true crime

Martha Moxley

  Martha Moxley was born in August 16, 1960 in San Francisco California.

  On the evening of October 30, 1975, Martha Moxley left with friends to participate in "mischief night", in which neighborhood youths would ring bells and pull pranks such as toilet papering houses. According to friends, Moxley began flirting with, and eventually kissed, Thomas Skakel, the older brother of Michael Skakel. Moxley was last seen "falling together behind the fence" with Thomas, near the pool in the Skakel backyard, at around 9:30 p.m. The next day, Moxley's body was found beneath a tree in her family's backyard. Her pants and underwear were pulled down, but she had not been sexually assaulted. Pieces of a broken six-iron golf club were found near the body. An autopsy indicated that she had been both bludgeoned and stabbed with the club, which was traced back to the Skakel residence.

  Thomas Skakel was the last person seen with Moxley on the night of the murder. He became the prime suspect, but his father forbade access to his school and mental health records. Kenneth Littleton, who had started working as a live-in tutor for the Skakel family only hours before the murder, also became a prime suspect. However, no one was charged, and the case languished for decades. In the meantime, several books were published about the murder, including Dominick Dunne's fictional account of the case, A Season in Purgatory (1993);[6] Mark Fuhrman's nonfiction Murder in Greenwich (1998), and Timothy Dumas' nonfiction A Wealth of Evil (1999).

Over the years, both Thomas and Michael Skakel significantly changed their alibis for the night of Moxley's murder. Michael claimed that he had been window-peeping and masturbating in a tree beside the Moxley property from 11:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Two former students from Élan School, a treatment center for troubled youths, testified they heard Michael confess to killing Moxley with a golf club. One of the former students, Gregory Coleman, testified that Michael was given special privileges and had bragged, "I'm going to get away with murder. I'm a Kennedy."