Introduction to the Martha Moxley Case
It is, in many ways, a quintessentially American unsolved murder mystery.
The victim was a rich and beautiful teenage girl found beaten to death with a golf club in a ritzy and supposedly safe Connecticut suburb. There was national news media frenzy followed by a stymied police investigation. And at the center of it all, there was murder suspect Michael Skakel, who also happens to be related to the fabled Kennedy family.
The Case Unfolds
Eventually, there would be celebrity cameos from another high-profile murder investigation in this unfolding drama.
But 50 years after the 15-year-old was found dead beneath a tree in the backyard of her family home, there still is no definitive answer to the question: Who killed Martha Moxley?
Now, for the first time since his conviction in the killing of Moxley was overturned in 2013, Skakel is speaking at length about the death in Greenwich that sent him to prison for more than 11 years.
“Um, my name is Michael Skakel and why am I being interviewed?” he asks veteran journalist Andrew Goldman in “Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder,” NBC News Studios’ new podcast that makes its debut Tuesday. “I mean, that’s kind of a big question, isn’t it?”
On several occasions, Skakel and his brother Stephen Skakel were interviewed at the modest rental home they share in Norwalk, Connecticut, which is a far cry from the mansion in which they grew up.
The Skakel Family Background
“For the first half of the 20th century, the Skakels were incalculably rich robber baron rich, a kind of wealth we now associate with the Koch brothers. Certainly richer than the Kennedys,” Goldman said. “Not so anymore.”
The first five episodes of the podcast delve into the history of the murder case that transfixed the country after Moxley was found dead Oct. 31, 1975, setting off a hunt for her killer that continues to this day.
Investigating the Case
Goldman is not new to the Moxley case; he ghostwrote “Framed: Why Michael Skakel Spent Over a Decade in Prison for a Murder He Didn’t Commit,” a 2016 bestseller by Skakel’s cousin, now-Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. After finishing his work on the book, Goldman continued to reinvestigate the case on his own for nearly a decade.
But Goldman, in the podcast, admits he wasn’t initially sold on the idea of Skakel being innocent.
“When I first met him back in 2015, to be honest, being in the same room with him made me physically uncomfortable,” Goldman says. “The media coverage of the case had convinced me I was shaking a murderer’s hand.”
Michael Skakel’s Life and the Murder
Skakel is the fifth of seven children born to Rushton and Anne Skakel, who were fabulously wealthy and ultraconservative Catholics. They were the nieces and nephews of Ethel Skakel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy. The Skakel children lost their mother to cancer in 1972 and their father struggled with alcoholism.
The family lived across the street from the Moxleys in a Tudor-style mansion.
Moxley was last seen alive Oct. 30, 1975, when she was hanging out with a group of friends that included then 15-year-old Skakel and his older brother Thomas Skakel on Mischief Night, which is the night before Halloween when children roam the neighborhood and pull pranks such as ringing doorbells and toilet-papering trees and yards.
Described by friends as “joy on legs,” the vivacious teen was found dead the next day in the brush on her family’s property with her pants and underwear pulled down.
An autopsy revealed Moxley had not been sexual assaulted, but had been bludgeoned and stabbed in the neck with a broken six-iron golf club that was traced back to the Skakel home.
The Investigation and Trial
Skakel wasn’t the first person police suspected of killing Moxley. Thomas Skakel landed on investigators’ radar well before him because he was seen flirting with her before she died. Later, police focused on the Skakel children’s live-in tutor, Kenneth Littleton. Neither were charged with a crime.
Skakel said in the podcast that his life was a horror show before Moxley died.
Skakel said his father beat him at age 9 when he found him with some Playboy magazines and often beat him for no reason at all.
“He was about as Orthodox Catholic as it got,” Skakel said of his father. “I just never knew when it was going to happen. I didn’t know why it happened.”
During Skakel’s sentencing hearing in 2002, his lawyer submitted 90 letters from people close to him that included details of abuse he allegedly suffered at the hands of his father.
Aftermath and Release
Skakel said his mother was cold and left most of the child-rearing to the household help. When he broke his neck at age 4, he said, his mother barely visited him during his two-month stay in the hospital.
“She wasn’t really touchy-feely,” he said.
When his mother got sick, Skakel said his father blamed him.
“If you only did better in school, your mother wouldn’t have to be in the hospital,” Skakel recalled his father telling him. “And I remember just going, ‘Oh, my God, I wanted to die. I just wanted to die’.”
Skakel said he was around 12 years old when his mother died. And like his father, he sought solace in drinking. He was sent away to a private school in Maine after he was caught driving under the influence at age 17. He said he was subjected to beatings from his classmates at Elan School. The school, which aimed to help troubled teens, closed down in 2011.
“They literally picked me up over their head and carried me downstairs like I was a crash test dummy,” Skakel said of one beating. “And when I was probably 10 feet from the stage, they threw me. And I thought I broke my, my back on the stage.”
Skakel made it through reform school and rebuilt his life. He stopped drinking in 1982, got married in 1991 and later had a son. He earned a college degree in 1993 and competed on the international speed skiing circuit.
Conclusion
The Martha Moxley case remains a mystery, and Michael Skakel’s story is a complex and intriguing one. Despite his conviction being overturned, many questions still surround the case, and it continues to be a topic of discussion and investigation.
FAQs
Q: Who was Martha Moxley?
A: Martha Moxley was a 15-year-old girl who was found dead in her backyard in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1975.
Q: Who is Michael Skakel?
A: Michael Skakel is a member of the Skakel family, who were related to the Kennedy family, and was convicted of Moxley’s murder in 2002. His conviction was later overturned in 2013.
Q: What is the podcast "Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder" about?
A: The podcast is a new series from NBC News Studios that explores the Martha Moxley case and features interviews with Michael Skakel and other key figures in the case.
Q: What happened to Michael Skakel after his conviction was overturned?
A: After his conviction was overturned, Skakel was released from prison and has since spoken publicly about the case and his experiences.
