental capacity defense instead. His defense team explored that angle before his trial, finding that he was easily hypnotized and could be induced to do things without knowing why, such as climb the bars of his cell. Sirhan’s behavior, combined with his consistent claim that he remembers everything about June 5, 1968, except the moment of the shooting, led some people to suspect that Sirhan was under hypnosis when he fired at Kennedy. “He appeared less upset to me than individuals arrested for a traffic violation.” William Jordan wrote in a report later that morning.
“I was impressed by Sirhan’s composure and relaxation,” Sgt. 22-caliber pistol out of Sirhan’s grip.Īt the police station, Sirhan was preternaturally calm, officers later said. But “in the middle of a hurricane of sound and feeling,” wrote one of those men, author George Plimpton, Sirhan “seemed peaceful.” Plimpton was struck by Sirhan’s “dark brown and enormously peaceful eyes.” A Los Angeles police officer who had rushed in recalled, “He had a blank, glassed-over look on his face - like he wasn’t in complete control of his mind.”Īt the same time, the short, slim Sirhan - 5 feet 5 inches, about 120 pounds - exerted superhuman strength as one man held his wrist to a steam table in the Ambassador Hotel pantry, firing off five or six more shots even as he was held around the neck, body and legs by other men, witnesses said. A group of men had tackled him, held him down and tried to wrest the gun out of his hands. Kennedy in Los Angeles, he behaved oddly. Even as Sirhan Sirhan was being captured, seconds after the shooting of Sen.