83. Martha Moxley - Infamous Halloween Case
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That's C-U-R-A-T-E-U-R.com and use code husband. Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. I'm actually really sad. This is our last October episode. This is the last time that our set's going to be all designed or decorated like this. And I just really loved October. I feel like it went too fast. Yeah.

Also, Peyton and I just looked over at the record button on our soundboard and realized we'd been talking for 20 minutes and forgot to hit record. Yeah, I'm having deja vu, to put it lightly. So we're doing this all over again. But anyways, if you're here, thank you so much for listening. We did just want to remind everyone that Patreon has received the last two bonus spooky episodes. They're exclusive to Patreon, and we have a surprise.

surprise we are going to offer a bonus spooky episode for patreon members like from now on we loved them so much that we decided we would offer it for our patreon so if you like them and you want to keep hearing them go sign up for our patreon right now it's just patreon.com slash murder with my husband all right gary you have your 10 seconds yeah so actually peyton and i have been kind of running around the last week we had an unexpected death in the family

My grandpa passed away, so we just wanted to say that we love him. Yeah, we do. We love you, Grandpa. And not to switch topics too fast, but on a lighter note, we actually saw one of our listeners the other day. Well, they came up to us because they recognized my voice. And I just think it's so crazy that... I mean, it's awesome that people recognize us or recognize our voices. Yeah, Garrett just said something and they were like, oh my gosh, I know your voice. It was so fun. I love this community. If you ever do see us, come up and say hi because...

It's one of the most surreal, coolest things that Garrett and I have ever had happen to us. We seriously talk about you all day, 24-7. We love you guys so much. And it's only happened a couple of times. So again, if you see us or hear us, then come say hi to us. All right. So being that it's our last Halloween episode, I had to pick this case. It's an infamous Halloween case that really has it all. A young 15-year-old girl murdered by a member of a presidential family. Whoa. Well, maybe. Maybe.

and a mysterious murder that created a twisted story that gripped the states for years and still no justice has been served. A case that we know so much about remains unsolved.

This is the murder of Martha Moxley. Our case sources are Murder and Justice, The Case of Martha Moxley, which is hosted by former prosecutor Laura Coates. And she actually does an amazing job. She did put so much work into this little documentary. And a lot of our episode is going to be based off of it because she just does such an insane dive into it.

You say it like everyone else knows what it is. And I feel so ignorant because I have no idea what this is. Maybe people don't know what it is, but I mean, I had heard of it. Okay. So I feel like if you listen to true crime or you're into true crime, you probably have heard of this. Got it. Another case source was medium.com and oxygen.com. Mom.

Martha Elizabeth Moxley was born on August 16th, 1960 in Greenwich, Connecticut. Martha was an easy child according to her mother, Dorothy Moxley. She was very smiley and people loved her. She was thoughtful and caring and happy. By high school, Martha was popular. She was kind of representing the all-American girl. She had blonde hair, pretty face, and a wealthy family in the very nice gated community of Belhaven.

Her family had actually just moved to this new house on Walsh Lane in the summer of 1974. Her family was kind of hoping to make this new beautiful neighborhood their home. They wanted to plant their roots here. And I don't know if I'm getting across the beauty and the extravagance of this neighborhood, but we are talking...

Like each one of these houses has a big, beautiful yard. It's the epitome of American wealth in the 70s. Okay. I just imagine like this big, huge green, like super green grass. Yes. Like a picket fence. Just like the most beautiful stone houses, just mansion after mansion. So pretty. Yeah.

I mean, so big though. Yeah. So on October 30th, 1975, Martha was supposed to be grounded. She's 15 years old now, but she was supposed to be grounded for staying out late the weekend prior. But her mother kind of softened the restrictions because come on, it's Halloween weekend. It's October 30th. And Martha is a teenager who just wants to have fun after all.

So that evening, Martha left with her friends and apparently took part in mischief night, which was a thing that a lot of the kids her age would get together and do in this wealthy neighborhood. They would run around and doorbell ditch and toilet paper their neighbor's houses because teenage rebellion. That was the fun thing to do. According to Martha's friends, as the night went on and everyone was hanging out, Martha and a 17 year old boy named Thomas Skakel began flirting and they eventually kissed.

The Skakel family lived just down the street, two big lawns away from the Martha's home. So Thomas was not like a new random boy in Martha's life. He and his 15-year-old brother, Michael, were regulars in this neighborhood crew of teenagers inside the Skated community. Okay.

Slowly, friends started walking home as the night came to a close on this Halloween Eve, partying ways from the Skakel residence, which was the last place they had all been hanging out. The next morning, when Dorothy Moxley woke up next to the window in their library where she had been waiting up for Martha, she ran upstairs to check in on Martha to make sure, you know, she had made it home, that everything had gone. She didn't wake up the night before when she had come home.

