ere 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 hotel that night. Apparently, as Moldea suggests, there had been considerable opportunity that night for alcohol - fueled friction between the thousands of liberal supporters of RFK and Alan Cranston and that of right-wing Max Rafferty supporters. An FBI report reveals how, on the night of the shooting, a group of young people had been handing out bumper stickers in the hotel lobby. They were reddish orange in color with black lettering. According to Ambassador Hotel Security Chief William F. Gardner the leaflets made reference to JFK's death. New York reporter Jimmy Breslin believes the sticker said, “Expose The Kennedy Death Hoax.” Dan Moldea argues this report is crucial as it shows how anti-Kennedy activists were at the Ambassador that night and may have been the source of the gleeful cries that Serrano said she heard.
Serrano may also have been witness to an innocent cry of “We [i.e. the American People] shot Kennedy”; a natural response reflecting the intense concern Americans had at that time to the growing senseless violence that had become a societal phenomenon during the 1960s.
However, this did not completely answer the many questions that remained concerning witness reports of"Sirhan" and the"girl in the polka dot dress" seen together in the Embassy Ballroom on the night of the shooting – until now. During research for my bookThe Forgotten Terrorist – Sirhan Sirhan and the Murder of Senator of Robert F. Kennedy I discovered what I believe to be photographic evidence which may account for the Embassy Ballroom Sirhan/Polka Dot Girl sightings.
After examining audio and video recordings of the RFK shooting in the Ambassador Hotel, which constitute the video and audio LAPD RFK assassination archive at the California State Archives, I discovered a less-than-one-second clip from news film footage. The captured image reveals a "girl in a polka-dot dress" standing next to a man who is not Sirhan but who shows some close resemblance to him. They were in the Embassy Ballroom when RFK was giving his final speech.
