Nearly 44 years after the June 1968 assassination of U.S. presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy, a Canadian woman who was at the Los Angeles scene of the crime has emerged as the key witness in a bid by convicted assassin Sirhan Sirhan to gain release from prison or be granted a new trial based on previously unheard evidence.
A U.S. federal appeals court is currently examining submissions from Sirhan’s legal team that argue suppressed ballistic evidence and eyewitness accounts — including one from the Canadian woman — suggest there was a second shooter at the Los Angeles hotel where Kennedy was murdered.
Vancouver resident Nina Rhodes-Hughes — a 78-year-old American-born television actress and a local theatre enthusiast in the city’s Bowen Island community — was serving as a volunteer fundraiser for Kennedy’s campaign when he was fatally shot in a kitchen pantry at the Ambassador Hotel on June 5, 1968. He died from his wounds about 24 hours later, on June 6. Five others injured in the attack survived.
Rhodes-Hughes, after a Saturday interview with CNN sparked a worldwide resurgence of interest in the assassination, told Postmedia News on Monday that she heard at least 12 shots that day — not eight as argued by the California prosecutors who convicted Sirhan as the lone gunman. The gun Sirhan had when he was arrested held only eight bullets.