But when she went upstairs to check Martha's bedroom, her bed was empty. So Dorothy called Martha's friend, Helen, who had actually been hanging out with the group of friends the night before and asked her, Hey, is Martha with you? Like, did she sleep over your house or something? And Helen was confused. Martha was not at her house. She hadn't seen her since last night.

Helen tells Dorothy that the last time she saw Martha, she was hanging out with Thomas Skakel near the family pool at the Skakel residence around nine or 9 30 PM. Helen actually needed to go home for the night. And so that's where she like parted ways with Martha. So the morning goes on and eventually Martha's body was found underneath a tree in her family's yard by her childhood friend, Sheila McGuire. So she's missing. They start looking. They don't have to look very far. She's

What the? Jeez.

So this like golf club is just shattered. Two pieces from the shaft were found near her body. And the other was on the far side of the semi-circular driveway. So it's one of those driveways where you like pulling on the right, drive around, there's the house and then exit on the left. Uh-huh.

And so, um, one of the pieces was found near her body. That's like on the right side. And then another piece of the golf club is found on the other side of the driveway. Um, and then the head of the golf club was found farther away, but still on the property. The last piece of the golf club, which was the leather handle that was probably still in the killer's hand was never found. Um,

Autopsy showed that Martha was bludgeoned and stabbed with the golf club so savagely that whoever was beating her beat her until that golf club broke into four pieces, then stabbed her through the neck with the broken golf club. I'm surprised that she's just left on the yard. Yes. In front of her house. Yeah.

- Weird. - So authorities conclude from the autopsy that it was an aggressive frenzy type of a kill, very out of control. And this also leads them to believe immediately that Martha knew her killer. Martha Moxley was beaten to death in her own yard by someone she knew. - Okay. - Crime scene photos show circular bloodstains on the closer side of the Moxley's driveway. And this was kind of pointing to that being the initial place of attack.

And then afterwards, maybe she stumbled or was chased over toward the tree line. And there are pools of blood in that area before the tree where the rest of the attack probably occurred. And then she was killed. And then whoever killed her then dragged her body in an almost zigzag curvy like pattern to the big tree where she was then left.

I was going to ask if there's security cameras, but we're in the 70s and nobody has a ring doorbell yet. Nobody has a ring doorbell yet. And police think that they, you know, dragged her body over to this big tree to maybe conceal it. Okay. The pathway shows that dragging a body is not as easy as it sounds. You can't just turn. You have to pivot the body, which makes for a not straight line to the tree, which is why it's kind of like...

all zigzaggy to get there. Hiding the body under the tree seems childlike to investigators. It's not that hidden. I mean, the next morning they woke up and boom, she's there. She was obviously still going to be found. It feels like a child hiding like a chocolate bar behind their back when mom comes in, like out of sight, out of mind, but it's not actually solving the problem. Like you still have chocolate on the corner of your mouth. Mom's gonna know you have a chocolate type thing.

So it just feels weird that they were like, kill her in the lawn and then drag her over to the side to try to hide her. Like she's going to be found.

Police think that the killer then after dragging her over, walked back the way they came passing the initial point of attack on the driveway and then crossed over to the other side of the driveway where they discarded the piece of the club and then finally discarded the head of the club. The golf club was a Tony Pena ladies six iron club, but not only was it a Tony Pena club, it was monogrammed. Remember which neighborhood we are in? These are going to be fancy clubs.

And the monogram matched that of a set from none other than the Skakel family's residence just down the road where Martha had last been seen that night by her friends. The Skakels left clubs in bins around their property where they would just like hit balls because that's how big these yards are. And so this club might have been in one of those bins that night. I wish I could hit golf balls in my yard. In my backyard? Me too. Yeah.

So when this conclusion was drawn, police were baffled. This is an upscale exclusive neighborhood, and based on the timeline of events, their number one suspects are part of this neighborhood living right down the street. It seems too obvious that it's them just because why would they use a club from their own house? You know what I mean? Like if you're trying to quote unquote get away with something, unless they're not, but...

That's just kind of my thought. And the thing about the Skakel family, which makes this case infamous above and beyond the tragedy, is that the Skakels were not only a family immersed in a luxurious life and prestigious neighborhood. They were actually cousins with the Kennedys. Of course they were. Yes, the American family, American royalty Kennedys.

are related to the Skagel family, which is now the prime suspects of a murder of a 15-year-old girl. Brothers 17-year-old Thomas and 15-year-old Michael were the last people with Martha and are questioned. Michael and Thomas are nephews of Ethel Skagel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy, which just takes this case to a whole new level. Brothers 17-year-old Thomas and 15-year-old Michael were the last people with Martha and are questioned.

