Investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author Jerry Oppenheimer has written two biographies of the Kennedy family – The Other Mrs. Kennedy, about Robert Kennedy’s widow, Ethel Skakel Kennedy, and about her son, RFK Jr. and the Dark Side of the Dream.
Here, exclusively for DailyMail.com, he reports on the latest, and what may be the final chapter, in the decades old murder, with the Kennedy family at its core.
Dorthy Moxley was hoping that she’d celebrate her 86th birthday next month with news that the man once convicted of her teenage daughter’s murder more than four decades ago would be returned to prison and rot there.
As she told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview: ‘I was 43 years old when my Martha was murdered. I was 70 years old when her killer was convicted. I am going to be 86 in a month. Actually, half of my life has been spent on this case, and I guess I’ll spend the rest of my life on it.’
When the decision was announced, Mrs. Moxley was floored.
‘I’m sort of in a state of shock, but I guess I’m not surprised.’
Ethel Skakel Kennedy, widow of Sen Robert Kennedy, who turned 90 last month, is now talking about throwing a celebration party for the man who will probably never be returned to prison.
And Bobby Kennedy Jr, the controversial environmentalist, is privately boasting that it was his investigative work that helped convince Connecticut’s highest court to vacate the murder conviction of the man.
Michel Skakel (left) was convicted of murder in 2002 in the bludgeoning death of Martha Moxley (pictured right) in 1975. Last Friday, a divided Connecticut Supreme Court voted 4-to-3 to again overturn Skakel’s conviction
The focus of the anguished Mrs Moxley, whose 15-year-old daughter Martha was brutally murdered on Halloween eve 1975, and Ethel Kennedy’s party planning, is her notorious nephew, Michael Skakel, convicted of the murder.
The vicious murder of Martha Moxley happened on Mischief Night, October 30, 1975.
The cute, popular blonde had been beaten to death with a Tony Pena 6-iron golf club that had belonged to Skakel’s recently deceased mother.
The attack had been so vicious that the golf club had broken from the intense blows. Two pieces were found near the Moxley girl’s body, and a third had mysteriously vanished.
Her body was discovered near under a pine tree on the edge of the Moxley property, in the exclusive, gated enclave of Belle Haven in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Martha’s mother, Dorothy Moxley, pictured above in 2012, exclusively told DailyMail.com that she expects to spend the rest of her life fighting for the conviction of the man she believes murdered her daughter
Her body was facedown, her jeans had been pulled down to her ankles, but there was no evidence of rape.
Then-15-year-old Michael Skakel had been one of several suspects, among them his own brother, Tommy Skakel, who had a romantic interest in the Moxley girl.
Investigators found that 17-year-old Tommy Skakel was the last to be seen with Martha Moxley.
Tommy Skakel, who was a suspect but never charged, had once revealed to private detectives hired by his father that he and Martha had a sexual encounter that lasted some twenty minutes ending in what was described as ‘mutual masturbation to orgasm’ on the grounds of the Skakel home on the night of the murder.
The cold case long fumbled by local police and reputedly influenced by the politically powerful Kennedy family, appeared to reach a conclusion in 2000, when Michael Skakel, troubled with drugs and emotional issues since his teen years, was arrested and charged with the murder – twenty five years later.
At a hearing after his arrest, a witness testified he heard Skakel say, ‘I’m going to get away with murder. I’m a Kennedy.’
In 2002, in a dramatic trial, the then-41-year-old Skakel was found guilty in the case that generated national attention for decades because of the Kennedy connection.
Skakel served 11-and-a-half years of a 25-year sentence, but in 2013 a judge overturned the conviction, asserting the now-53-year-old Skakel didn’t get fair and proper representation by his lawyer during his murder trial.
Martha Moxley, pictured when she was 14, had been beaten to death with a Tony Pena 6-iron golf club that had belonged to Skakel’s recently deceased mother. Her body was discovered near under a pine tree on the edge of the Moxley property, in the exclusive, gated enclave of Belle Haven in Greenwich, Connecticut
Then-15-year-old Michael Skakel (left in 1975) had been one of several suspects, among them his own brother, Tommy Skakel (right in 1975), who had a romantic interest in the Moxley girl. Investigators found that then-17-year-old Tommy Skakel was the last to be seen with Martha Moxley
A Skakel family photo from the trial evidence of the Michael Skakel vs. the State of CT case shown, May 22, 2002. (From top) Michael’s father Rushton Skakel, his brother Rushton Jr., his sister Julie, his brother Thomas (without shirt), and Michael (below Thomas, left). Others are unidentified
Skakel has been free ever since, awaiting a possible new trial, after a $1.2 million bond was posted.
