Hey weirdos, I'm Alayna.
I'm Ash.
And this is Morbid.
Morbidito.
It certainly is.
I channeled Caleb on that one.
You did.
I felt it.
Yeah.
I miss Caleb.
I do too.
I need Caleb to come here.
Caleb.
We miss the Kaleeb.
We do.
And also this is a case that I wonder if it's like people of a certain age are going to see this case and be like oh, I remember that.
And then people of a lesser age are going to say, what?
I know I've heard of this case.
And I think we've discussed it like together before.
Yeah.
But never on the pod.
Never on the pod.
Never on the microphone, on the ones on the tunes.
It's pretty, it's a crazy case.
Yeah, it's You know what?
I'm just going to let you tell it.
I'm not even going to ask things yet.
It's a wild one.
It's got a lot of skandal involved in it.
Skandal?
A lot of very wealthy people.
Oh, you know I love a wealthy story.
Yeah, there's a lot of cover-up rumors happening here.
Lots of all that kind of stuff and a lot of scandals and the and the murder itself is absolutely horrific.
I mean, it's a horrific story.
I mean, Martha's young.
She's like she was an amazing person gal oh, and this is a truly horrific story.
Um, but before we get into the whole thing yes uh, we just wanted to say something really quick, because i think some people were having trouble with um of a couple of episodes on Apple Podcasts.
It was doing like a buffer thing where it would like start you over.
Yeah.
Randomly.
Like in the middle of the episode, I think.
Yeah, it's not.
We can't really fix anything on our end because it's not like a broken thing in the episode.
It's more you might need to update your app because sometimes that can happen.
If you don't update it, it just...
It's like the iPhone.
If you don't get a new one, it just starts shitting itself.
So I think the app does that as well.
So give that a shot if you're having problems with that and see if it fixes it.
I thought that I had all of my apps on automatic update.
Like I thought I did that when I set my phone and you might think that too.
You might not because I didn't.
But see if it works.
I think that might help.
If it doesn't help, let us know.
We'll go further.
We'll troubleshoot some more.
I think that should be it.
But yeah, I think if you want to come to our live show in New York City, June 27th.
Radio City Music Hall.
There's still some tickets left.
Go grab them.
We're literally so excited.
They're like things are moving and shaking.
Yeah, we got some some fun things, oh my god, and we have a fun guest.
It's just, it's all gonna be fun.
Yeah, we just bought some some dressings oh, and we figured oh, i can't even tell you.
Yeah, we can't even tell you.
There's one thing in particular, and it's honestly like a pretty small thing in the grand scheme of things, that i am so fucking excited for.
I know exactly what you're talking about and i too am excited for it, yeah.
So yeah, go get your tickets while you can.
Uh, it's gonna be a fun time period, so i think that's all we have for business.
So look at that the minute.
The minute mark is low this time.
You better get going, don't lie about it, because listen listen listen george listen, george paul.
Yeah, what's matthew i what?
Uh, that was an apple podcast that was ash not updating, so just give her a second.
I was looking out the window and trying to talk and like that's hard.
No no, i was also itching my chest.
There was those three things.
And I was trying to remember the name of a book, too.
So there was a lot happening.
And of course, I had to breathe as well.
So there was that.
Oh, man.
That always trips me.
I know.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
Oh, no, what I'm going to say isn't even going to be funny.
For some reason, when I said George, I just thought of mice and men.
I'm tapping out.
What just happened?
I'm not really sure.
I got to go.
All right, here we are.
Let's talk about So, for I'm going to give you a quick summary of what's going to happen here.
So you know what you're getting into.
Because this is a two-pata.
This is a two-pata.
And if you're someone who's like, and what is this?
I've never heard of this.
This will be your summary.
If you're someone who thinks you remember this name and you're a little fuzzy, here's your confirmation.
So What's interesting about this is Martha Moxley's murder was the first murder case that the detectives in the Greenwich Connecticut Police Department had ever seen.
Oh, wow.
And when I say one of the first, I mean you could count on a hand in the history of the department how many murder cases there were.
That's insane.
Yeah.
But because of that, I mean, it almost immediately it drew a lot of criticism.
The investigation, the public was kind of perceiving it as sloppy police work.
They said the public was thinking there was a like a real failure to make any progress in this case.
And further complicating the matters was the fact that those that were closest to the case, like the kids who are with martha moxley the night she was murdered they came from some of the wealthiest and most powerful families in the nation.
Wow yeah, not just in connecticut.
Well, i mean also greenwich is like a very gorgeous area.
Yes, it is In fact for decades, the power, the influence, all that kind of stuff, like the shadiness that comes along with all that that we all see, come along with that.
Even now, it kind of stonewalled the investigators at every turn.
And for decades, this prevented Martha Moxley's killer from being held accountable.
That's so fucked up.
Because that's the thing.
It's like in these cases where these rich families don't want to be a part of it and they want to keep things hush, hush and yada, yada.
It's like okay, but a woman lost her life, and like a young girl, and it's like you can still love your child And admit that they did something wrong.
Yeah, exactly.
It's like you know there's parents who go too far the other way and say well, I'm just not going to cooperate because I'm not going to.
It's like okay, but somebody else's child was killed.
So like you do have to look at it, like you can still love your kid right, you can still think that sunshine glows out of their ass.
Probably doesn't.
You have to admit that they did something wrong when they did something wrong and have them face the consequences now.
