The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Emotions run high, but few shocked by decision not to retry Skakel
Strong emotion, but little surprise followed the revelation in state Superior Court Friday that prosecutors would not retry Michael Skakel in the 1975 death of Martha Moxley.
Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo told a Superior Court judge that the state could not prove the case against Skakel beyond a reasonable doubt with a new trial.
The brother of Martha Moxley, John Moxley, said outside the court that he and his mother, Dorthy, were “at peace” with the decision, as they continue to mourn Martha’s death.
An appeal, the last of many, allowed Skakel to be released from jail in 2013 from an earlier conviction for murder in 2002, under the contested premise that he did not receive a fair trial due to mistakes made by his defense lawyer.
The state’s decision this week appeared to turn the final page on the last chapter of a legal case that has stretched from an exclusive Greenwich neighborhood to the U.S. Supreme Court, often marked by acrimony and deeply divided opinion along the way. Questions about the 45-year-old killing are likely to linger, even after the criminal case against Skakel has been disposed of.
To many longtime observers of the case, the events of the week were not unexpected.
“I don’t think it was a surprise at all,” said Quinnipiac University law professor William Dunlap. “It is so difficult to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt 45 years after it happened. Witnesses have died, and it would also be extraordinarily painful for the Moxley family.”
Many were surprised to see a conviction in 2002, he said.
“For that to happen again … the chances of it happening were very small.”
There may never be a full accounting of what happened in 1975, on the night before Halloween in the Belle Haven section of
Greenwich.
“It will probably be an unsolved case forever,” Dunlap said.
Many observers took to social media after the announcement to express sorrow over the brutal death of Martha, a Greenwich High School sophomore. Lively discussion about the case arose, from personal memories of Martha, to criticism of the initial police investigation that led to the case going cold. A number of commenters spoke about the murder shattering their complacency about Greenwich and towns like it in southern Connecticut, upending a belief that it was a safehaven from problems like violence — and violence against women in particular
Martha Moxley was beaten to death with a golf club, which later traced to a set owned by Michael Skakel’s late mother. Moxley’s battered body was found under a tree on her family’s property on Halloween. Skakel, a cousin of the Kennedys and scion to a wealthy Greenwich family, was first publicly named as a suspect in the 1990s and arrested in 2000.
Others who have lost family members to acts of violence say the circumstances of death can create a unique set of emotional ordeals that can last years.
Kimberly Peters, whose father was shot to death while he swam in the backyard pool of their Greenwich home in 1993, said she knows exactly what it’s like to grieve for a murder victim in the months and years after a violent death. She still feels the pain from her loss — which also provided her some lessons about human nature along the way.
“Hard earned wisdom — I would give it back if I could,” said Peters, who does volunteer work as a grief counselor at the Center for Hope in Darien, helping young people cope with the loss of a loved one.
“There is always that sense of loss, someone’s been taken from you. And it’s not like it’s losing someone to old age, or natural causes. It’s a different kind of loss, sudden death, and sudden death at the hands of someone else. It’s very difficult to accept,” she said.
Peters, who has worked with other families who have been impacted by homicide, said there is often a deep rage that follows a killing — even decades afterwards.
“I went to counseling for that — I never thought I could hate someone, really truly hate someone, and wish they were dead. But I did, absolutely, and I didn’t want to live in that hate,” she said.
Her family became friends with the Moxleys, she said, and she admired their conduct through the years.
“You have to make sure you don’t carry a lot of anger and hate. Dorthy Moxley — such an incredible woman. Never lived in the hate, blame and ugliness. ... I think that family is a real class act.”
The legal process that follows a crime like murder can be a special ordeal and emotionally upsetting, Peters said, with uncertainty hanging over the outcome.
There is a tendency for the spectacle of a highprofile trial to blot out the victim’s identity, she noted. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
“It makes that person
anonymous, that’s the problem. We’re way too focused on the defendant, too little on the victim, when there’s so much media attention to the murderer, the shooter, the bomber,” she said. “But for her family, they’ll never forget Martha.. Her friends will never forget. To this day, people tell me, I had a locker next to hers. She had a lot of good friends.”
The Moxley murder case was definitely a spectacle, the subject over the years of books, websites, documentaries, TV movies, podcasts — there was seemingly no end to theories about the killing, or those who wanted to offer them.
“There was a connection to the Kennedy family, which attracts public attention always. It was wealthy families in Greenwich, teenagers, an unsolved murder for so long, all that contributed to public fascination,” said Dunlap, the Quinnipiac law professor.
The case may never fade from public memory, at least in Greenwich.
As one former Greenwich resident who lived under the shadow of the killing, Elizabeth Haran Caplan, observed on social media: “I will never forget the violent end to her young life. For many of us it was our revelation as young women that misogyny posed a real risk to our lives. There isn’t a Halloween that goes by that my thoughts don’t turn to her mother, who never stopped seeking justice for Martha's death.”