Last month, Sirhan's lawyer tried to convince a parole board that his client was a brainwashed hit man when he gunned down Sen. Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in 1968. The board refused to release Sirhan. But The Times last month reported on handwritten notes purportedly from Sirhan, kept for 42 years by a Century City business executive, that appear to tell a different story.
Michael McCowan was an investigator and the youngest member of Sirhan’s defense team in 1969 when the accused assassin wrote on a legal notepad the narrative of his visit to a target practice range and his election-night trip to the hotel. “He wrote it right in front of me,” said McCowan, now 78. The lawyer currently representing Sirhan suggested he was “manipulated” and “set up” and did not act alone when Kennedy was shot.
According to the new documents reviewed by AP, Sirhan said he didn't realize he was firing at Robert Kennedy. "I thought that I was at the range more than I was actually shooting at any person, let alone Bobby Kennedy," he said, according to the documents.