Skakel’s cousin and Ethel Kennedy’s son, Bobby Jr, crusaded for his cousin in a book – Framed: Why Michael Skakel Spent Over a Decade In Prison for a Murder He Didn’t Commit.
He also penned a controversial cover article in the Atlantic, and made frequent media appearances asserting his cousin’s innocence, and naming others he believed had been involved in Martha Moxley’s murder, none of which ever panned out.
In the Atlantic Monthly piece, Bobby Jr recounted a story told by Michael that he had masturbated in a tree outside the Moxley home, also on the night of the murder. Kennedy noted that his cousin had been ‘high on pot and alcohol’ that night.
Skakel had thought he was peering into Martha’s room, presumably hoping to catch her in the nude. Kennedy called it a ‘half-hearted attempt to masturbate in the tree before becoming embarrassed and climbing down.’
It was later determined that Skakel had actually been looking into Martha’s brother, John’s room.
Bobby noted that the Skakel masturbation story had become so widely known that Jay Leno had even joked about it on The Tonight Show.
Kennedy wrote in his magazine piece: ‘Leno suggested referring to the Skakel trial, many people would rather be found guilty of murder than be suspected of masturbating in a tree’.
Prosecuotors panned his article as being filled with falsehoods and misinformation.
Last Friday, Dorthy Moxley’s hopes to see Skakel put back behind bars were sadly dashed once again when a divided Connecticut Supreme Court voted 4-to-3 to again overturn Skakel’s conviction, ruling that his trial lawyer, the flamboyant Michael ‘Mickey’ Sherman, did such a bad job of defending him that his right to a fair trial was violated.
The court’s surprise decision was a dramatic reversal because in late 2016, it had ruled that Skakel had received a fair trial.
Thomas Skakel, with his jacket over his shoulder, is followed by brother David Skakel as they left court during Michael Skakel’s trial in 2002
The Moxley family was awaiting and hoping for a decision from the state’s high court that would have ordered Skakel to finish his prison sentence.
When the decision was announced, Mrs. Moxley was floored.
She told DailyMail.com: ‘I’m sort of in a state of shock, but I guess I’m not surprised.’
In part, she says she suspects Bobby Kennedy Jr’s campaign for his cousin had influence on the court’s decision.
‘Somehow I suspect he’s getting to the judges – I don’t know how. But that’s my theory,’ she said. ‘I’d like to see Michael Skakel back in jail.
‘I sat through the trial. I heard all of the evidence. He is the killer, the murderer of my daughter. There’s no other suspect, or suspects, despite what Bobby Kennedy claims in his book. His book offered nothing new.
‘Bobby Kennedy has come up with all these people [as suspects other than Skakel] but I can’t believe that any of them were terribly sincere.
‘At one point, we offered a $100,000 reward for someone to come forward with the killer, and I’m sure someone would have come forward with the name of the killer if there was anyone else but Skakel.
‘A hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money, and that reward was available for about six months. But nobody ever came forward. That’s one of the many facts that helped in my mind that Michael Skakel was the killer.’
Along with the witness testimony stating that Skakel claimed he’d ‘get away with murder’ because he was related to the Kennedys, Dorthy Moxley told of an incident involving Skakel when he was put in a special school by his father after the murder.
At one point, she says, he was forced to wear a sandwich board with the words, ‘Ask my why I murdered my friend Martha,’ and Moxley asks: ‘Why would anyone do that’ if they weren’t guilty.
The court overturned Skakel’s (left) conviction last week ruling that his trial lawyer, Michael ‘Mickey’ Sherman (right), did such a bad job of defending him that his right to a fair trial was violated. The court’s surprise decision was a dramatic reversal because in late 2016, it had ruled that Skakel had received a fair trial
She doesn’t agree with the high court’s decision that Skakel didn’t get proper representation by his attorney, telling DailyMail.com: ‘Mickey Sherman did a very good job of defending Michael. I don’t think his defense was bad at all, with what he had to work with.’
After the court decision she spoke to one of the prosecutors and was told that no decision has been made to place Skakel on trial again.
