Regarding Martha Moxley and Michael Skakel

At around 11:30 pm on October 30, 1975, in Belle Haven of Greenwich, Connecticut, Martha Moxley was bludgeoned maliciously with a six-iron golf club, breaking it into 4 pieces, the handle being driven through her neck, which was the blow that actually killed her. Oddly enough, the handle was overlooked, and they reported it as missing, even though it was sticking out of her neck when the police arrived. She was found the next day by a friend in her own yard, hidden beneath a large tree with her pants pulled to her ankles. She had not been sexually assaulted, so this was probably done to humiliate her, even in death. For 22 years, the case remained a classic "whodunit", and possibly the most famous of them in American history.

When the police arrived, they had no idea how to handle a crime scene of this magnitude. There was a dog licking at the blood on Martha's body, and the crime scene photographer was ordered not to take any pictures of the body, which is standard procedure at the scene of a homicide. Right from the beginning, it was shotty police work. Although the very rare Tony Penna golf club used to murder Martha had matched a set found in the Skakel home (with the six-iron missing...), they first suspected that she had been murdered by a drifter who had found the club, beat her to death, and then fled after the attack. Of course, this assumption was entirely wrong. It was really more based on a hope that they could link it to someone outside of the incredibly wealthy community, so far removed from the likes of murder that no one believed one of their neighbors could possibly be capable of something so gruesome. However, this proved to be nothing more than a waste of time. The Greenwich Police Department wasted a lot of time while working this case.

Everyone in Martha's block but the Skakel's were suspects, and there is a very simple explanation for this: The Skakel's were of American royalty - they were Kennedy's by marriage. Michael and Thomas Skakel were both questioned briefly, and Michael was ruled out entirely as a suspect as he stated he had been out with his brothers and cousin and hadn't returned home until 11:30, at which time he went to bed, and Martha was believed to have died at about 9:30, an assumption based on dogs barking and raised voices heard by Martha's mother, Dorothy. But because Thomas Skakel's alibi was unclear, and because they had matched the broken club to the set in the Skakel home, they brought him in for a polygraph, which was inconclusive. Then six days later, he took another and passed. That was pretty much it for any of the Skakel's being suspects. So everyone else who had even spoken to Martha was taken in and questioned; a man who had installed drapes in the Moxley's home, a young man who had given Martha a ride home from school on one or two occasions, a neighborhood landscaper... even someone who had just taken a stroll on the night of the murder. Ed Hammond was one such suspect. He was Martha's next door neighbor, a 26-year-old grad student who still lived with his mother and was known to be something of a drinker. He was just a little odd, a bit of a loner, and because of that he suffered months of harassment from the police until, finally, he passed a polygraph test and was left alone.

The next to jump to the top of the suspect list was Ken Littleton, a 23-year-old tutor who had just started at the Skakel home on the afternoon of the murder. He had never even seen Martha, was not even aware of her existence, until they came asking questions. Like Ed, Ken also suffered months of harassment, even after quitting as the Skakel's tutor and moving to Nantucket to obtain a teaching position when he had been fired from the Brunswick Academy. Eventually, he was also let go from the Nantucket school when investigators kept showing up to ask questions. He was finally left alone when they couldn't link him with any of the evidence found at the crime scene. After another failed job in Florida followed by a failed marriage, he moved to Australia and was not heard from again. I hope for his sake that the scrutiny he faced from all the harassment has left him behind, and that he has a happy and relaxed life in Australia today. He deserves nothing less for what he was put through.

Over the next few months, police once again grew suspicious of Thomas. Neighbors had stated that he was known to have an erratic temper. At the age of four, he had fallen from a moving car and landed on his head, suffering a linear fracture to both sides of his skull. This injury resulted in some major emotional and mental problems. He had a violent temper, and was given to fits of rage. Not only that, but his story changed yet again. At first, he had told police that he and Martha had said goodnight at around 9:30, and he went inside to do homework. Tommy was a poor student, and it is highly unlikely that he would have retired early to finish an essay the night before a 3-day weekend. When questioned again, he said that he and Martha had fooled around outside for a while, and then said goodnight at closer to 10 pm. This was also a lie, but investigators wouldn't know that for several years.