According to police reports, Thomas says Martha arrived at the Skakel residence with her friends Helen and Jeffrey around 8.45 p.m. that night.

Michael, Martha, Helen, and Jeffrey decide to go sit in the Skakel's car on the driveway and listen to music on the radio. Because I was thinking about this, like I'm sure they have a radio in the house, but as teenagers, you're probably like, oh, let's go sit in the car. You know what I mean? Do you know if the FBI needs to get involved because they're related to family? Yeah. So actually, I didn't learn this until later, but the further I dug into this case, the

The Skakels and the Kennedys at this point are actually estranged because the Skakels are Republican and the Kennedys are Democrats. And so apparently there was like this big contention and feud. And so at this point they're not talking. Okay. So we don't see this like impact of the Kennedys coming in to save face because they don't talk to the, this, this side of the family, but also the,

Every headline is member of the Kennedy's family. You know what I mean? So they're still dragged in So the four kids are sitting in the Skakels car and after a little while Thomas the older brother comes out and joins them and then once in the car Martha is now sitting between the Skakel brothers and it was during this time that the older of the two Thomas tries to put his hand on Martha's leg twice and

And I think this is where like the noticed flirting from Martha's friends that they talked about comes in because like Martha and Thomas are obviously flirting in this car right now. Between this time and nine 30, Martha and Thomas's flirting continues and they eventually kiss around nine 30 PM. Michael and Thomas's other brothers, John and rushed and decide that they want to take the car and drive over to their cousin's house for the night.

Michael says that he asked Martha to come and that he was going to tag along, but she declined. She says, oh, I have a curfew. I have to go home. Thomas and Martha are seen alone at this point saying goodbye. Thomas watches as Martha leaves to make the short walk to what would become her last moments on earth. So she literally leaves the Skakel residence. Thomas sees her like they've just shared their kiss or whatever. He sees her walking home and then on the walk home, she's attacked and killed.

And this walk is... So who sees them drift apart? Who sees them go their separate directions? So Thomas says this, and then there's other people at the house, other friends. It doesn't say exactly which kids saw them, but...

Like Helen herself said, no, I saw Thomas and her outside by the pool hanging out. And then they said goodbye. Okay. But no, you're right. Like who actually saw them? Who actually saw them say goodbye besides Thomas. Thomas saying, oh, I left her. I'm like, okay, Thomas. Yes. Did you really? Okay, Thomas. Okay, Thomas. But no, exactly. You're right. So Thomas says after saying goodbye, he goes back inside his house and works on some homework and

And then eventually around 10 p.m., he watches The French Connection with Kenneth Littleton, the Skakel family's live-in tutor. When police asked Kenneth if Thomas had in fact watched TV with him that night, he said yes, they had. But it wasn't at 10 o'clock. It was more at 10.30.

So now we have like a 30 minute gap of where was Thomas. Kenneth also told police that it was while him and Thomas were watching TV that Michael Skakel, Thomas's younger brother came home from hanging out with cousins around 11 PM. Michael told police that after that time, Martha was last seen in their backyard. He was at his cousin's house the whole time watching Monty Python. When police check these alibis with the family members who were with the boys, the cousins and the live in tutor, it all checks out.

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What's the motive? And his dad actually refuses police access to any of their school or medical records, lawyering up immediately. So it's not like they could, you know, do much there. Got it. Okay. It's a classic, by the way. I've never seen it. Monty Python. Yeah. I've never seen it. I don't even know what it is. I've heard it. I don't know what it is. We'll have to watch it.

And then Michael was one of the last people to see her as well, his younger brother, 15-year-old. And he also had access to the golf club, but he had witnesses who put him leaving the property or at his cousin's house during the kill window. So this leaves the question, if not the brothers that she was last seen hanging out with, who else had access to the Skakel family golf club and could have caught Martha that night on the short walk to her home? We're talking about

a very small window from the time she says goodbye and makes the walk to her house and gets to her driveway and doesn't make it up. Like who had time to grab a golf club and chase her and catch her before she gets home? How far is the

The walk from? I don't have like in feet or anything. It's two. So their house is on the corner. Okay. And then as you like turn the corner, it's two houses and then her house. Got it. So not that far. Not that far. And the Moxley's house actually doesn't exist anymore. They've since like torn it down and there's two houses on that big lot now. I guess it depends how big those houses are because the walk can be further. I mean, they're pretty big, but we're talking not longer than a foot.