‘It was just “we have to wait and see what we can do”,’ she says she was told. ‘But I don’t think another trial will happen. Too much time has past, too many witnesses are gone.’
Aside from hoping that Skakel would be sent back to prison, Moxley has not followed his activities since he’s been free on bail.
‘I haven’t asked what he’s been doing, and I don’t want to know,’ she said. ‘When I run into people who still remember the case, they come up to me, and they are kind and warm and friendly and they treat me very nicely.
‘I can’t imagine that happens to Michael. People still consider him a killer. You can’t toss off something like that.’
Skakel’s cousin and Ethel Kennedy’s son, Bobby Jr, crusaded for his cousin in a book – Framed: Why Michael Skakel Spent Over a Decade In Prison for a Murder He Didn’t Commit
After last Friday’s court decision, DailyMail.com asked Dorthy Moxley’s son, John Moxley, who was seventeen when his sister was murdered, whether he thought the state supreme court’s decision might have been influenced by Bobby Kennedy’s book and his media lobbying.
‘You can suspect the worst in everything these days,’ he responded. ‘It’s so frustrating. I was at Michael Skakel’s trial everyday. I saw the evidence. I saw what his lawyer did. The evidence was enough to convict.’
And he says he’s not favor of a new trial.
‘The only thing I care about is that I don’t want to see my mother put through hell again,’ he said. ‘She’s in her eighties.
‘This case has been part of her life for half her life, and it’s been part of my life for three quarters of my life. It’s hard to see my mom go through the most emotional thing that ever happened to her – again and again.’
He points out that while Skakel is a free man, and will probably remain free for the rest of his life, ‘he still has that murder conviction hanging over him’ despite the court’s decision to vacate the conviction, and offer a new trial.
‘But if I was Michael,’ Moxley said, ‘I’d push like hell and scream and ask for a new trial to be exonerated.’
In his book, Bobby Kennedy Jr suggests suspects other than his cousin for involvement in the murder.
Among them were a tutor recently hired by the Skakels, a strange handyman who lived in the Skakel mansion, and two young African Americans who Kennedy claimed were seen in the area around the time Martha was murdered.
‘He even had a chapter in his book that was dedicated to me,’ noted Moxley. ‘Kennedy went on a radio show and he was asked do you really think, John Moxley had anything to do with his sister’s murder, and Kennedy said no, but you put things out there and you let the other side disprove it.
Skakel is the nephew of Ethel Kennedy, who was married to Sen Robert Kennedy before his assassination in 1968
Ethel, pictured above with Keven Nealon at an event in New York, will likely plan a party celebrating Skakel’s conviction being overturned
‘Kennedy claimed I was as likely a candidate as anybody. He’s such a miserable – you know.’
‘Here’s a guy who drove his wife crazy and had all those sexual conquests, but I’m a saint,’ he said.
In May 2012, Kennedy’s estranged 52-year-old wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, mother of his four children, committed suicide by hanging herself at their home in Bedford, New York.
Kennedy was a womanizer who had had a number of affairs, and his wife, Mary, had suffered from depression and alcoholism.
Kennedy himself had suffered serious drug addiction – once was even arrested for heroin possession – a disease that ruined an early first marriage that ended in divorce.
Both he and Skakel, who also had problems with drugs and alcohol, had bonded and attended recovery meetings together.
Asked why he thought Kennedy had so staunchly defended Skakel, Moxley told DailyMail.com: ‘Here’s a guy who was not in the spotlight as much as he’d like to be and this was a vehicle for him to get back in the spotlight, to be a crusader.
‘It was more of a narcissistic motivation than a compassionate motivation to defend Skakel and write the book.’
Skakel’s aunt, Ethel Kennedy, and his cousin, Bobby Jr, are ‘overjoyed, walking on air with the court’s decision’, a Kennedy family confidant told DailyMail.com.
‘If anyone’s taking credit for the latest decision in the case, a decision that will probably make Michael a free man for the rest of his life, it’s Bobby,’ the insider said. ‘He’s totally convinced that his media campaign – writing the book, the Atlantic Monthly piece, and his media appearances did the trick and had a positive impact on the court’s decision.
‘He feels he should win a Pulitzer for his efforts. And Michael’s aunt Ethel, as soon as she heard about the court decision, started talking about throwing a big party – a freedom party for Michael at the Kennedy compound.’