Martha moxley was born august 16th 1960 in san francisco, california.
She was the second of two children born to Dorothy and David Moxley.
Dorothy and David.
Dorothy's such a cute name.
Dorothy was a teacher.
David was an accountant.
She had a brother John, and in Piedmont California for most of her life she was just kind of the quintessential American kid.
Yeah.
She was outgoing.
She was athletic.
She was a good student.
Like she had it all going for her.
Dorothy said Martha was always a very good child.
Very easy to handle.
Although she never had any trouble making friends, according to John Martha often kind of just liked spending time with her family or sketching in her notebook.
She was like pretty low key.
Yeah.
But everyone liked her.
Her brother John said Martha was a person who had everything in the world going for her.
She was friendly.
She was athletic.
She was talented in the arts.
Everything seemed to come very easy to Martha.
She was very easy to get along with.
Upbeat, friendly, the kind of kid you'd like to be around.
Like that's...
What more can you ask for?
Although the Moxleys had never struggled financially, they did pretty well.
They weren't exactly like what would be considered like a wealthy family at that time, especially by Southern California standards.
Yeah, Southern California.
SoCal, you know.
But that all changed in the summer of 1974 when David Moxley accepted a very high profile job.
It was a job as a managing partner with a global accounting firm.
But this required them to move 3000 miles to the other side of the country.
Yes.
So, you know, David needed to be close to the New York headquarters.
Like many who worked in New York's finance industry at the time, they chose not to settle in the city itself, but instead to move to one of the suburbs that they could like take a train in.
Yeah, they chose Greenwich, Connecticut.
Now, in his 1997 profile of the Moxley case for the Hartford Courant journalist, Joe Lang described Greenwich as quote the Connecticut suburb of choice for Manhattan executives.
Most, if not all of them lived in the very exclusive waterfront neighborhood of Belhaven.
Mm hmm.
Well, all of Greenwich would definitely be considered a wealthy suburb.
Even still.
Yeah.
Belhaven existed basically as its own world.
It was like a town apart.
That's crazy.
It was a gated community.
It had its own auxiliary police department, private roads, its own yacht club on the Long Island Sound.
It's like Stepford.
It literally is.
Yeah.
It feels like don't worry, darling.
Yes.
Like it feels like that.
It's like its own thing.
Now, among those who called Belhaven home was the president of Schweppes USA.
The other ginger ale.
I was going to say that literally.
I'm not going to I'm not trying to come for big ginger ale, but.
I apologize to Big Ginger Ale.
The dry family has always been a ginger ale of choice.
Drew is a ginger ale.
I was going to say ginger ale alcohol.
A ginger ale alcoholic.
He's a ginger ale alcoholic.
Yeah.
He actually hides ginger ale at our house.
Good for him.
Because he doesn't want it all gone.
Good for him.
But if Schweppes enters our household.
Oh, bitch.
Growing up, my mom, ma, is a ginger ale girl.
And we were that family.
You got sick.
She would stir those bubbles out.
It's the best.
She would give you that flat ass ginger ale and it would soothe your worries.
To this day, when I'm sick, I ask Drew to please stir the bubbles out of my ginger ale.
My kids have just recently discovered the joys of a flat ginger ale on an upset stomach.
Nothing like it.
And I remember when I gave it to my oldest for the first time, I'm like stirring the bubbles out.
And she was like, that's soda.
Because they don't drink soda.
And you're like, yeah.
And I just haven't let them yet.
But this is a... this is an emergency.
We must give her some soda.
She was like, that's soda.
Like I get soda when I'm sick.
And I was like, girl, you don't even know.
She took that first sip and she it was like I don't know if anybody's seen the Bluey episode when she like, takes the first lick of ice cream after she's earned it.
Is that what she says?
This changes everything.
It literally changes everything.
Like she goes floating through like clouds and shit.
That was what she did.
So big ginger ale.
We love Canada Dry here.
There's a place for Schweppes somewhere else.
It's just not here.
It's in Connecticut.
It is.
It's in Connecticut.
So yeah, the president of Schweppes lives there.
The president of big ginger ale.
Also the president of the National Dairy Corporation, which seems pretty big.
It does.
Because, you know, dairy.
Yeah, national dairy corporation i didn't even know that was a thing.
Also the ceo of pepsi pepsico are we gonna get into this again?
We're a coke.
Are we gonna get into this again?
Fuck, not big soda, not big soda.
We have to be honest here.
You went through a fucking phase with your mans where you guys were a strictly Pepsi home.
And I remember being like, okay, we had a moment.
You did.
It was like a few years, I would say.
Yeah.
Like your first apartment, Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi.
That's what you do in your first apartment.
No, you figured it out, you know?
I guess so.
That's true.
You make the mistakes and then you move on.
Mike, he's looking at me like he has, he learned something absolutely horrifying about me.
Yeah, it was.
You move into your first apartment.
We weren't even married yet.
Yeah, we didn't figure it out, we figured it out.
You guys loved pepsi yeah, yeah.
But then now well, now you're like a dr pepper girly and coke.
We're a coke, a cola yeah, just to make that clear, we're a coca-cola family.
God damn, get your head out of the gutter family.
Okay, we're not pablo escobar, We are Mr Charisma.
You don't need to say hello to my little friend.
We are reckless today.
We're Canada Dry.
We're Coca-Cola.
And we're, we're, we like dairy.
