Last month, Sirhan's lawyer tried to convince a parole board that his client was a brainwashed hit man when he gunned down Sen. Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in 1968. The board refused to release Sirhan.

But The Times last month reported on handwritten notes purportedly from Sirhan, kept for 42 years by a Century City business executive, that appear to tell a different story.

Michael McCowan was an investigator and the youngest member of Sirhan’s defense team in 1969 when the accused assassin wrote on a legal notepad the narrative of his visit to a target practice range and his election-night trip to the hotel.