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Speaker 1: I'm George Severis and I'm Julia Claire and this is

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Speaker 1: United States of Kennedy, a podcast about our cultural fascination

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Speaker 1: with the Kennedy Dynasty. Every week we go into one

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Speaker 1: aspect of the Kennedy story, and today we are talking

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Speaker 1: about the murder of Martha Moxley. But before we do,

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Speaker 1: I do want to address one thing, which is listeners

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Speaker 1: of the podcast might have noticed that it's been just

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Speaker 1: me over the last couple of weeks, but we have

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Speaker 1: an announcement for the future of the show, which is

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Speaker 1: that Julia is officially joining as my second co host.

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Speaker 1: Wow Wow, And Julia, we've already been through your Someone

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Speaker 1: call it clinical obsession with the Kennedy's. Of course, in

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Speaker 1: some medical textbooks, being Catholic and from Boston actually counts

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Speaker 1: as an illness.

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Speaker 2: That's right, ben Itch. You know we're working hard to

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Speaker 2: add it to the DSM.

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Speaker 1: That's right. For listeners to the podcast, you might remember

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Speaker 1: Julia as the guest in the movie episode we did

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Speaker 1: about the frankly pretty bad movie Bobby from two thousand

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Speaker 1: and six a couple of weeks ago, and I did

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Speaker 1: mention that Julia has a oft revisited biography of Bobby

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Speaker 1: Kennedy in her home that I actually saw in real

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Speaker 1: life recently when I went over to discuss some business.

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Speaker 1: What I also saw is a at least one commemorative plate

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Speaker 1: or dish of some sort with the Kennedys on it.

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Speaker 2: That's right. I can't take credit for that one. The

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Speaker 2: Bobby biography is mine, but all of the commemorative plates

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Speaker 2: and letters and things like that are my husband's. His

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Speaker 2: grandfather had some sort of weird connection to the Kennedy's

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Speaker 2: and so we have all these like official White House

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Speaker 2: stationery letters. Also, my husband's grandmother loved anything that was

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Speaker 2: extremely tacky, so we do have a pretty life sized

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Speaker 2: tapestry of JFK that is hidden away from public view.

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Speaker 1: And you did correct me if I'm wrong. You got

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Speaker 1: married in the Jackie ping Chanelle's suit when JA.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I just thought that that was appropriate

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Speaker 2: for my.

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Speaker 1: Big day, of course, and it was a beautiful day

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Speaker 1: for it was a beautiful wedding. Well, it's nice that

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Speaker 1: we're starting in such a lighthearted, joking mood because this

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Speaker 1: week's topic is a real laugh riot.

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Speaker 2: It's not a good one.

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Speaker 1: It's really not a good one. We should just come

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Speaker 1: right out and say this is a slightly strange episode

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Speaker 1: because we wanted to do this topic, and we wanted

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Speaker 1: it to be Julia's first topic that we do together

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Speaker 1: because it is a really you know, not to use

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Speaker 1: true crime depraved language, but it's a real juicy one.

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Speaker 1: It is a really genuinely interesting case that has so

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Speaker 1: many open questions. It feels very true crimey. It really

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Speaker 1: combines all the things that we are fascinated by the Kennedys,

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Speaker 1: and it also is a topic that somehow neither of

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Speaker 1: us had ever come across, which is sort of crazy

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Speaker 1: to me.

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Speaker 2: No, and you know what, I mentioned to my mom

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Speaker 2: that we were going to be talking about this and

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Speaker 2: I had never heard of it, and she was like,

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Speaker 2: oh my god, well I remember reading about that in

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Speaker 2: the Boston Globe. It felt like there was always like

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Speaker 2: a new story about it. So it was clearly something

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Speaker 2: that was national news just missed us because we're famously young.

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Speaker 1: So on the one hand, it is super interesting again

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Speaker 1: because it's this true crime story that we hadn't heard

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Speaker 1: of that has so many elements of Kennedy history, and

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Speaker 1: so we were like, okay, great, we have a great

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Speaker 1: research doc prepared by our wonderful researchers. We watched the

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Speaker 1: forty eight hours special on it that was released a

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Speaker 1: few years ago. The last sort of big update on

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Speaker 1: the case was around twenty twenty, which we'll talk about later,

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Speaker 1: and we thought we had all the facts and we

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Speaker 1: were ready to record, and then literally today, on the

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Speaker 1: day of this recording, you can't make the.

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Speaker 2: Stuff November fourth, twenty member fourth.

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Speaker 1: To give everyone a pick behind the curtain. Today, an

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Speaker 1: NBC News podcast about the case premieres in which Michael Skagel,

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Speaker 1: who is the person that was arrested for this murder

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Speaker 1: that we'll talk about soon, and the person who was

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Speaker 1: later freed, is breaking his silence for the first time

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Speaker 1: in this podcast that seeks to exonerate him. So we

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Speaker 1: are reacting to all of this live. I had just

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Speaker 1: listened to it an hour ago, but we're still processing

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Speaker 1: what that means for this topic. And I think inevitably,

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Speaker 1: after the podcast is over and there's inevitably a whole

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Speaker 1: other cycle of media coverage, we will hopefully revisit this

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Speaker 1: topic again and talk about how our views on it

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Speaker 1: have changed.

