Kennedy cousin finally tells all in Martha Moxley murder bombshell 50 years later: ‘I just wanted to die’
After a half‑century, the case that once shook an affluent Connecticut suburb finally sees its main defendant speak out for the first time. Michael Skakel—Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s cousin—spent 11 years in prison for the 1975 murder of 15‑year‑old Martha Moxley, only to have his conviction set aside in 2018 and still battle for his name’s restoration today.
He offered a long‑awaited account in the NBC News podcast “Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder.” Skakel shared his upbringing and why he maintains his innocence, a rare public defense after the case drew nationwide attention. Moxley was found beaten and stabbed in the yard of her family’s Greenwich home on Oct. 30, 1975, with a golf club recovered from the Skakel property. Initial investigations turned a quick eye toward Thomas Skakel, the older brother, and family tutor Kenneth Littleton, before the focus narrowed on Michael—who was just 15 when the tragedy unfolded.
For decades Skakel said he kept quiet, but now he’s ready to tell his side. He opens up about a difficult childhood rooted in Catholic values, a parental preference for his brother, Tommy, and the abuse he endured when he was a child. He recalls a childhood accident that left him with a broken neck, the neglect he faced after that, and the way his parents turned away after his mother was hospitalized for cancer. Skakel remembers a moment when his father, absent for weeks, slammed the door and said, “You make me sick. If you only did better in school, your mother wouldn’t have to be in the hospital.” He later described his desire to die amid his family’s pain and his brief foray into alcohol.
In 1978, after a reckless drive that crashed the family car into a telephone pole, Skakel avoided a DUI charge through a deal that sent him to Élan School in Maine. Reported accounts from the boarding school describe a harsh environment—rigid schedules, physical punishment, even a “boxing ring” where students faced beatings and humiliation. Skakel described his own escape attempts, noting how staff carried him like a test dummy during a broken‑stage escape attempt, and the relentless mental strain that led to post‑traumatic stress disorder.
After leaving the school, Skakel moved on to a quiet life: a marriage in 1991, a skiing career in Florida, and a seemingly stable family. It wasn’t until 2000 that a warrant for his arrest turned his years in peace into a legal nightmare. He was indicted as a juvenile and heard in normal court. He ultimately faced a 20‑year sentence after a 2002 conviction in Norwalk Superior Court, yet his appeals continued for years. In 2013, a judge acknowledged the inadequate defense in his original trial, giving him a second chance. The Connecticut Supreme Court ultimately vacated his conviction in 2018, and prosecutors chose not to pursue the case further.
Psychiatric experts, like Dr. Carole Lieberman, argue Skakel’s upbringing—marked by chronic abuse, neglect, and a fractured family—shaped his life and legal journey. She’s highlighted gaps in the police work, the lawyer’s failure to bring an alibi witness, media sensationalism, and lack of forensic evidence, all elements that, in her view, meant Skakel never faced “beyond reasonable doubt.” Lieberman suggests that Skakel’s lifelong narrative of victimhood has been an involuntary coping mechanism for his trauma.
With his new podcast appearance, Skakel offers a fresh voice to Moxley’s enduring mystery. While the truth of who struck down the 15‑year‑old remains obscured, his testimony rekindles a conversation that had been muted for decades.
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