And a lot of us are lactose intolerant.
I was going to say, here's the thing.
We were big fans of big dairy, in fact, but we're also into big lactate.
Big enzyme.
We love big enzyme.
Oh, Lord.
But there was also a lot of actors, musicians, filmmakers that lived there.
It was crazy.
And that summer, the Moxleys settled into what they considered a fixer-upper, but...
I'm surprised they even existed there.
Well, a fixer-upper by Greenwich standards was a large, just stunning old colonial house.
Oh, I love a colonial.
Yeah.
Now for any teenager having to give up their friends and their lives move completely like just ask Max Denison from Hocus Pocus.
It sucks.
That's a tough move.
It is.
It can be kind of like a quasi-traumatic experience, I would say.
That's a lot of change.
But Martha, she took it all in stride.
She reveled in it.
Nothing bothered her.
Like, she was just an easygoing gal.
I love it.
She sounded awesome.
Hell yeah.
That first year at Western Junior High, she adjusted very quickly.
She wasted no time building a brand new social circle.
She got it.
I'll just make new friends.
One teacher wrote on her report card that year when Martha came in the room it was like the sun coming up in the morning.
That's actually crazy because I was just thinking to myself, you said her birthday was August 16th.
Yes.
That makes her a Leo.
So she's ruled by the sun.
Oh.
Isn't that fancy?
That's interesting.
Yeah.
I'm just making sure.
And just imagine we've all seen the a pleasure to have in class.
Oh yeah, i've never said no teacher ever said to me you are the sun to say that when she comes in the room it's like the sun coming up in the morning.
That's why i would be like i've done it absolutely, like dorothy should feel like i did it like that and dorothy and david should feel like We've done it.
Absolutely.
Like that's a high compliment for a teacher to feel that way about your child.
How do you even get better than that?
Yeah, that's big.
After just nine months, Martha had surrounded herself with a huge group of friends.
She was voted the most popular girl in school.
Wow.
Imagine that still being a thing.
Brand new.
I know.
Can you imagine?
That's wild.
And one of her closest friends, Christy Callen, said Martha was just incredibly fun.
Aww.
In the summer of 1974, she actually started dating a boy named Peter Zaluka.
They had like...
A pretty teenager-y relationship in her diary entries that were later discovered.
She kind of describes their relationship as like a little stormy.
Okay.
Nothing great, like there's nothing damning or like wild in there.
I mean, you're 15.
She would just frequently talk about his dark moods and that she was frustrated with him, like pretty typical stuff.
He was never looked at as a prime suspect for what came later.
But he obviously was spoken to.
He had an alibi and he was cleared.
And it checked out.
Okay.
Unfortunately, I believe he passed away in 2011.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
The summer, after completing the eighth grade, Martha spent much of her time at the Belhaven Club swimming, playing tennis, laying by the pool.
It sounds like... It's like you can picture like a movie.
I can see it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was there that she met a new set of friends, the people who lived in Belhaven and attended elite private schools.
The ones that she wasn't going to school in.
Among that group was Tommy and Michael Skakel.
If you know this case, it might sound familiar.
They were two children of Rushton Skakel, the wealthiest man in Greenwich.
Imagine being known as the wealthiest man in Greenwich.
And Rushton, you have to be.
His first name is Rushton?
Rushton Skakel.
Rushton.
I've never heard that name.
That's the father.
Why are you such a Rushton?
Right.
Rushton Skakel's fortune came from Great Lakes Coal, a company founded by his father that recycled waste products from mining operations.
But it wasn't just the money that made Skakel so influential.
That's hard to say.
In addition to his wealth, Skakel's sister, Ethel, was married to Robert F. Kennedy.
Oh, bitch.
Y'all know Ethel.
Oh.
So he, yeah.
So he had direct access.
I know where we are.
He had direct access to one of the most famous families and infamous families in America.
To this day.
If not the world, honestly.
Honestly, yeah.
And so Dorothy Moxley later recalled, as soon as you moved into Greenwich, they'd tell you that's where the Skakels live and that they were related to the Kennedys, which obviously that's a big deal.
Yeah, of course.
Now, despite his economic success, the Skakel family, like the Kennedys, had more than their fair share of experience with tragedy.
In 1955, Rushton and Ethel's parents were killed in a private plane crash.
A few years later, their brother George Jr. was also killed in a plane crash.
Jesus.
Not long after, his wife choked to death during a dinner party.
Oh my God.
Isn't that horrific?
Yes.
Wow.
Oh.
Anne's death not only left Rushton a widower a lot earlier than anyone would expect, but it also made him the sole provider for his seven children.
Holy shit.
Six boys and one girl.
Now the Skakel boys.
Yeah, the Skakel boys had always had a bit of a reputation for being an entitled and often unruly bunch of kids.
But for at least a few of them, their behavior got significantly worse when their mother died.
I mean, that makes sense.
Yeah, trauma.
Michael in particular seemed to take his mother's death harder than the others and started acting out in very obvious ways, while also apparently developing a pretty significant drinking problem.
In the summer of 1974, before starting high school, Martha began socializing with a group of friends at the country club that occasionally did include Tommy and Michael Skagel.
Okay.
Although they weren't very close as friends go.
Martha wrote in a letter to her friend that summer that Tommy quote had hit on her and she wasn't interested.
Good for her.
Good for her.
