DID A KENNEDY GET AWAY WITH MURDER?
n Halloween 1975, residents of the gated community of Belle Haven in Connecticut would have expected little more than kids in costumes knocking for candy, and a few pranks. But that afternoon, they made a much more harrowing discovery. Under a tree in her family’s back garden lay the body of Martha Moxley, who’d been beaten to death. The night before, 15-year-old Martha was at the neighbouring Skakel house, who were cousins of the famous Kennedy clan. Martha had become friends with two of the family’s sons, 17-year-old Tommy and 15-year-old Michael. The boys’ aunt Ethel married Robert Kennedy in 1950. Their mother Anne died of cancer in 1973, leaving father Rushton to care for them. Unlike Martha, the Skakel boys were troubled. While she had just been voted “Best Personality” at school, Tommy and Michael were described as “rambunctious”, and one of Martha’s friends even admitted they scared her. Michael was said to have dealt with a drinking problem since the age of 13, following in his father’s footsteps. The family was dysfunctional, and the boys’ sense of entitlement led them to believe they could do whatever they wanted. And with their father away most of the time, that’s what they did. The brothers were rivals in everything, from sports to girls. Both were said to have liked Martha, and the advances Tommy made on her infuriated a jealous Michael. On 4 October, just weeks before her murder, an extract from Martha’s diary revealed that at a party, Tommy “was being an ass” as he kept trying to make passes at her. The relationship between the two clearly riled Michael up, as Martha had also recorded in her diary a month prior to that fatal night that he was “out of it” and that he was insisting she was “leading Tom on”. “Michael jumps to conclusions… I really have to stop going over there,” she wrote.
THE CRIME SCENE
The crime scene told the story of someone who knew Martha and was motivated by rage. Police could tell she was attacked near the driveway of her home. As well as a bloody trail leading to her body, investigators could see she had been dragged through unmown grass towards the tree. She was also discovered with her underwear pulled down, though there was no evidence of sexual assault. She was unrecognisable from the shoulders up – investigators couldn’t even tell what colour her hair was, due to the amount of blood. She’d sustained eight or nine blows to the head with a rare Toney Penna golf club, the force of which broke the club into