g the time he was with her in the police station. DiPierro said, “She stated that there was this girl that was wearing a polka dot dress came running down, I guess it was the hallway, saying that 'We shot him,' and … she … you know, we started asking each other questions about the girl, and evidently I went along with what she said as being a person that I imagine that I saw.”
Hernandez asked Serrano during her polygraph test if, sometime following the shooting, she heard"a kid" mention something about a white dress and polka dots. She replied "right." Asked if she got the idea of the polka dot girl from this report she answered"I don't know." Her responses to questions about the polka dot girl indicated deception. However, Serrano eventually admitted that her story was founded on a lot of guesswork, “[for] …. two reasons, so I didn't look like a fool, which I look like now. Another reason, because everybody figures … you know… I was sitting there [in the police station] hearing descriptions and descriptions of these people. Oh God, no, maybe that's what I'm supposed to see…more than I did. It messed me up, that's all, and I figured, well, they must know what they"re doing – I mean, they are police, after all. They have to know what they"re doing.” Serrano also told police, “…Somewhere I heard it [the girl in the polka dot dress]. I don't know why I said it, but it just fitted. Then it happened that it all fitted in, and I couldn't understand it, you know. Then, yeah, I really thought there was something behind it. I was scared.” Serrano also told police, “…You know when somebody sees something, keep them away from other people who have seen it. Because you don't know what happens….well, you see, another thing too, you know, that is that, that other newspapers came out with that somebody else had seen it, and then I – I kept thinking to myself, maybe, - you know, gee …”
Hernandez's methods of interrogation during the polygraph examination were indeed forceful and intimidating as conspiracy advocates noted. But it 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 w