And a year after Martha's death, her mother actually discovered her diary, which is where they got a lot of information about what was going on in her life.
And it included a few mentions of the Skakel brothers.
Oh.
Now, in a passage from September 12th, 1975, which is only about a month before she was killed.
Yeah.
Martha talked about a random evening that she had spent with Tommy and Michael Skakel.
This is what she wrote.
She wrote, Dear Diary, today was nothing extra special at school.
Peter was being his usual self.
Me, Jackie, Michael, Tom, Hope, Maureen and Aunt Andra were driving in Tom's car.
Which immediately was like, ugh.
And Michael treated me and got me a double, but I only wanted a single, so I threw the top scoop out the window.
Then I was driving again and Tom put his arm around me.
He kept doing stuff like that.
Jesus if Peter ever found out I would be dead.
I think Jackie really likes Michael and I think maybe he likes her.
Maybe because he was drunk.
I don't know.
Okay.
So that was on September 12th.
September 15th she talked again about hanging out with them and saying that She doesn't think that or that Michael told her he doesn't like Jackie, but he leads her on.
But she thinks he leads her on.
So it's like very teenager.
It's super like summer of 75.
I'm 15.
Yeah.
And a few days later she journaled and said Michael meaning Michael Skakel was so totally out of it that he was being a real asshole in his actions and words.
Oh, wow.
Oh my God.
That's just like, it's very chilling.
Yeah.
And it's cause it's just at the very least here, what we're seeing is like, she was just annoyed.
Yeah.
Yeah, by Michael, kind of like tell it like accusing her of leading Tommy on and Tommy being a little too like.
She wasn't having a good time going over there.
Yeah, she wasn't having a good time.
She seemed like she wanted to move on from it.
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
I know.
Now, although she had always been a really good girl, a really easy kid and generally got along very well with her parents, Martha wasn't, you know, she wasn't a robot.
Yeah.
She's a teenage girl.
She's a teenage girl in a very wealthy suburb with a lot of stuff at her disposal.
Her brother John said she had a wilder side as well, occasionally missing her curfew drinking a beer or smoking.
In mid-October.
It was that wilder side of her personality that had landed her in a little trouble with her parents, who grounded her for some teenage infraction.
Nothing crazy.
Nobody even remembers what the infraction was.
It was that.
So obviously it was that little thing.
But when Martha's country club friends came calling for her on the night of October 30th, which is a lot of times dubbed mischief night, Dorothy Moxley took pity on her daughter and allowed her to go out with her friends for a little while, as long as she was back at a reasonable hour.
I think because Martha was such a good kid...
She's like, you learned your lesson.
Yeah.
Like, I'm not too worried about you doing a lot more.
After leaving the Moxley house that night, Martha and her friend Helen X Fitzpatrick met up with two other friends, Jackie Wenton Hall and Jeffrey Byrne, and the two walked over to the Skakel house.
When they were there, they all just kind of piled into Tommy's Maroon Lincoln, which the Skakel boys referred to as the Lustmobile.
Ew.
Like, ew.
I don't like it.
And they sat parked in the driveway.
Yeah.
Within a few minutes Tommy, who had been drinking that night, started rubbing Martha's leg without her permission, to which she responded by pushing his hand away repeatedly.
After a certain amount of times.
Yeah.
Now, a little before 930 pm, Tommy and Michael's brothers, Rush Jr and John, came out of the house with their cousin Jimmy Tyrion.
And they announced that they were going to Jimmy's house, the cousin, for the rest of the night.
Okay.
So Michael was kind of feeling like the Michael Skakel was feeling like the fifth wheel.
So he got out of the car and decided to go along with them instead of staying with Martha and her friends.
So now it's just, is it just Martha and Helen and Tommy and then Jeff?
I think so.
Yeah.
Okay.
And Jackie.
And Jackie.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
So later, when they gave their statements to police, Jeff and Helen said they remembered seeing Martha and Tommy play fighting in the Skakels driveway not long after the other group had left.
Okay.
The report says Martha was pushing Thomas and Thomas pushing Martha.
Was that playful?
At one point, Thomas pushed Martha down and either fell or got down on her.
I'm here to tell you that that doesn't sound like play fighting.
That sounds like he was trying to attack her.
Yeah.
That's just what it sounds like in that report.
Yup.
Eventually, when Tommy and Martha began kissing Jeff and Helen decided to leave to give them some alone time.
And it was the last time they would see Martha alive.
But let's all remember that Martha wasn't interested in Tommy.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Now completely by herself.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dorothy later said, Oh, man.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Had there been an argument, did Martha usually stay out this late?
Had she run away before?
Had Martha been a younger child, the police would very likely have fanned out to search the neighborhood.
But at the time the common belief among law enforcement was that when a teenager disappeared for a short time, they were probably just blown off steam or run away and they would eventually come home.
Yeah.
We've seen that that is not true most of the time.
And you end up wasting a lot of valuable time.
So, after taking a quick look around the outside of the house and finding nothing because what the fuck would they find on a quick cursory search of the house when she hasn't returned to the house?
The officer logged the report and told Dorothy to call back if Martha still hadn't returned home in a few more hours.
Then he returned to the station.
Okay.
Now feeling helpless at this point, because what does she do now?
Right.
Dorothy called her husband who was in Atlanta on business and asked him to come home.
Okay.
Then when the sun came up, she decided to go over to the Skakel's house where Martha was last seen.
Good for her.
