After 50 Years, Kennedy Cousin Michael Skakel Breaks His Silence on Martha Moxley Murder Case

Five decades after the brutal murder of 15-year-old Martha Moxley shook the affluent community of Greenwich, Connecticut, Michael Skakel—cousin of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—has finally broken his silence. In NBC News’ new podcast “Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder,” Skakel speaks publicly at length for the first time since his conviction was overturned, sharing his perspective on a case that has captivated the nation for nearly half a century. After spending 11 years behind bars for the 1975 murder, Skakel was released in 2013 and later had his conviction vacated. Yet even now, he continues to assert his innocence in a case where questions still linger about what truly happened on that fateful “Mischief Night” when Moxley was beaten and stabbed to death with a golf club traced to the Skakel family home.

The podcast reveals a man shaped by profound childhood trauma and family dysfunction. Skakel describes growing up in a strict Catholic household where physical punishment was common and emotional neglect was the norm. He recounts how his parents showed clear favoritism toward his brother Tommy, and even when young Michael was hospitalized with a broken neck after jumping off a desk, his parents barely visited him. Perhaps most devastating was his relationship with his father during his mother’s cancer battle. Skakel remembers being told his mother’s hair loss was due to shampoo rather than chemotherapy, and his father cruelly blaming him for her illness, saying, “You make me sick. If you only did better in school, your mother wouldn’t have to be in the hospital.” When she ultimately passed away, his father barely acknowledged the loss, leaving the young boy feeling abandoned in his grief.

Turning to alcohol at a young age to cope with his pain, Skakel recalls drinking an entire bottle of Smirnoff on his family’s lawn the day his mother died. His relationship with alcohol would continue to define his troubled adolescence, culminating in a drunk driving incident in 1978 that would alter the course of his life. After crashing his brother’s car into a telephone pole, family lawyers arranged for him to avoid DUI charges by sending him to the controversial Élan School in Maine. The transfer was far from voluntary—Skakel describes being “dragged out of there like an animal” before being loaded onto a plane and thrown into “a world of utter insanity.” The boarding school, which housed around 300 troubled teens, became another source of profound trauma in Skakel’s life.

Life at Élan School, as depicted in Skakel’s emotional testimony, was marked by extreme psychological and physical brutality. Students were subjected to harsh physical punishments, prolonged screaming sessions, and public humiliation, including being forced to wear dunce caps. Headcounts occurred every 15 minutes to prevent escape—something Skakel attempted multiple times. After one failed attempt, he recalls how “they literally picked me up over their heads and carried me down the stairs like I was a crash test dummy. And when I was probably 10 feet from the stage, they threw me and I thought I broke my back on the stage.” The treatment was so severe that following his eventual release from the school, Skakel was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and required a month in a residential care facility to recover from the experience.

Despite these challenges, Skakel eventually attempted to build a stable life. He got married in 1991, established a skiing career, and made a home in Hobe Sound, Florida. However, his newfound stability was shattered in 2000 when authorities issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with Moxley’s murder—25 years after the crime occurred. “My Uncle Tommy rented me a private jet the next morning,” Skakel recounted, “And I flew from [the] Jupiter jet port, the private jet port, to Teterboro, and I’m looking on the news the next morning and it’s all over every station.” On January 19, 2000, at age 39, Skakel turned himself in. Initially arraigned as a juvenile (as he had been 15 at the time of the murder), his case was eventually transferred to regular court. In June 2002, a jury convicted him of murder, resulting in a 20-year prison sentence that would drastically alter the trajectory of his life yet again.

After multiple failed appeals, Skakel’s fortunes finally changed in 2013 when a judge granted him a new trial, ruling that his attorney, Michael Sherman, had failed to provide adequate defense in the original case. The Connecticut Supreme Court ultimately vacated his conviction on May 4, 2018, and prosecutors later decided not to pursue a second trial. Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Carole Lieberman, commenting on the case, stated that “Michael Skakel should never have spent one day in prison because there was no way to determine that he was guilty beyond reasonable doubt.” She points to numerous issues with the case, from “a questionable police investigation to a questionable attorney who didn’t bring the alibi witness in to testify, to media sensationalism and no forensic evidence.” Lieberman suggests that Skakel “has continued to unconsciously play out this victim role until today,” having been “a victim of torture throughout his life, from his childhood to the court system.” While the mystery of who killed Martha Moxley remains unsolved after half a century, Skakel’s decision to finally share his side of the story adds an important new voice to this enduring American tragedy.