five minute walk, 10 minute walk. Like it's, it's right there. So police think that Martha was murdered between nine 30 and 10 30. Um, based on talking to everyone, they're like, this is when she said goodbye. Couldn't have taken that long. Police obviously look at Kenneth Littleton, the live-in tutor who, um, actually became more of a live-in nanny for these boys. He was at the Skakel home when Martha was, and he had access to the golf club.

and could have been there during the time of the kill window as well, because he was at the home. He could have seen her leave chaste or you know what I mean? So Kenneth was a 23 year old teacher who had actually just moved in full time at the Skakel residence that day. The Skakel's mother had actually passed away and their father was often gone for business. So Kenneth, 23 year old Kenneth was these boys guardian. Um, when Kenneth was talked to multiple times, each time his story shifted just a little, um,

And this created suspicion within the police department. It also didn't help that his history with women was kind of troubled. He had, and he failed a polygraph test. And I also think that Kenneth was a safe suspect for them as far as he wasn't actually part of the exclusive community. He wasn't a part of the Royal family. He was an outsider, right? So there's a lot less pressure into making him the suspect. Um,

And we're kind of jumping ahead here, but by April of 1976, not even a year later, Kenneth would actually be kicked out of the Skakel home after being arrested for burglary on Nantucket Island. Oh, wow. He was under the influence of alcohol and cocaine at the time. So this is the guy that's raising these boys. Like the quote unquote prime suspect. Yes. I still think this is fishery to me. I still think it's a setup, but... I still think that...

It was the golf club. Thomas was last seen with her. He was kissing her. I don't know. To me, it feels like kind of a no-brainer, but for some reason it's...

taking a minute for things to settle in. Well, you know the answer. I do know the answer, but I still feel that way as I'm like sitting here rereading it. So after, you know, he gets kicked out of the Skakel home, he marries a woman who now claims that Kenneth really struggled with addiction and had psychotic breaks, that he had left messages threatening to kill her before, but she still doesn't think that he was involved in the murder. So she's kind of saying, yes, does he have some...

Some things wrong, yes, but I don't think he did it. And as years went on in this investigation, Kenneth was always connected and suspected, but his name lives attached to the murder of Martha Moxley despite any legal follow-through. He's never been charged. After the initial look into possible suspects, police really came up empty-handed. And despite the high profile this murder case had, answers were not coming any faster or easier. David?

Days turned into months, turned into years, and police had nothing. Martha Moxley's murder turned into a cold case. Dang. A couple years later, in 1978, after little to no action on the case, possible suspect Michael Skakel was arrested for drunk driving. Remember, he was 15 at the time of the murder.

His prominent Royal bloodline family worked out a deal with the state that instead of being prosecuted for drunk driving, he would be sent to Ilan school, which is a youth behavior modification treatment center in Maine.

And this is giving off very Paris Hilton vibes. This center was like a rehab center and it's very controversial. Like the way that they tried to help these kids would be considered abuse type thing. So when it comes to the law, this family is just cleaning up his mess.

Because money can do that. But Michael Skakel's run in with the law just a few years after doesn't bring any new life to Martha's case. It remains cold for another 10 years. Holy crap. That's a long time. Then finally, in 1991, with DNA testing making a beginner level splash in the world of forensic science,

Cold cases begin their journey, which is now making waves all over the world. But this was kind of like the first initial, wait, we could maybe test DNA type thing. It was this same year that according to the Hartford Current, Martha Moxley's investigation is officially reopened in 1991. It happened after a rumor that a man named William Kennedy Smith, who had actually just been acquitted for rape this year,

might have been at the Skakel's house the night of Martha's murder. - And Kennedy, I assume he's related to the Kennedys? - No, that's his first name. - Oh, okay. - That's what he goes by. His name's William Kennedy Smith, but he goes by Kennedy Smith. - Got it. - And to me, this is like, how could police have missed a whole freaking person? He's at the house and we just missed that he could be there.

but it was actually because he wasn't actually there. This just turned out to be a rumor. When he went to trial for rape, people were like, well, he was at the, you know, the house where Martha Moxley was murdered, but that wasn't actually true. He wasn't ever there. But this rumor and speculation was the last kick that authorities needed to relook at the 16 year old case. So they reopened it because of this. And with the heat surrounding the infamous murder, once again,

Thomas and Michael Skakel were put on blast. I think at this point, everyone was like, wait, they found a 15 year old girl murdered in a gated community with a golf club from the Kennedy's nephew's home. Seriously, where they had all been hanging out before this. And we have a cold case. Like how much more evidence do you need? Like how is this case complicated?