When Dorothy knocked on the door, Michael Skakel answered and Dorothy remembered that he was quote unquote disheveled and looked like a mess, as though he hadn't got much sleep.
Michael explained that he hadn't seen Martha since he left with his brothers to go to his cousin's house the night before, and he'd gone straight to bed when he got home a little before midnight.
Oh, God.
Stop.
Stop.
She was lying on her stomach in a pool of blood.
Her pants and underwear were pulled down around her ankles.
She had been severely beaten in the head and face.
A former detective, Steve Carroll, said her head was a bloody mess.
She was a blonde, but you could never tell because her hair was matted down with blood very thick and heavy.
Oh my God.
Martha was lying in a large pool of blood, and near the body investigators found a Tony Penn six iron golf club broken into three pieces.
Holy shit.
An iron golf club.
Yeah.
Oh, my God. with the six iron, as many as eight or nine times.
According to the coroner's report, this is very graphic, just to warn you.
The beating was so savage that it tore pieces of Martha's scalp from her skull, leaving it dangling over her face.
Oh my god.
After the eighth or ninth blow to the head, the shaft of the golf club broke into multiple pieces, at which point the killer took up the broken pieces with the handle And rammed the jagged end of the club into Martha's throat.
Oh my god.
And she's like 200 feet from her house.
Her mom is in the house.
And this is happening to her daughter 200 feet away from her house.
Oh my god.
I...
When I read that, that'll stay with me.
I didn't even know that detail of this or I didn't remember it at the very least.
That's unthinkable.
That is completely unthinkable.
And to think that she was running away from somebody and was so close to home.
It was a matter of feet.
Yeah.
I just, like, honestly, it makes my, like, it turns my stomach.
It really turns my stomach.
Like, oh, that's wild.
Now, although the medical examiner found no concrete evidence of sexual assault, he did note a quote reddish mark on both her inner thighs, which he stated were consistent with bloody hands trying to push the victim's legs apart.
Oh, awful.
Now for investigators at the scene and those who would later be assigned to the case.
Martha Moxley was the first murder case any of them had ever seen.
And it is one of the most brutal things to ever come across.
This is one of the most brutal murders you can think of.
And this is their first murder case.
That's unthinkable.
Wow.
They were not experienced in the investigation of homicide, let alone one so brutal and someone so young.
Yeah. which would prove seriously consequential for their investigation.
But Steve Carroll and his associates took up the case, determined to find out who did this.
That afternoon, Chief Thomas Keegan assigned the case to detectives Steve Carroll and James Lunney, who would act as co-lead investigators.
At 3 pm James Lunney and his partner went to the Skakel house to interview the kids, while Carroll and his partner began interviewing the Moxley's neighbors.
At the time, Rushton Skagel was away on business and the kid's tutor, Ken Littleton, was left in charge.
According to 18-year-old Julie Skakel, she and several of her brothers had dinner at the Belle Haven Beach Club the previous evening and returned home around 9 pm.
And at that point Tommy and Michael met up with Martha and her friends in the driveway of the house, while the rest of the kids went inside.
Okay.
Okay.
I bet.
Hmm.
Hmm, which was corroborated by Jeff and Helen, that they at least saw play.
Fighting is what they thought it was.
Then he went inside around 9.30 p.m. to work on a homework project about Abraham Lincoln.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Because it is so easily disproven.
Exactly.
Now elsewhere in the neighborhood, Carol and his partner were canvassing the area looking for anyone who might have seen or heard anything out of the ordinary the night before.
Although no one saw anything, many of the neighbors closest to the Moxley house recalled hearing the sound of several dogs barking wildly around 10 pm.
Oh.
Dorothy Moxley too, remembered hearing the noise and thought someone must have been having an argument.
Oh, okay.
Otherwise, the most anyone seemed able to offer investigators was just like suspicion and speculation.
Some in Belhaven told the detectives about like a transient man.
They described him as that they'd seen hitchhiking in the area the day that Martha was killed and thought surely this man had something to do with the murder.
Could not be one of our own.
No, never.
It quickly became apparent to investigators that Tommy Skakel was the last person to see Martha alive that night.
They also determined, based on the reports of the barking dogs, that the time of the death was most likely somewhere around 10 pm.
Okay.
Since Michael Skakel had been at his cousin's house when they believed the murder took place, he was ruled out as Martha's killer, leaving Tommy as the most likely suspect.
Mm-hmm.
Based on what they learned, Carol and Lunny theorized that Tommy had wanted to go further than kissing Martha.
And when Martha rejected him and began walking home, he chased her down and attacked her.
That was the theory.
Makes sense.
The next day, detectives spoke to Rushton Skagel and explained that they needed to search the area more thoroughly, but they didn't mention that they suspected Tommy.
Okay.
Like everyone else in the neighborhood, Skakel wanted to help find Martha's killer.
So he gave his permission for investigators to search his house and continue speaking with his children.
He was like, absolutely.
Operating on the assumption that Skakel's verbal permission was good enough, Carol and Lenny never bothered to get a search warrant.
That wasn't smart.
I will never get over this fact.
That wasn't smart.
You just said, sounds good to me.
Yeah.
Nothing you do now is admissible.
Nope.
You learned that.
Wait, before you got that shiny badge that you show people?
That's such a basic.
That's such a basic.
That's basic shit.
