Sirhan Sirhan may not have fired the shot that actually killed Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.

Daily writing prompt

What’s a conspiracy theory you actually find believable?

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This one is particularly interesting because RFK’s own son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has publicly questioned the official story. After reviewing evidence and even visiting Sirhan in prison, Kennedy Jr. said he came to believe that a second gunman was involved and that Sirhan did not fire the fatal shots.

There are some legitimate reasons people continue to question the case. The autopsy concluded that the fatal shot entered behind Kennedy’s right ear and was fired from extremely close range. Yet witnesses placed Sirhan generally in front of Kennedy when he began shooting. Kennedy Jr. has said that examining this evidence was one of the things that changed his mind.

There has also been a long-running dispute over how many shots were fired. Sirhan’s revolver held eight rounds, while some later analyses of an audio recording have claimed that more than eight shots can be heard. That interpretation remains disputed, and official investigations have rejected the second-gunman theory.

And here’s the part that really gets my attention: Paul Schrade, who was walking with Kennedy and was himself shot that night, spent years arguing that Sirhan shot him but did not fire the bullets that killed Kennedy.

Does any of this prove there was a second gunman? No.

But when the victim’s own son studies the evidence and concludes that the man convicted of killing his father may not have fired the fatal shot—and one of the people actually shot that night reached essentially the same conclusion—I think it’s reasonable to ask whether we ever got the complete story of what happened in that hotel kitchen in 1968.