Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph. D.

Who Killed Jesus, JFK, RFK, MLK, John Lennon — and Charlie Kirk?

Who Killed Jesus, JFK, RFK, MLK, Lennon — and Charlie Kirk?

From Gandhi to Sadat, Rabin to Charlie Kirk, blood is the coin of political power.

By Janet Kira Lessin 

JESUS BEFORE PILATE Jesus stands calm before Pontius Pilate as the Roman governor weighs political pressure and public unrest.

The death of a prophet is never just a death. It is a battle for meaning.

Two thousand years ago in Judea, the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth — preceded by the beheading of John the Baptist — was not merely a spiritual rupture. It was a political calculation. Rome’s governors ruled through fear, local client kings through compromise, and Temple elites through sacred authority. Into that volatile landscape walked prophetic voices who baptized crowds, overturned temple tables, and threatened established order. The imperial response was brutal and public: crucifixion as spectacle and deterrent. The intended lesson — silence the dissenter — became a different kind of power: the story of the cross became the seed of a movement Rome could not kill.

JESUS BEFORE PILATE Jesus stands calm before Pontius Pilate as the Roman governor weighs political pressure and public unrest.
JESUS OF NAZARETH Bio: (c. 4 BCE – 30 CE) Prophet and teacher in Judea, crucified under Roman rule. Seen by followers as the Messiah, his death became the cornerstone of Christianity.

The Politics Before the Cross

JESUS BEFORE THE CROWD Jesus of Nazareth stands before a gathering of followers and skeptics. Roman soldiers and city officials, including Pontius Pilate, look on as tension fills the air. This moment captures Judea’s unrest — the clash of spiritual hope, political authority, and imperial power.

Judea was boiling. Rome taxed heavily, garrisoned cities, and tolerated client rulers whose compromise alienated the people. Multiple sects — including the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots — vied for moral and political authority, while a widespread hope for a deliverer, a “messiah,” made crowds prone to projection.

John the Baptist publicly confronted Herod; he was beheaded. Jesus’s claims and actions — especially in the Temple — were read as political threats.

JOHN THE BAPTIST

                                                                                                                                     
Bio: (c. late 1st century BCE – 30 CE) Preacher and baptizer, executed by Herod Antipas. His fiery calls for repentance paved the way for Jesus’s ministry.

Pilate’s calculus favored order over mercy. Crucifixion followed. The political “solution” became, over time, a religious revolution.

PONTIUS PILATE Bio: Roman governor of Judea (26–36 CE), ordered Jesus’s crucifixion under political pressure—symbol of imperial authority and compromise.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

His murder put Southerner and Negro-Hater Johnson in charge and blocked reconstruction until U.S. Grant took over and, for the only time in American History (until Lindon Johnson and Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in , gave Black men full citizenship.  Lincoln’s Bullet  Reconstruction Reforged

                                                                                                 ABRAHAM LINCOLN Bio: (1809–1865) 16th President of the U.S., led the nation through the Civil War, and abolished slavery. Assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.

Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865 did not merely remove a leader; it redirected history. At the time, the Civil War’s end might have allowed Lincoln to shepherd a gentle, reconciliatory Reconstruction; his death, however, handed power to forces that pushed for a harsher settlement and, later, to politics that permitted the rise of Jim Crow. The assassination hardened Northern resolve and altered the balance among competing political visions for the reunited nation — a sober reminder that a single bullet can change policy for generations.

The Modern Martyr’s Roll Call

JFK (1963)


A charismatic presidency cut down in Dallas; the country reeled, and conspiracy debates began that have never fully stopped.

KENNEDY MOTORCADE IN DALLAS John F. Kennedy rides in an open-top car with Jacqueline Kennedy, moments before the shots that shook America.
JOHN F. KENNEDY (1917–1963) 35th President of the U.S., symbol of “Camelot.” Assassinated in Dallas, his death remains shrouded in controversy.

