Rfk Assassination Autopsy

So, Bobby Kennedy gets shot in 1968, and what happens next is less "historical footnote" and more "forensic circus meets a very bad day at the office." The autopsy on RFK is the kind of story that makes you grateful your worst medical procedure was a splinter removal. Let’s just say it involves a lot of improvised guesswork.

The No-Nonsense Coroner Who Hated Gunshots

The autopsy was performed at the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office, but the lead guy, Dr. Thomas Noguchi, was already famous for handling the Manson family victims. Imagine being that guy: "Oh, another famous person got murdered? Great, coffee’s cold."

Noguchi was a rockstar pathologist, but even he was thrown a curveball. The bullet that killed RFK was a tiny .22 caliber—basically a pissed-off pellet. And it didn’t just stop; it ricocheted like a pinball inside his skull before lodging behind his ear.

The "Bullet for the Ladies" Problem

Here’s the punchline: the bullet was fired from less than an inch away, yet the autopsy report had more holes than a colander about where it started. The official story says it entered behind his right ear. But some ballistics experts laugh into their whiskey and say, "Nope, that’s like trying to thread a needle with a sledgehammer."

The real kicker? The second bullet—the one that supposedly missed—hit a bystander in the chest. That bullet was so mangled that the coroner’s office literally lost it for a while. They found it later in a jar of formaldehyde, like a forgotten pickle at a deli.

Assassinat de RFK: les images de l'autopsie divisent la famille | LFM

The "Exhibit A" That Wasn’t

The death scene was a panty-wetting disaster for evidence. RFK was shot in a crowded hotel kitchen, and people were walking through the blood like it was a slip-and-slide. One guy actually picked up the murder weapon and handed it to a cop—no gloves, no bag, just "Hey, here’s a gun, dude."

By the time the autopsy started, the corpse had been moved, meddled with, and cleaned up by ER doctors who were more interested in saving a life than preserving crime-scene magic. Noguchi basically had to reconstruct the crime from memory and 1960s flash photography.

The Head-Shaking Revelation

Here’s where it gets genuinely funny-sad: the official autopsy photos show a massive, gaping hole in the back of RFK’s head. That’s not where the bullet entered. That’s where the bullet exited after bouncing around like a drunk termite. But the public was sold a story about a "single bullet" that never came out.

Remembering RFK, 50 years later

In fact, the bullet that killed RFK was fired from Sirhan Sirhan’s gun—but Sirhan was standing in front of Kennedy when he shot. So how’d the bullet enter from behind? Nobody knows. It’s the 1960s version of a magic trick, except the magician is dead.

The Verdict from the Laughing Pathologist

Dr. Noguchi later wrote that the autopsy was "the most frustrating of my career." He compared it to trying to solve a crossword puzzle where someone ate the bottom half of the page. The bullet path was so weird that some conspiracy nuts still think there were two shooters. But Occam’s Razor says: maybe Sirhan just had incredibly bad aim, but good ricochet luck.

So next time you watch a crime show, remember: real autopsies are messy, full of second-guessing, and sometimes involve finding a bullet in a jar three years later. RFK’s case is a café-worthy reminder that history isn’t neat—it’s a bloody, confusing joke told by a very tired coroner.