 was not designed to cover-up the involvement of possible conspirators in the shooting of Robert Kennedy. Both officers had used similar interrogatory techniques with other witnesses, most notably with Sirhan"s brother Munir.
Police Lieutenant Emmanuel Pena, Hernandez's superior officer, said, “[The interrogation by Sergeant Hernandez] was a necessary move on my part. We tried every way in the world to find this gal in the polka dot dress to see if we could substantiate her [Serrano's] story. And we couldn't do it. I wasn't about to leave the case hanging there.” However, this credible explanation of why they submitted Serrano to an intense and intimidating interview did not prevent conspiracy advocates from claiming that both Hernandez and Pena had close connections to intelligence agencies and implicating them in a conspiracy to murder Kennedy. Pena's response to their allegations was, “I didn't come back [to the LAPD]…as a sneak to be planted. The way they [conspiracy writers] have written it, it sounds like I was brought back and put into the [Kennedy] case as a plant by the CIA, so that I could steer something around to a point where no one would discover a conspiracy. that's not so.” Furthermore, to suggest that Sergeant Hernandez and Lieutenant Pena were involved in a cover-up would also implicate the head of the LAPD"s investigation, Chief Robert Houghton, who had recommended the appointment of Hernandez to the"Special Unit Senator" team.
For nearly 40 years conspiracy advocates have used Serrano's story as proof of a conspiracy, even though Serrano had eventually admitted to police that her description of the girl's dress was adjusted to agree with DiPierro's polka-dot girl. Although the LAPD maintained she retracted her polka dot girl story under intense questioning conspiracy theorists still insist she had been"bullied" into saying her story was false. And Serrano's original story continues to be embraced by conspiracy theorists as proof that a plot existed to kill Kennedy despite the fact that there were inherent implausibilities in her story from the beginning:
*Serrano's account was contradicted by Fire Department Captain Cecil R. Lynch who had been on duty at the Ambassador checking fire escapes and exits. He had inspected the stairs Serrano claimed she had been sitting on. He said no one was on the stairs at the time she indicated. And, incredibly, she said she had sat on the stairway for 50 minutes.
*Serrano was a Kennedy campaign worker who had been thrilled at the prospect of seeing her hero acknowledge victory in the California primary election campaign. Yet she did not remain in the Embassy Ballroom at a crucial time; a time when nearly every campaign worker was awaiting the arrival of Kennedy to give his victory speech. No one could predict when Kennedy would appear in the ballroom but election officials knew it would be somewhere around 11:30 to 12:30, a time when Serrano purportedly loitered on the stairs outside the hotel.
There were other problems with the idea that conspirators had announced their success in killing Kennedy. It is inherently illogical for someone who has been part of a purportedly sophisticated conspiracy to then immediately shout out they had killed their target. How could they be sure members of the public wouldn"t take them seriously and apprehend them before they could make good their escape?
As the years passed the issue of the polka dot girl refused to die down as Serrano began to tell conspiracy writers that her original story was correct and that she had been bullied by police into changing it. And the fact that no one has been able to provide proof that Sirhan had not been standing next to a girl in a polka dot dress in the Embassy Ballroom and other areas of the hotel, the story has continued to haunt researchers.
There have been plausible explanations over the years of why a purported"girl in a polka dot dress" would cry out"We killed him." Dan Moldea believes a rational answer can be found in reports about Republican Max Rafferty's party which was held in the same h