Cold? This seems like a pretty big neon finger pointing to the answer, like for all of us, but it's been cold for this long? - Yeah. - So the decision to reopen the case led Thomas and Michael's dad to actually conduct a million dollar inquiry with private investigators into the investigation just to try to see where his son's names stood in the investigation.

That's crazy. So he hired a team called the Sutton Associates, which included retired law enforcement and FBI, who at the right price, a big right price, will investigate privately. Their job was to see how exposed the Skakel brothers were in this murder investigation. So it was so it wasn't even to see who did it. So I guess what I'm trying to say, if they did do it, they'd probably just.

tell them, hey, your chances of being caught are likely, but we're not going to tell anyone that we figured this out. No, this is a private investigation. He did this investigation just to see how bad they looked. That's crazy. So now, not only is the local police reinvestigating Martha's death, the Skakel family is paying the big bucks to have their team investigate it as well.

But the thing about fame and the thing about the Kennedy name is you can trust no one. And in 1995, a member of the Sutton team leaked their investigation for the Skakel family to a journalist.

Their report that basically listed everything the Skakel boys had done wrong, each witness they had, each change of story, each piece of evidence, each contradiction, everything that made them look bad was leaked to the press. And why wasn't this, I guess, figured out before? So I think the police did have their own investigation going. Okay. The Sutton investigation... Was just bigger. Was bigger. It was more powerful. It was deeper. It was...

these officers sitting down with the boys and saying, tell me everything. It was talking to people that the police didn't even know were involved in their lives because they had the inner secrets. They had the family. You know what I mean? So the Sutton investigators had discovered in their own investigation that Thomas Skakel had gone a little bit further than just a kiss with Martha that night. And that little make-out sesh had gone until 10 p.m., not 9.30 p.m.

but he had lied to police about it. So now the timeline, the window of when she was killed is muddied because he wasn't telling the truth about saying goodbye to her at nine 30. They had gone out in the yard and proceeded to be romantic in the yard. So,

So they also discover that Michael originally told police that that night he left around 930 or 10 to go to his cousin's home to watch Monty Python, remember? And then he says that he came home around 11 p.m. and went to bed. But in the Sutton report, he says that actually instead of going to bed, he snuck over to the Moxley's house and climbed up a tree.

It's unclear whether the tree is the one outside of Martha's window, outside of her brother's window, or the one that she would later be found under. Because remember, this has a lot of trees in this yard. He says that he then threw rocks at her window to try to get her to answer, but she didn't. And so instead, he stayed up there in that tree and he masturbated in a tree outside of Martha Moxley's house, where at this point, she's supposed to be dead.

So remember when I said about like DNA advancing and at this point people were now realizing that one day we might actually be able to test semen and figure out who it belongs to? No way.

So the Sutton report has now created reasonable doubt if Michael Skakel's DNA is found near the crime scene. Well, he already admitted to going up there and masturbating. I mean, it just put Michael in a tree outside the Moxley's house. And now everyone is wondering if that leak of the Sutton report was accidental or not.

Okay. Did they, did they like accidentally re like leak this on purpose to try to get an alibi just in case this new DNA testing that everyone's hearing about leads back to him? Interesting. I don't even think about that. So either way, it's just proven that both Michael and Thomas originally lied to police and that Michael has now drastically changed his story, putting him over at Martha Moxley's house the night she's murdered. Okay.

And when Mark Furman with the LAPD gets his hands on this report, he writes a whole freaking book about why he believes Michael Skakel murdered Martha Moxley. So not Thomas. Not Thomas. Everyone is now like, well, it's gotta be Michael, right? Like he just put himself over at her house, maybe right on top of where she was left to be found. Yeah.

That is so weird. So this guy, he writes a whole book about it. This is how broad and like nationwide this is going is like, and then there was another book written that didn't have any of these names, but it was about this very wealthy family who was friends with a presidential family. And then one of the kids from the presidential family kills one of the girls from the residential family. So everyone in the nation is just like basically believing that this is what happened, that

One of the members from the Kennedy family long extended has killed a 15 year old girl in the seventies. So Michael Skakel was 15 at the time of the murder and he was already struggling with drugs and alcohol way before he was sent to that boarding school. Remember?

He was a functioning alcoholic at age 13, and he usually started drinking around 6 p.m. He was being raised via money and a 23-year-old kid who had his own problems, as we learned. Basically a teenager with too much access and freedom, yet nothing emotionally stable in his life. Rumor has it that he was madly in love with Martha Moxley down the street. He had been attempting to lock her down for a while now.

but Michael and Thomas had a very rocky relationship as brothers. They hung out, but they were in constant competition, and the fight over Martha had been boiling for a while. Okay. So everyone's thinking, what if the night of the murder, Michael had seen Martha and Thomas...