RFK (1968)

 A second Kennedy slain amid a hopeful campaign — America’s optimism fractured.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION, 1968 Senator Robert F. Kennedy lies mortally wounded on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after being shot during his presidential campaign. Surrounded by aides and supporters in anguish, the moment shattered America’s fragile hope after his brother’s death and deepened the nation’s sense of loss.

MLK (1968)

Martin King, a nonviolent peace advocate and hero of the civil rights movement, was probably murdered (with FBI connivance)in Memphis; his death mobilized sorrow into both rage and legislation.

                                                                                                                 MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. ON THE BALCONY Dr. King stands outside the Lorraine Motel, a moment later felled by an assassin’s bullet in Memphis.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. (1929–1968) Civil rights leader, preacher, Nobel laureate. Advocated nonviolence; assassinated in Memphis.

JOHN LENNON (1980)

Lennon, an artist who expressed the conscience of many of us, was gunned down outside his home in New York.

His murder, outside the Dakota in New York, sparked worldwide vigils.
 

MAHATMA GHANDI (1948)

 

: Killed by a domestic extremist; his assassination enshrined him as India’s conscience.

GANDHI’S ASSASSINATION Mahatma Gandhi walks to prayer, meeting his assassin; his death sanctifies him as India’s eternal conscience.
MAHATMA GANDHI Bio: (1869–1948) Leader of India’s independence movement through nonviolence. Assassinated by a Hindu nationalist.

ANWAR SATAT (1981)

Egyptian military killed Sadat for signing a peace treaty with Israel; his death reshaped regional politics and sent shockwaves across the Middle East.

SADAT ASSASSINATION, CAIRO 1981 Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat was struck down during a military parade in Cairo as soldiers suddenly turned their weapons on him because he signed a peace treaty with Israel.
ANWAR SADAT (1918–1981), President of Egypt, signed the peace treaty with Israel. Assassinated by extremists during a military parade.

YITZAK RABIN (1995)

An Israeli Colonialist opposing the Oslo Accords and their provisions for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian confict, murdered Rabin.

YITZHAK RABIN’S PEACE RALLY Prime Minister Rabin waved to the crowd at a Tel Aviv rally, moments before an assassin shot him dead.

                                                                                                 YITZHAK RABIN Bio: (1922–1995) Israeli Prime Minister, general turned statesman. Advocated peace with Palestinians; assassinated after the Oslo Accords.

Across cultures, martyrdom serves as a form of political currency. The narrative formed in the immediate aftermath — who is blamed, who sanctifies the death, who profits — often does more harm or more good to a political project than the life that ended did. 

Every violent death births competing narratives. In antiquity, Rome’s line regarding Jesus was “He was a rebel; crucifixion maintains order,” the Temple elites insisted he had threatened their authority, and followers insisted he was the Messiah.

                                                                             ROME’S NARRATIVE Roman officials declaring Jesus a rebel, Temple priests accusing him, and his followers insisting he is the Messiah. Three “storylines” are visually overlapping.

Today, narratives explode across social platforms in minutes. One camp blames ideological enemies; another blames radicalization of the perpetrator’s home movement. Conspiracy culture offers dozens of alternative truths. Meanwhile, the evidence that courts weigh — communications, payments, authenticated metadata, sworn testimony — takes time to surface, and often never entirely does.

CHARLIE KIRK (Shot Dead, 2025: Identity of shooter still in doubt as of this post)

CHARLIE KIRK MEMORIAL A candlelight vigil of his MAGA supporters gathered in America to sanctify his death and their grief into their political movement.

When Charlie Kirk was shot while speaking on a college tour, political actors raced to claim the story and to morph grief into mobilization. At significant memorials, high-profile speakers sanctified him as a martyr and invoked earlier American icons — an act of rhetorical consecration that immediately reshaped fundraising, recruitment, and political legitimacy. The forensic investigation proceeds; the political reframing has already moved faster than the court calendar.