That might have been day two after orientation.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
So, having secured Rushton Skakel's permission, detectives returned to the Skakel's house to follow up with Tommy, while additional officers searched the house.
When he was confronted with the lie about the homework project, Tommy stuck to his story, insisting that he had gone up to his bedroom to work on the project.
Which the detectives now knew didn't exist.
It's also like, okay, show me the project.
Show me the Abraham Lincoln thing.
Meanwhile, officers searching the house found a set of Tony Pena golf clubs in the mudroom, with several clubs missing.
They eventually located most of the other clubs on the back deck, but the six iron was nowhere to be found.
You gotta be fucking kidding me.
And the fact that they found that and it's not admissible.
Yeah.
For reasons that remain unclear, it appears that the detectives didn't bother to push back on Tommy's claims that he was working on a project that had literally never been assigned.
Nor did they take the clubs or anything else into evidence.
Interesting.
Just let that settle.
They literally found out that he was lying.
They have teachers to back it up to say he doesn't have that project.
They didn't say, hey, can you show me the project?
They found the golf clubs.
Missing one that happened to be used in the murder weapon.
Missing the only one that's used as a murder weapon.
And they took nothing.
What did they do?
Talk to a Skakel.
That's it.
Oh my god, dude.
Now, in retrospect, many of the most critical mistakes in this investigation were definitely made in these early days, which is the worst time to make them.
It sure is.
While most could be chalked up to just inexperienced and doofusy detectives, many believe that the real underlying problem was the investigator's unwillingness to aggressively pursue Tommy Skakel because of his father's wealth and power.
And to me, It fits the bill.
I think so.
Because I'm like, which one do you want to be?
Do you want to be a shady fuck who doesn't want to question a wealthy, powerful family?
Or do you want to be a dumb detective who didn't do the most basic shit in the world?
Oh man.
Pick one, I guess.
Pick your poison.
I was going to say they're both pretty shitty.
They're both pretty bad.
They both don't paint you in a good light.
I didn't know all the details of this.
Yeah.
Steve Carroll said in a 2003 interview, I think it was a case of circumstances.
Did we tread lightly?
Probably.
Out of respect or fear?
I don't know.
But we thought really that we were doing a good job.
A young girl was murdered and you decided to tread lightly?
I don't know if you want to go with that.
Probably not.
And I don't know if you want to say we thought we were doing a good job.
Did you?
By not collecting evidence?
Wow.
Yeah, I don't know.
In fact, everything seemed to be pointing towards Tommy Skakel, but Carol and Lenny seemed completely unwilling to follow the very obvious evidence.
That was like breadcrumbing right to him.
So the next day Detective Thomas Keegan gave a statement to the press, though it didn't do a whole lot to answer any questions or like help anyone with their fears.
He told reporters.
We have reason to believe she was assaulted on the property and dragged to the tree.
Yup.
Thanks.
Unfortunately, when it came to any theories or potential suspects, Keegan was tight-lipped, saying only we don't have a heck of a lot to go on.
You actually have almost everything you need.
Almost a smoking gun.
Now, a few days later, Deputy Police Chief Raymond Grant followed up on Keegan's vague statement telling reporters It's not that we don't have leads, but I don't know when we'll break the case.
If I did, I'd tell you.
The most non-sentence sentence I've ever heard.
It just includes absolutely no information.
Wow.
So the silence and very poor communication from investigators would prove to be another problem for local police.
Not only did it do nothing to make locals feel any safer, but it also suggested investigators weren't making any progress on the case.
And if it felt to the public that detectives weren't making any progress that's probably because they weren't.
Probably.
Now, within a few days of the murder, the investigation began to run into several roadblocks, many having to do with the social status of the primary suspect.
First, one of Tommy's teachers refused to go on the record refuting the claim about the homework assignment and became generally uncooperative.
From that point forward, it seemed as though every lead Carol and Lenny had managed to come up with started falling apart.
Within a few weeks, when it became clear detectives were focusing on his son, Rushton Skakel, rescinded his permission to speak to his children and routed everything through the family's lawyer.
By then, Tommy had taken two polygraph tests, with the first showing inconclusive results and the second showing no deception.
Interesting.
Which is very interesting.
I mean, he had a practice run.
Within a few months, investigators found themselves in a very difficult position.
They no longer had access to their suspect and no one seemed willing to speak out against the Skakels.
But at the same time the public pressure to find Martha's killer had only grown louder and more demanding.
In late March, Connecticut State Attorney Thomas Brown responded to the growing criticism by publicly accusing the Skagels of stonewalling detectives and impeding the investigation.
Wow.
Brief.
According to Brown, the local police were quote apparently being frustrated by the refusal of a particular family, which could supply pertinent information, to assist or cooperate in the police investigation.
Although Brown didn't call out the Skakels by name, Tommy Skakel had been associated with the case in the press from day one.
So there was little doubt who he was referring to.
Also, Brown made it clear in no uncertain terms that the Greenwich police were equipped to investigate the case.
He said, Despite the unfortunate refusal of cooperation by the particular family, which has clearly impeded the investigation, now under the gun to solve the case, with or without the scapegoat's help at this point.
Investigators or detectives began casting a much wider net and started looking at anyone who could have any reason or want to harm Martha, which I said.
Why?
You're wasting your fucking time.
You have everything.
Including her parents and her brother.
You gotta be fucking kidding me.
Are they missing golf clubs?
Like, come on.