And just boiled over. He's drunk. He's high. Like he's not in his right mind. They've been drinking and doing drugs. And then he follows Martha home when she says goodbye to Thomas. And just kills her? Grabs the golf club from his family's house lawn. Yeah. And kills her. Why like...

why are we killing people? I just don't. It's horrible. So in June of 1998, a one man grand jury is appointed to review the information on the Martha Moxley case. According to CBS news, though rare, a prosecutor can request a one man grand jury.

Which is just kind of a funny little story. What does that mean? So it's like normally a grand jury, I think it's like normally 12 people. It's a bunch of people, yes. And it's one. The jury, a regular jury. So this is before trial has started. Okay. The state convenes a grand jury and it's basically

to come in and just make sure that they have enough as evidence to like prosecute someone. Got it. So they bring these 12 people in and they say, based on this, this, this, and this here, this testimony space, like a trial before a trial, do we have enough to go to trial? And then they say, yes, you do. And then they go to trial. So Kenneth Littleton, the babysitter nanny guy, he testifies in exchange for immunity at this hearing. Why would he need to testify for immunity if he did nothing? If he did nothing.

So I kind of had that thought too, but I just think to make sure that he wasn't like brought in and like you're the adult. He just didn't want to be questioned at all. Yes. Okay. And then also Helen's mom also testifies. Helen was there that night. Remember? Uh-huh. Hola. ¿Cómo está? Hola. ¿Cómo estamos? Want to learn a new language? Well, the best way is to uproot your entire life, move to Spain and live there for the rest of your life.

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And on January 19th, 2000, Judge George N. Thim rules that there is enough evidence to charge Michael Skakel with the murder of Martha Moxley. 39-year-old Michael is charged as a juvenile for the murder and is released on $500,000 bond. Wait, a juvenile? Because at the time of the murder, he was 15. So they're going to charge him. But you don't get tried as like an adult now? Well, with that frame of mind...

Anyone could argue and be like yeah But if we're gonna try him for a thing he did when he was 15 Then we have to try him for at the state of mind that he was at when he murdered her interesting Michael holds strong to the fact that he wasn't involved in the murder. He continually says over and over you have the wrong guy I didn't do this. I don't know why I'm being charged now. It's never been me. Why is it taking 16 years? I was questioned the day that she was murdered like this is not me and

In June of 2000, at a pretrial hearing, two students that went to school with Michael testified that they heard him confess to killing Martha.

Um, they said that they heard him say that he kind of drove a club into her head and that some parts of the murder were missing from his brain. Like they come in and they're like, oh yeah, he was fully talking about killing her at that boarding school. Like at a party or something? No, no. At boarding school, they room together. It's all these, it's all these like adolescent kids. And they're like, yeah, he would talk about it. But all of this didn't, but all of this didn't come out until trial. Yeah.

And so people are like, why didn't you guys say anything before? And they said, well, we never talked because we were scared of the Kennedy family. Like this is powerful people. And one fellow student named Gregory Coleman actually said that he heard Michael say once, I'm going to get away with murder. I'm a Kennedy.

Gregory actually later died of a drug overdose. But before that, he admitted that he was on heroin at the time of his testimony. So, because remember, this is like a rehab facility. He comes out later and is like, oh yeah, I was actually on drugs when I testified. Some people believe that these students were lying.

and that Michael never confessed in those years after the murder. Students from the school come forward and say, "No, that never happened. Michael never talked about it." Like this is insane. - Yeah, I feel like there isn't enough evidence to- - It's some shady testimony. - Yes, to actually know what's going on. - I'm not saying that they're lying. I'm just saying that it's not- - Correct. - It's not that like strong testimony you're hoping for. You know what I mean? But then fellow students at the school say that the murder of Martha was brought up numerous times in classes and that Michael was confronted about it. So we don't actually know.

Another friend of Michael's named Andy Pugh testifies that Michael told him right after the murder that he had actually climbed the tree that night of Martha's murder and masturbated in it.

And so this kind of like goes to Michael's second or third story. You know what I mean? And Andy says that it was the tree that she was found under. I guess I'm confused because why would he be talking about it? Right? I think because if you snuck over to a girl's house and masturbated outside her window, and then the next morning she was found dead, possibly underneath the tree that you were in when you masturbated.

