In the tranquil, privileged enclave of Belle Haven, Greenwich, Connecticut, a mystery has loomed large for nearly five decades. The year was 1975, and on the eve of Halloween—a night youth often fill with mischief and harmless pranks—tragedy struck. Fifteen-year-old Martha Moxley, a resident of this gated community, ventured out with friends to partake in the pre-Halloween revelries on October 30. However, when she did not return home by curfew, her parents, overcome with anxiety, started searching for her.
The dawn of Halloween day brought a grim discovery. Martha Moxley’s lifeless body lay in her family’s backyard, with fragments of a shattered six-iron golf club nearby. The post-mortem examination unveiled a horrifying truth: Martha had suffered lethal blows and stabs from that very instrument. While some harbored suspicions of a transient outsider seizing an opportunity to commit the horrific crime, others noticed the fragments of the golf club pointed towards a house in close proximity.
The house was home to the Skakel family, an influential figure in the locality. Two of its members—Michael Skakel and his older brother Thomas ‘Tommy’ Skakel, relatives of the widow of Robert F. Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy—were of particular interest. Both Michael, who was Martha’s age, and Tommy, two years her senior, were seen in her company on that dreadful night. Martha’s diary divulged a months-long record of interactions with Michael—often documenting his unreciprocated romantic overtures.
In the face of such a gruesome event, the enigmatic tale of Martha’s murder drew significant global attention. The involvement of the well-known Skakel family, linked by marriage to the Kennedy family, brewed countless theories about the incident. Despite this infamous crime and the suspects involved, no charges were filed in the immediate aftermath of Martha’s death.
Flash forward to the year 2000, 25 years after the crime, and Michael Skakel was the one apprehended. In 2002, Michael, then 41, stood before the court as the accused. Prosecutors contended that jealousy, sparked by a presumed romance between Martha and Tommy, drove Michael into a fit of alcohol-induced rage, which culminated in Martha’s murder on the eve of Halloween.
Back in 1975, Martha’s body was found with her clothing partially removed, suggesting something sinister. However, no signs of sexual assault were discovered. The ferocity of her attack was so extreme that the golf club used as the weapon had fractured. The broken part of the club was, quite chillingly, impaled into her neck. Martha was last seen alive among friends, the Skakel brothers included.
Michael’s defense, when interrogated by the police, was that he and his brother Tommy had departed from Martha’s company at a certain point during the night, heading to their cousin’s residence. Although both Skakel brothers and Kenneth Littleton, a 24-year-old tutor residing with the Skakels, were considered suspects initially, no arrests were made.
Over a decade later, in 1991, the trial of William Kennedy Smith on rape charges reignited interest in Martha’s case. Rumors surfaced surrounding Smith, Martha’s murder, and a potential connection, leading law enforcement to reinvestigating. While Smith was eventually acquitted in his rape trial and no links to Martha’s murder were drawn, interest in the case had been renewed, prompting multiple book inspirations.
In 1998, a special grand jury was assembled to look into Martha’s unsolved slaying. Two years after, in 2000, this led to Michael Skakel’s arrest for murder at 39 years old. During the prosecution, Martha’s diary proved to be compelling evidence, outlining her interactions with the Skakel brothers and suggesting a potential motive.
Within Martha’s diary, she wrote about going for an ice cream outing with Michael and Tommy. She recalls sitting in close proximity to Tommy in his car while he kept touching her knee, indicating unwanted attention. Elsewhere in the diary, she portrays Michael as acting offensively, accusing her of leading on Tommy, whom she only saw as a friend. Her journal indicated possible tension and discomfort with the brothers.
A little over a month after these documented incidents, Martha found her untimely end, killed with a golf club belonging to the Skakels. Michael Skakel was deemed guilty on June 7, 2002, and was given a sentence of 20 years to life.
However, in 2013, after serving more than a decade of his sentence, Skakel was granted a new trial on the grounds that his original defense counsel failed to represent him sufficiently. Consequently, he was released from prison and has remained at liberty since then. Skakel’s victory continued in 2018 when the Connecticut Supreme Court overturned his murder charges and called for a retrial.
In a surprising twist, in 2020, the chief state’s prosecutor made the unexpected decision not to try Skakel for a second time, effectively securing his ongoing freedom. Then, in 2024, Skakel launched a lawsuit contending that evidence had been suppressed that would have avoided his decade-long imprisonment for what he claimed was a wrongful conviction.
The lawsuit accused Greenwich authorities of a conspiracy against Skakel to violate his civil rights, alleging they failed to share testimonies pointing towards a duo other than Skakel himself in the vicinity of the murder scene. Despite these allegations and his newfound freedom, Martha’s family, now without her father who had passed away in 1988, remain convinced that Michael Skakel is responsible for her death.