In the end, the larger suspect pool did nothing to help the investigation and actually probably did a lot more harm than it did anything else.
Now, at first, detectives focused their attention on the Skakel children's tutor, Ken Littleton, who failed his polygraph exam.
Yeah, because he probably had something that he was hiding.
But when he passed his second polygraph I love how they're like let's just do it until you pass this.
Like, what?
They determined he knew more than he was saying, but he wasn't Martha's killer.
Yeah.
Which seems likely.
Yeah.
After moving on from Littleton, investigators shifted their attention to one of the Moxley's neighbors, Edward Hammond.
According to journalist Leonard Levitt, it was never clear quote what had piqued their interest in Hammond.
Although the police file did state he had blood on his clothing from a household accident.
Okay.
Regardless of what got them to spend so much time on hammond.
He was like, very cooperative with detectives and provided extensive biological samples to rule himself out yeah, so anybody that's willing to do that, it's yeah.
He cooperated completely Now with Tommy Skakel being beyond their reach and every other suspect ruled out because they weren't even real suspects to begin with.
I feel like investigators went back to the earliest case notes, particularly the neighbor's note about the mysterious and suspicious hitchhiker seen in town.
OK, because you got to that.
That seems like at least a little weird.
I mean, you got so much evidence on one other side, but like you might as well chase this one down.
Yeah, it's out of the ordinary, you know.
Now, despite not knowing whether the man even existed or where he could be found, the investigative team would spend an unreasonable amount of time pursuing the hitchhiker lead.
Which would literally come to nothing in the end.
Great.
Nothing.
Like, nothing.
They find anybody?
If they had, like, hey, he was on this corner and this is where I saw him going.
Even that is hard to chase because, like, where'd he go?
Yeah, anywhere.
You don't even know what he looks like.
Right.
Now, by the end of the 1970s, investigators had exhausted every lead they had and were no closer to actually nailing down Marcus Killer.
And her poor family is just having to continue living in this community.
With everybody.
Now.
In the meantime, several of the Skakel kids had grown up and moved away, including Michael who, after being arrested on charge of drunk driving in late 1978, was sent to the Elon School, a private institution in Maine for troubled teenagers.
Mm-hmm.
With so many people having come and gone and so many mistakes having been made in the investigation, it seemed like the case might never be solved.
Yeah.
Now, throughout the first half of the 20th century, a lot of Americans had a fascination and respect for the last of the nation's really like aristocratic families like the Vanderbilts, you know, the Rockefellers, the Asters.
By the later part of the century though, that fascination and respect had like Yeah, because the social consequences of wealth inequality were becoming more and more apparent around the country.
Others meanwhile, took a kind of like perverse pleasure in watching as many in what remained of high society were taken down by scandals or otherwise fell from grace.
It is interesting how a lot of these wealthy families do end up just falling apart.
Because you have to think, rarely do you just get there.
Mm-hmm. rarely is there a glistening golden path leading to where you get in those situations.
Somebody got kicked in the teeth along the way.
Like, you know what I mean?
And eventually that person who gets kicked in the teeth is going to come back to bite you with a brand new set of chompers.
Exactly.
That was very poetic.
And when you see these, like, and I'm not saying every, like, you know, aristocratic family.
Of course, I'm not saying that.
I'm not generalizing.
I'm just saying, a lot of the times when you see them being absolutely taken down by just like scandal after scandal, you're like well, it was gonna bite you, you didn't get there, purely right.
The people who get there with like just the regular grit stuff yeah, usually aren't the ones taken down, but we've covered so many.
Like you know, i love these stories not these stories, but like just but they're like ones with um, like high society.
I love a high society involvement because it isn't, it's fascinating, it really is.
Now, in 1991, 30-year-old William Kennedy Smith, son of Gene Kennedy and Stephen Smith and prominent member of the Kennedy family, was accused of violently sexually assaulting a woman he'd met on a Florida beach in March.
The charges and subsequent trial received a lot of media coverage and prompted many journalists to dredge up the family's past scandals and conspiracy theories.
Smith would ultimately be acquitted of the charges.
But that didn't stop the speculation and rumors from continuing long after the case was closed.
Among them there was a curious rumor that had circulated about William Kennedy Smith staying at the Skagel house on or around the time of the Moxley murder.
Interesting, and if he had been at the house on the night of the murder, was it not possible that he could be involved or know something about martha's death?
Okay, there was no truth whatsoever that he was staying there.
To the rumor okay, i was gonna say i was like i feel like we really had the perfect case to begin with.
Yeah, about william kennedy smith being at the skankle house that night.
And speculation faded.
I was like are we going down a completely different path?
I know i wanted to give you a quick.
You did, but for high profile journalist dominic dunn oh, we have talked about such a fan It inspired an interest in the case and in the scandalous history of the Kennedys more broadly.
Dunn had spent a lot of his career writing about the crimes and cover-ups committed by the wealthiest people in America.
And based on what he learned in his very cursory research, the Martha Moxley murder seemed like exactly the kind of crime he was accustomed to covering.
Mm hmm.
I want you to hold that one too.
That adds such a layer.
The golf club that's missing is part of a set that belonged to their late mother.
Yeah.
Wow.
He said later, Dominic Dunn said later in 2003, there had to be intimidation at the police.
This was a very, very rich family.
Interesting.
That's a quote.
That's a quote from Dominic Dunn in 2003.
Well, it's in the show notes.