That doesn't look good. Yeah. And so maybe he was talking about it because let's just say he's innocent. That would be scary. Like you would be like, oh crap. Oh crap. But Andy says that it was the tree that she was found under, which then when was she killed? Because how did he climb the tree and not see her body? Yeah. You know what I mean? So that just is confusing. So a 30 minute audio clip from Michael himself was used in court to

And in it, he places himself outside of the house masturbating that night. But he's like, I didn't kill her. That's what he says in this audio clip. He says that he went to her house trying to get a kiss from her. But when she didn't come out, he just decided to masturbate in the tree. Just so casually. A conversation analyzer breaks this down with Laura Coates. And he notices that Michael keeps saying, I remember this and I remember this. And he says, if it was his memory, he wouldn't have to say that he remembers anything.

So this conversation analyzer kind of feels like Michael was constructing a memory on this audio tape and not actually remembering things on this audio tape. Interesting. Cause he's like, if you're saying a memory, you say, oh, and then this happened and then this happened and I went up to the tree and I did this. You don't say, and I remember going up to the tree and I remember masturbating. Cause you already know you remember it. It's your memory. You know what I mean? And that might, I mean, that might be getting nitpicky, but

He also says in this audio that Michael talks about finding out that Martha had been murdered the next morning. And that the first thing he says is that he knew he was going to get blamed. He doesn't go, oh, this girl that I, you know, had a crush on was just murdered. And who did this? What could have happened? I was just with her the night before. He says, oh, I'm going to get blamed.

Oh, I'm so confused because I'm just glad that I'm not in the courtroom. Right. Because I'm so confused. In February 2001, a judge rules that Michael should be tried as an adult at this trial because they couldn't sentence him to a juvenile treatment center at 40 years old. He's like, there's no place for him to go. He has to go to prison. And if he's going to prison, he has to be tried as an adult. They change it to try him as an adult instead. And in 2002, the case was tried and it lasted three weeks.

Michael Skakel was found guilty of the murder of Martha Moxley despite no physical evidence linking him to the crime. Wait, so how old is he at this point now? 40. Holy crap. He was 15 at the time. Okay. He was sentenced to 20 years to life and proclaims his innocence. I was like, nope, you have the wrong guy. The next decade consists of appeals, challenges, and petitions for Michael that all go denied.

But then on October 23rd, 2013, Judge Thomas Bishop ruled that Michael Skakel's original lawyer failed to adequately resent him. And on November 21st, 2013, Michael Skakel was released from prison on a $1.2 million bond after more than 10 years in prison.

He had to wear a GPS device. Holy crap. He could not talk to the Moxley family. He had to check in with his parole officer often, and he could not leave the state of Connecticut. And during this time, he actually gets special permission to relocate to Westchester County, New York. Michael's attorney at one point would even argue for a retrial pointing to Thomas Skakel, his brother, as the real murderer. But it doesn't hold.

Three years later, in July of 2016, Robert F. Kennedy releases a book called Framed, Why Michael Skakel Spent Over a Decade in Prison for a Murder that He Did Not Commit.

The book points the finger at two other teenagers and neither are charged and they deny all involvement. In 2018, Michael Skakel's murder conviction was finally vacated after much back and forth by the Connecticut Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled Michael's attorney failed to call an alibi witness in the original trial that would have like changed the outcome. So they're like, we're going to vacate like this whole trial. On October 30th, 2020, four

45 years after Martha's murder, Connecticut chief state's attorney said that they would not retry Michael for the murder, that they did not believe that they could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty. And legally that's where we are with the murder of Martha. We're done. Yeah. They, I mean, they can retry him. They've tried him before, but they've come forward and said, we're not going to, we don't think we have enough evidence. Yeah.

Which I probably, I don't know. I agree. It makes sense to me. I need physical evidence. Yeah. I need physical evidence for a murder. I need physical. I don't know. I just, there's some sketchy. She was hanging out with him. He was drunk. He went up in the tree and. Masterminding. Yeah. Maybe over her deathbed.

over her dead body. I'm so confused. That's what I'm saying. It was everywhere. Like the evidence was everywhere. I feel like no one could get, I mean, I'm sure in court they came up with a good timeline, but it's still so circumstantial. It's all circumstantial. It's like, yeah, it's kind of feels obvious, but at the same time, unless there's physical evidence, which obviously,

To this day, they haven't come forward with any DNA testing on any, if there was semen, any found. Keep in mind, we don't have all the details. With a golf club, that is so messed up in front of her house. So her mom, Dorothy, says that it hasn't been easy all of these years, that she doesn't cry as much anymore, but she used to, and it still hurts. She believes that it was a group of people who attacked Martha outside the house.

