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Revision as of 03:47, 8 May 2006 by 24.250.254.161 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Michael Skakel, born September 19, 1960, is the convicted murderer of Martha Moxley. He is an in-law of the Kennedy family: Skakel's father is the brother of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's widow, Ethel.
Martha Moxley was found dead on October 31, 1975 on her family's property in Greenwich, Connecticut, after having been beaten with a golf club, a 6-iron. Initially, the murder remained unsolved. However, when William Kennedy Smith was tried in 1991, information surfaced that he knew more about the Moxley case, resulting in further investigations. In 1993, Dominick Dunne published a A Season in Purgatory that implicated Skakel in the murder. Mark Fuhrman's book Murder in Greenwich named Skakel as the murderer in 1998. In a widely publicized trial, Skakel was convicted as the murderer on June 7, 2002, and received a sentence of 20 years to life.
In January of 2003, Attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Skakel's cousin, wrote a controversial article in The Atlantic Monthly entitled "A Miscarriage of Justice," highlighting the darkness that still surrounds the case. He presents an argument alleging that there is more evidence suggesting that then-twenty-three year old Ken Littleton killed Moxley. He credits the ferocious and seemingly out-of-nowhere pursuit of Skakel to Dominick Dunne.
Subsequently, there have been attempts to overturn the conviction. In November 2003, Skakel’s lawyers filed an appeal claiming that the trial should have gone to Juvenile Court, that the statute of limitations had expired, and that there was misconduct on part of the prosecution. These appeals were rejected by the Connecticut State Supreme Court on January 13, 2006. File:Ms-2000A.jpg
References
- Fuhrmann, M. (1998). Murder in Greenwich: Who Killed Martha Moxley?. ISBN 0060191414.