Stay away from us, Big Soda.
Now, big carbonation, you stay away.
Get out.
Now, in the early winter of 1991, Dominic Dunn reached out to Dorothy Moxley to express his interest in writing a book about the case.
He later recalled she was very hesitant about it.
I'm sure.
Totally understand.
Yeah.
But when I told her that I, too, was the parent of a murdered daughter.
That story is tragic.
His daughter.
Dominique.
Is Dominique Dunn, who we have covered.
Yeah.
It's such a sad story.
It is.
So he said, when I said that I, too, was the parent of a murdered daughter, she said, OK. day.
Yeah.
And he knew what it was like to know who killed his daughter and get away with it.
And not be able to do anything about it.
Now, just to give you a quick, in case you're like, wait, what?
You covered what?
Yeah.
Dominic Dunn's daughter Dominique, had been steadily building a name for herself in Hollywood when, in 1982, she was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, who only served a few years in prison for her murder.
Yeah.
It was this fact and the obvious failure on the part of the system in that case that motivated Dunn's career in true crime and inspired him to dig deeper into the Martha Moxley case.
Now, so glad he came.
Yeah, absolutely.
Now, after their first meeting, Dunn and Dorothy Moxley agreed the best approach would be for him to write a fictional account of the case, which would eventually be released in 1993 as A Season in Purgatory.
Oh, OK.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
Along with the rumors about William Kennedy Smith.
Dominic Dunn's interest in the case resulted in the state's attorney, John Solomon, reopening the investigation into Martha's murder, which had been labeled inactive in 1982.
Solomon later said, as we talked about the case, we realized that since 1975 many new techniques for examining evidence had been developed.
And we hope that some of the witnesses, who were teenagers then, would come forward with information that they may have previously withheld.
And you never know, they might be living with a lot of guilt.
You never know.
Now, at the same time, Solomon did acknowledge how difficult the case had been up to that point, with many different roadblocks.
And so that set the expectations low from the outset.
Like, let's not think we're going to just plow forward here.
Yeah.
The news that the case was being reopened was very encouraging for the Moxley family, who had spent a decade and a half advocating for victims of violent crime.
By the way,
Good for them.
But the tone and attitude around the wealth and power of those involved remained much the same as it had been in 1975.
One anonymous local told a reporter from the Boston Globe, money can buy anything in this town.
A lot of people feel like that.
Others echoed that sentiment.
Christy Callen, one of Martha's closest friends, said whenever you get around the Kennedy name, people start to tiptoe and do things they wouldn't normally do.
Mm-hmm.
We're from New England.
I was going to say, we are from New England.
Can confirm.
Yep.
Just look at.
Yeah.
Just look.
Look at it.
Just look at it.
Yeah.
She said it's not necessarily intentional, but the family has this mystique and it can be intimidating.
It's actually.
It is.
Very fascinating.
It is.
Darkly fascinating.
And you're born into the idea here.
That that's just untouchable.
Yeah, and that they're royalty.
You just don't, you don't go there.
Much like you don't touch the Morgan Letters.
Exactly.
You don't touch the Kennedy family.
You just don't touch the Kennedys.
You don't want to do that.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Hoping to get ahead of the police though Rushton hired Sutton Associates, a prestigious Long Island private investigation firm.
That just sounds like a very prestigious firm.
He wanted to investigate the case and any connection between it and his family.
The report has never been made public.
Stop it.
But excerpts from it have been presented as evidence in various court cases, allowing some of the contents to come to light.
Among other things, the report confirms what many people had already suspected—
Tommy Skakel lied to police about his actions and whereabouts on the night of the murder.
Great.
What was less expected was what the Sutton investigators, and soon many others, would learn about Michael Skakel.
Oh, you just gave me chills.
And we're going to stop there in part one.
Bitch.
Because... Hold on.
Strap in, everybody.
And there's more to come, let me tell you.
Oh, my.
Oh, me, oh, my.
I knew of this case, but you're unlocking things that I did not know.
It's a very... brutal, tragic, horrifying, and fascinating in the worst way kind of case.
Let me grab a fun fact.
Yeah.
Good call.
Whoa, this is actually insane.
The longest wedding veil was longer than 63 football fields.
What the fuck?
That's insane.
That's, that's too much.
Her veil was nearly 23,000 feet, which is the same length as about 63 and a half football fields.
Damn.
How does that fit in the building?
How do you move?
Oh my.
How do you move?
That's inconceivable, really.
Damn.
Well, there's that for you.
There's that.
I love that.
Wait, here's another one.
This one's funny.
Some cats are allergic to people.
That's actually, that makes more sense than anything I've ever heard.
It's actually my most favorite thing that I've ever read.
That makes so much sense.
Because everyone is always like, I'm allergic to cats.
No, he's allergic to cats.
To you, actually.
Sorry.
So maybe you could leave my house.
Maybe he needs his medicine from you.
Maybe get out.
Apparently it's very uncommon, but it happens.
It happens.
Okay.
I'm saying.
I think that's hilarious.
Damn.
Wow.
Well, with all that being said, we hope you keep listening.
Oh, damn.
I don't know why I said it.
Do you say it?
No, you say it.
I say it, yeah.
Well, with all that being said, we hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird not so weird that you forgot the ending to your own show eight years in.
I'm tired man, that's okay.
I usually die.
I'm usually the one that forgets.
It's true, Thank you.