The Question We Must Ask: Who Benefits?

SOCIAL MEDIA NARRATIVES Description: Modern digital battleground — hashtags trending, multiple narratives clashing online after a political assassination.

History shows that the most revealing answer to “who killed X?” is often “who benefits from the death?” That question can point to motives, to beneficiaries, to the institutions that advance after the body is gone. In psychology, we say intentions are made manifest by results. John the Baptist’s execution eliminated a critic but fed the mythic soil that nourished Jesus’s following. Lincoln’s death handed Reconstruction to other hands and remade policy. Rabin’s killing crushed a peace momentum.

SOCIAL MEDIA NARRATIVES A tense digital battlefield unfolds as people clash online over a political assassination. Faces lit by glowing screens show anger, grief, and disbelief while hashtags trend across platforms. The image illustrates how, in minutes, competing narratives can fracture public perception and transform tragedy into a polarized debate.

So when a movement instantly sanctifies a fallen leader — when memorials become rallies and grief becomes fundraising — it is vital to ask not only who pulled the trigger (a legal question) but who is writing the story of the cross (a political and moral question).

Lone Wolves, Hired Hands, and the Assassin’s Afterlife

Official investigations often name “lone gunmen” like Lee Harvey Oswald and the current accused assassassin of Kirk— neat, contained explanations that reassure the public–are doubted by many.  JFK, for example, may have been hit from many bullets coming from several directions and the autopsy on JFK may have been faked with a JFK look-alike cop, killed for the occasion by the CIA.  Quen Sabe? History warns that lone wolves are politically convenient narratives. Some assassins have been proven to be part of broader plots; others were indeed solitary actors. The decisive evidence is documentary: communications, financial trails, corroborated witness testimony, and authenticated metadata. Without those, gesture and timing make for powerful suspicion but not proof.

Consider MICHAEL JACKSON’S DEATH: his physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, was tried and convicted for involuntary manslaughter — a court verdict, not a conspiracy theory — demonstrating the difference between a documented legal outcome and speculative narrative. But still, to this day, some people believe Michael was targeted and killed because he dared to challenge the power elite and major corporations like Sony.


The Modern Cross

Final Question

Who killed Jesus? The Romans, the Temple elite, the mob — all complicit. Who killed JFK, RFK, MLK, Lennon, Gandhi, Sadat, and Rabin? The names are recorded, but their stories remain contested, reframed, and reappropriated.

Who killed Charlie Kirk? A suspect has been charged, and the courts will do their work. But the deeper, political question will not be answered by the charging documents alone: who benefits, who consolidates power, who writes the martyrdom into the future?

That question should shape our reporting, our protests, and our politics — because once blood becomes myth, evidence often fades into the background.

POLITICAL LEADERS ASSASSINATED, PART I Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy appear in lifelike portraits. Their assassinations marked turning points in American and world history, transforming politics through loss.

🔹 References / Sources

    • Brown, Raymond E. The Death of the Messiah. Yale University Press, 1994.
    • Goodblatt, David. The Political and Social History of the Jews in Antiquity. Routledge, 2006.
    • Donald, David H. Lincoln. Simon & Schuster, 1995.
    • Branch, Taylor. At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–68. Simon & Schuster, 2006.
    • Bugliosi, Vincent. Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. W.W. Norton, 2007.
    • Rabinovich, Abraham. The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East. Schocken, 2007.
    • Morris, Benny. Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–1999. Vintage, 2001.
    • Court record: People v. Murray (Los Angeles County Superior Court, 2011).

 Other Articles in This Series

The Anunnaki Legacy: Gods, Gold, and the Making of Humanity

    • Yohanan ben Zakkai and the Jerusalem Peace Faction
    • Augustus, Herod, and the Politics of Empire
    • Enki Stepping Up: Ancient Archetypes in Modern Politics
    • WWIII Groundhog Day: Authoritarianism and the New Rome

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