fter combat, the Army discovered, was notoriously poor because it had not yet been processed in such a manner that it could be retrieved. Many witnesses of the RFK murder who gave reports about the shooting immediately after the event formulated better pictures of what occurred in subsequent interviews.
Other witnesses discovered their memories of events connected with the assassination were not as reliable as they initially thought. Some came forward to give detailed information about Sirhan's activities in the weeks and months preceding the assassination and about how unidentified accomplices had accompanied Sirhan. When asked to say their stories were based on"positive identification," many balked.
Despite compelling and plausible explanations, which centered around the unreliability of eyewitness accounts, the polka-dot girl stories persisted as conspiracy advocates repeatedly made reference to Kennedy campaign worker, Sandra Serrano, and her story of a girl in a polka dot dress, accompanied by two male companions, who claimed they had shot Senator Kennedy as they ran out of the hotel. Shortly after the shooting Serrano told her story to a news team.
On June 7th 1968 Serrano was interviewed by FBI Special Agent Richard C. Burris at her home. Serrano said she left the Ambassador ballroom at 11.30pm and went outside to sit on a stairway that lead to the Embassy Room. She sat on the fifth or sixth step. Two or three minutes later she said a woman and two men started up the stairs, one of whom she later identified as Sirhan. When the woman got near her, the woman said, “Excuse us” and Serrano moved to the side so the three could pass. Approximately half an hour later she heard noises that sounded like a car backfire and one of the men and the woman ran down the stairs shouting “We shot him, we shot him!” Serrano asked “Who did you shoot?” and the woman replied “Senator Kennedy.” She immediately returned to the Embassy Ballroom and asked an unidentified guard if Kennedy had been shot. The guard told her she must have been drinking. She next phoned her parents who lived in Ohio. She said she was crying and hysterical. After purportedly telling a few close friends what she had witnessed she was asked by a television crew if she would like to tell her story.
Later FBI agent Burris took Serrano to the Embassy Ballroom and told her, “On television, with Sandy Vanocur, you didn't say anything about seeing a girl and two men going up the fire stairs. You only said you saw a girl and a man coming down. And later you told the police you saw two men and a girl going up together and one of them was Sirhan Sirhan. That was the most significant thing you had to tell the police and yet you didn't say anything about this in your first interview, your interview on television.” Serrano said “I can't explain why.”
Investigators soon discovered there were many more flaws in Serrano's story. On June 8th 1968 the FBI questioned her parents, Manuel Serrano and Amparo Serrano, who said their daughter did not say anything about a girl saying “We shot Kennedy.” Her mother recalled she said, “Why would they do anything like this?” When asked why she did not mention the polka dot girl story to her mother Sandra Serrano gave the weak excuse that she had always had trouble talking to her mother.
Serrano had been given a polygraph test by Sergeant Hernandez on June 20th 1968. She soon dissembled. Asked if she sat down on the stairway at the time of the shooting she replied, “Yeah, I think I did…people messed me up…stupid people…just in all the commotion and everything…I was supposed to know more than I knew…I told [DA staffer John Ambrose] I heard the people say 'We shot him' or 'They shot him' or something. And I remember telling him that I had seen these people on the … on the stairway.”
Following the shooting, Serrano and DiPierro had been together at the police station waiting to be interviewed by police. When DiPierro was later interviewed by Sergeant Hernandez he admitted he probably got the idea of a girl in a polka dot dress from Serrano durin