State Release of Files Shows RFK Evidence Destroyed

A polka dot dress, bullets taken from victims and a hand-scrawled notation that “RFK must die,” were among pieces of evidence put on display today as state officials opened police records on the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

But the state’s chief archivist said the release of documents is unlikely to answer the numerous questions surrounding the 1968 assassination, noting that more than 2,400 photographs and other evidence in the Los Angeles Police Department’s files were destroyed nearly 20 years ago.

“I’ve never seen a file quite this large,” said archivist John Burns. “This is a very unusual murder file (but) I’m not absolutely satisfied that any questions are answered.”

Evidence Destroyed

He said his biggest surprise was the amount of evidence which was destroyed, including the photographs, the subjects of which are unknown.

“What I didn’t know, and I’m told others didn’t know, was that so much evidence was destroyed.” Burns declined to state any conclusion saying he had not had enough time to examine all the evidence, which he predicted will occupy researchers for years to come.

“It has been almost 20 years since that awful night at the Ambassador (Hotel), a night which ended one life and changed so many others,” Secretary of State March Fong Eu told a crowded news conference as she formally ordered the materials to be made public.

‘A Day to Reflect’

The evidence included the murder weapon, packed in a small box, which Eu held aloft for reporters.

“For those of us who lived through that tumultuous year, the year 1968, a year filled with so much surprise, shock, and tragedy, so much violence, so much grief . . . today will be a day to reflect, a day to remember,” she added.

The exhibits mounted on boards and in glass cases were samples of the voluminous files examined by state archivists, placed on display to illustrate key points in the investigation as authorities prepared to formally release the materials.

Among the disputed facts verified by the documents was an admission by police that they destroyed key evidence in the case, including ceiling tiles, a door jamb and thousands of photographs taken in the Ambassador Hotel kitchen where Kennedy was shot on June 5, 1968.

2,410 Photos Burned

An official record in the evidence showed that 2,410 photographs were burned on Aug. 21, 1968. It gives no reason for their burning.

The polka dot dress displayed was one of many purchased by police in an effort to jog the memories of witnesses on a point of contention--whether a girl in a polka dot dress was seen running from the Ambassador Hotel shouting, “We shot him!” That report was never verified.

An entire case of evidence contained items from the Pasadena home of the assassin, Sirhan Sirhan. Among the items was the now-famous diary in which Sirhan scrawled in pencil his plans to kill the New York senator.