In 1992, 17 years later, Michael Skakel finally surfaced as a major suspect. He maintained that he had been out with his brothers and cousin until 11:30, but instead of going to bed, he had gone window-peeping. He was particularly fond of a neighbor lady (whose name was never mentioned) who would walk around in the nude, but Michael claimed she disappointed him this night by sleeping on a sofa in her nightgown. He then stated he went to Martha's house and climbed a tree by her window. He threw pebbles at it to get her attention, and when no one came, he went home, arriving and climbing in his own window at about 12:30 am. They found his story strange, and became more and more suspicious of him. Why would be climb in his own window? The Skakel's gardener, Franz Wittine, told police that after the murders, Michael's siblings were wary around him - treating him as if he knew something, like they should be careful around him so as not to set him off. Other neighbors had stated that they noticed Michael's obsession with killing small animals, a very disturbing trait which is usually indicative of a killer in the making.

When Mark Fuhrman traveled to Greenwich in 1997 to write his book, "Murder in Greenwich: Who Killed Martha Moxley?", he came to the conclusion that Martha and Tommy had not said goodnight at 9:30 or 9:50 as Tommy had stated, but they had gone into the house to make out and fool around until about 11:30. When Martha left, Michael had just arrived home and saw his brother and Martha kissing each other goodnight. Michael, upon seeing this, became enraged. Once again, his older brother had stolen something he wanted, and he was just drunk enough to decide he would take his revenge on Martha. He followed her out with the six-iron golf club, and beat her to death in a fit of rage on her own property.

In the years following the murder, Michael was charged with a DUI and sent to a rehabilitation center/reform school for wealthy teens. He bounced around to different reform schools, always trying to run away and always being shuffled back by his father. It was at these reform schools that several of his fellow students heard Michael talking about the Moxley case, saying he was being shuffled around to all these different schools so the police wouldn't track him down. He is also claimed to have said that he did something bad in 1975 and the police were involved. A few students said he told them these things directly, and others stated that they merely overheard him saying these things.

In 2002, Michael Skakel was convicted of Martha's murder and sentenced to 20 years - life. He will be eligible for parole in 2013.

Here's what I have to say about it: Michael Skakel is a walking tragedy. Always picked on by his older siblings, his mother dying when he was just about twelve years old, and almost no adult supervision through his adolescent years bred an incredibly angry and unstable teenager. He is guilty of a one-time crime of passion, fueled by jealousy and rage, alcohol surely playing an important role that night. If I had to guess as to why Tommy gave false statements regarding that night, I would say it's because he knew what Michael had done (I think the entire family knew), and he was told by his father not to give Michael up. They were rich, so they could bury this family tragedy with their money. I can think of no other reason why Tommy would lie about what had happened that night. Most teen-aged boys would be proud to admit that they had been fooling around with a pretty girl for a couple of hours. But Martha's leaving at 11:30 made it obvious that Michael was the one responsible, so he had to change his story to make police believe an outsider had committed the crime. Rushton Skakel (their father) invited the police in for a quick search that Halloween, but refused them a thorough search of the grounds. He must have known something was up, if not exactly what was up, but didn't want to dirty the family name with a murder charge. That's my opinion, and that's partly what fascinates me so much about this case, aside from the fact that it was 28 years before anyone was convicted of the crime. I remember hearing about the Martha Moxley murder in 1995 or so, and I was baffled. How in the hell was no one convicted yet? Even then, at the tender age of 10, I could have told you it was one of the Skakel brothers, I just wasn't sure which one it was. Money was surely the element which made this such a long and drawn-out investigation. But justice was served in the end, and Martha's family can find peace in finally having some resolution.