Forty years ago, on the evening of the June 4, 1968 California primary, Father Thomas Peacha, associate pastor at St. Basil Church, was visiting parishioners near downtown L.A.

The 36-year-old Los Angeles native noticed great commotion on the streets after bidding goodbye to his parishioners and inquired from policemen standing on a corner what was happening.

"Robert Kennedy, Jr. has been shot," they replied. Kennedy had received head wounds from an assailant's revolver at 12:15 a.m., June 5, in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel shortly after giving a victory speech in the ballroom.

Father Peacha, having grown up in the neighborhood and familiar with local hospitals from over a decade making sick calls as a priest, figured the wounded U.S. Senator would be rushed to Central Receiving Hospital on Sixth Street across from Good Samaritan Hospital.

He decided to go direct to the hospital, since he providentially had holy oils in the car. "I wouldn't normally have them, but we had a lot of sick parishioners at the time," said Father Peacha. He arrived before the ambulance and walked right in.

Kennedy, still alive but unconscious, was brought into the emergency room amidst a scene of great confusion, according to Father Peacha. "I was very nervous to see all the people coming in and the sad situation," said the priest.

He recalls Kennedy looked asleep as his wife, Ethel, sat by his side, holding his hand. A Kennedy friend and priest, Father James Mundell, had already given the Senator absolution.

Father Peacha quickly administered the shortened emergency form of Last Rites, since he didn't have his prayer book with him. He anointed Kennedy on the forehead and recited the apostolic blessing at the end. The entire ritual lasted barely a minute.

Ethel told him, "Thank you, Father," before her husband was whisked away. Father Peacha remembers seeing Kennedy's blood on the pillow where his head had been. Kennedy was later transferred by ambulance to Good Samaritan Hospital for brain surgery, but his extremely critical condition did not improve, and he died at 1:44 a.m. on June 6.

"I was glad I was there because I felt a certain responsibility since [Kennedy's shooting] happened in our parish," said Father Peacha. Part of his reason for heading straight to the hospital that night was sparing St. Basil's elderly pastor, Msgr. Henry Gross, from the "frightening" scene.

Though a seasoned priest (ordained in 1959) in ministering to sick and dying parishioners, Father Peacha admits Kennedy's violent death at age 42 did affect him. Along with St. Basil parishioners, he prayed for Kennedy and his family, and continues to this day.

A few years ago, curious to see the home of the man he anointed on that fateful night, he traveled to Hyannis Port in Massachusetts and observed the Kennedy family compound from a respectful distance. The soft-spoken priest, who attended Immaculate Heart of Mary grammar school in the neighborhood where Kennedy was killed, feels his presence 40 years ago was providential.

"I didn't get a phone call. I just went. I just felt it was very important," said the 76-year-old retired priest who lives in Seal Beach but helps out an average of three days a week at Holy Trinity Church in Atwater, where he served as pastor for eight years before retirement in 2005.

While at Holy Trinity, a former Immaculate Heart of Mary classmate Father Peacha hadn't seen since grammar school gave him a copy of a 1998 biography of RFK, mentioning his presence at Kennedy's hospital bedside. He shakes his head remembering that sad turn of events 40 years ago and the violence still in society.

"People need to realize," he said, "that violence is not the answer to problems."