Okay. So she doesn't believe it was just one. And she actually see that. Yeah. And she actually remembers hearing voices that night, but she chalked it up to like kids just messing around on mischief night. And then John Moxley, which is Martha's brother wonders what might've been if she had lived her life out and like didn't get murdered. He says he's put effort in to not go down a dark road with her case, but to remember her for who she was. He doesn't want to remember this as an awful thing. He,

He believes that if the Skakel family wasn't connected to the Kennedys, this case wouldn't have gotten the attention it got. And also believes that behind closed doors for years, there was a push to not go in the direction that it needed to because of all the high profile people involved in this case. So that's where we are with this case. But Laura Coates, the person who I told you reinvestigated this, dove into a side that really the police haven't yet. So I'm gonna go over that real quick.

While she was investigating, she tried to break a golf club similar to the one used. She like whacked it over and over trying to break it. And instead she cracked the concrete before she could break the club. Okay. And the only way that she could get it to break in half like it did was bending it over her knee or stomping on it. Like it was broke on purpose, not because someone was hit with this so many times that it broke. Okay.

And this, this is weird because police were like, Oh, it was a vengeful, rageful, angry killing. But if someone broke this on purpose, that's like that. You have to take a second to break it and then stab her through the neck. You know what I mean? Yep. Um, and then looking into the book, the one written by Robert Kennedy, um, he says that there were people who have come forward claiming a connection to this case that haven't been looked into. Um,

And those people are a man named Tony Bryant, which is actually the cousin of Kobe Bryant. So we're just going all famous here. Holy crap, just celebrities out there. Well, yeah. So he was a friend of Martha and the kids in the neighborhood in the 70s. He ran around with this crowd. And his friends, Adolph and Bert, were actually introduced to the neighborhood via Tony Bryant.

And these are the two boys who are pointed to in Kennedy's book as the possible murderers.

So the reason they came up with this was because Tony actually came forward on interview just a year after the trial of Michael. Like while he's sitting in jail for this murder, Tony comes forward and says that Adolf and Bert actually killed Martha that night and that his mother told him not to say anything, which is why he hasn't come forward because he didn't want to like be charged with anything. He says that he didn't like Michael Skakel, but he feels bad that he's incarcerated for something that he didn't do.

Tony says that everyone in the neighborhood used those golf clubs sitting on the Skakel property. That's what I was going to say is I bet people just took them all the time and use them, which is what he said. He's like, they were on the edge of the property where they'd hit these balls. Like they were just in a bin. Anyone could have walked by and grabbed one. And he said that night, the night that she was killed, they were there for mischief knife hanging, hanging out. And they grabbed the golf clubs that night. He actually had one in his hand. He was walking around with one.

but he left earlier than Adolph and Bert, the boys he was with, but they had golf clubs too. And he says that Adolph was obsessed with Martha and that Martha wasn't interested in him and that he had talked multiple times about killing her. Like it was something they talked about. Jeez. And remember, this is all according to the footage of Tony confessing, like police have not, but,

I mean, this footage is out there, but police haven't done anything about it. Everything, again, is circumstantial. Yes. And also, like, when Tony was asked to say this under oath, he pled the 5th.

So he was willing to say it like weird to other people. But then when he was asked to say it in court, he refused. Okay. That's strange actually. And nobody else has come forward and said that Tony Adolph and Bert were there that night. Only Tony says that Adolph and Bert are like, we weren't there. And none of the other friends who were there, like, Oh, they were in the neighborhood. They were there. This is a gated community. You have to go past the security guard to get in.

it wouldn't just be Tony who remembered them being there. You know what I mean? - Dang this, I feel bad because this whole thing is so confusing. I feel like there'll never be that closure of who did it because there's not enough evidence. - And I think that's the problem is we don't have definitive physical evidence in this case.

So apparently there were two hairs found on the police blanket that did not belong to the Skakel brothers, but I don't think they're like definitive and can be tested. So I don't really know where that stands. We don't know where the DNA evidence is in this case. Apparently it's not very strong evidence or I think police would have done something. You know what I mean? Totally. But yeah, that's kind of where we're at in this case. And I do want to clarify that Dorothy doesn't think that Adolph and Bert did it.

She thinks that like, and she doesn't think that, um, Michael acted alone. She thinks Michael did it. She thinks a group of Michael and his friends did it. She doesn't think that Michael acted alone in it. Got it. Dang.

That was crazy. It's just one of those cases where, yes, it feels obvious, but to put someone away. But if he did kill her with a golf club, I mean, come on. Like that is. That's brutal. That is insane. And also they believe that she was originally struck and then either crawled or ran or was chased. Like stabbed with a golf club? Through the neck. That is so barbaric. Like broke a golf club, stabbed it through the neck. Ugh.

Yeah. I can't. That's the case of Martha Moxley. It's on Halloween. It's very infamous. Yeah. And that's why I had to do it. I had to do it. Yeah. All right, you guys. So that is all for this week's episode. And we will see you guys next week with another one. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.