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Speaker 2: Right and honestly, even without this development from literally today,

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Speaker 2: both George and I were commiserating over the fact that

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Speaker 2: this case is so layered and there's so many moving

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Speaker 2: parts and so many characters that even without this most

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Speaker 2: recent breaking news, I think we would have a hard

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Speaker 2: time knowing which way was up in this case.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really difficult one. And it is such

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Speaker 1: a really perfect combination of a sort of bungled investigation

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Speaker 1: that a police department that was not necessarily equipped for

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Speaker 1: something this major ended up conducting pieces of evidence that

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Speaker 1: arose later on, pieces of evidence that were ignored just

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Speaker 1: this year. Time that passed between when it happened and

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Speaker 1: when someone was convicted and when that person was freed,

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Speaker 1: it has legitimately lasted for decades or actally years years today.

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Speaker 1: Years today.

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Speaker 2: November fourth is the fifty year anniversary since Martha's funeral,

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Speaker 2: so she was buried today fifty years ago. With that,

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Speaker 2: I think that we should just get into the nuts

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Speaker 2: and volts of what happened completely.

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Speaker 1: So, Julia, do you want to kick us off and

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Speaker 1: walk me through just the basic facts of this case.

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Speaker 2: Okay? So, Martha Moxley was a fifteen year old girl

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Speaker 2: who moved with her family to Belle Haven, an enclave

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Speaker 2: of Greenwich, Connecticut in the year nineteen seventy five from California.

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Speaker 2: She lived across the street from the Scalles. And George,

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Speaker 2: can you tell us a little bit about the Scalles.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So the Scalles are the Kennedy connection. As you said,

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Speaker 1: Martha Moxley's family had just moved to this Greenwich enclave.

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Speaker 1: It is the richest enclave of an already incredibly wealthy town.

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Speaker 1: Greenwich is like where the wealthy people from New York

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Speaker 1: City moved when they had kids in the seventies. So

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Speaker 1: the Scakeles lived right across the street from the Moxleys.

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Speaker 1: And the Scakeles were an incredibly wealthy family that is

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Speaker 1: related to the Kennedy's by marriage. So Rush Scakele, who

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Speaker 1: is the patriarch of the Greenwich Scahles, was the brother

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Speaker 1: of Ethel, who married Bobby Kennedy. So Bobby Kennedy, who

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Speaker 1: we've discussed before in this podcast, of course, most importantly

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Speaker 1: the subject of the two thousand and six movie Bobby.

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Speaker 1: Bobby Kennedy and his wife Ethel are of course the

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Speaker 1: parents of RFK Junior, who everyone knows now and all

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Speaker 1: his other siblings, and it should be noted that while

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Speaker 1: the Kennedy connection, of course gave us Scalhles some prestige

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Speaker 1: in this town, they were actually way wealthier than the Kennedy's,

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Speaker 1: and there was a running joke among the Kennedy community

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Speaker 1: that the Kennedy's actually married into the Scalholes for the money.

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Speaker 1: So these weren't social climbers that married into the Kennedys

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Speaker 1: because they wanted to be American royalty. So Rush Skagle's

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Speaker 1: family business, Great Lakes Carbon, was one of the largest

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Speaker 1: private companies in the US, and he and his wife

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Speaker 1: Anne had seven children, six boys and one girl. As

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Speaker 1: Julia writes in our research stock Yikes. But unfortunately Anne

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Speaker 1: had passed away recently, so Rush was raising his kids

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Speaker 1: on his own. And actually this will come back later,

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Speaker 1: but there was a live in tutor that had actually

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Speaker 1: just moved into the house I believe that day, the

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Speaker 1: day of the murder, who had moved into because Rush

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Speaker 1: felt like he needed more adult supervision in the home

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Speaker 1: where he lived with all his children. So that's the Scalicles.

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Speaker 1: Two of the Scale children, it should be noted, or

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Speaker 1: Tommy and Michael Skakel. They are the ones that later

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Speaker 1: on will be suspects in this case. So that's a

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Speaker 1: very preliminary cast of characters. Obviously, other people are gonna

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Speaker 1: present themselves. But we have the Moxley's, we have the Scaliclls.

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Speaker 1: Martha Moxley's fifteen years old. Tommy and Michael Skakele are

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Speaker 1: around her age. One of them is her exact age,

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Speaker 1: one of them is two years older.

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Speaker 2: Michael is fifteen, Tommy is seventeen.

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Speaker 1: There you go, and to situate ourselves. It is October thirtieth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, which is the evening before Halloween, obviously,

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Speaker 1: and kids are up to no good. They're going around,

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Speaker 1: they're teepeeing homes. And then Julia walk us through what

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Speaker 1: happens the night.

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Speaker 2: Of October thirty is nineteen seventy five. Martha Moxley was

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Speaker 2: out with some friends in a group including Tommy and

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Speaker 2: Michael Scalicell and they were the two people with whom

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Speaker 2: she was last seen alive at around nine thirty PM.

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Speaker 2: And that's pretty much the very last of what we

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Speaker 2: know for sure.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so a bunch of kids congregated in the Scalele

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Speaker 1: home and they congregated around the porch. Then at some

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Speaker 1: point they moved to the dad's car, which was this

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Speaker 1: very fancy, rich car that he allegedly, you know, used

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Speaker 1: to pick up women. And they were there for a

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Speaker 1: brief period of time. Then they went back, and then

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Speaker 1: by all counts, the last time everyone agrees they saw

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Speaker 1: Martha was around nine thirty. And it's important to note

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Speaker 1: that her journey from the Scales back to her house

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Speaker 1: would have taken her like two minutes. She wasn't going

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Speaker 1: into some dark forest between one location and the other.

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Speaker 2: They literally lived right across the street from one another. So,

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Speaker 2: long story short, Martha doesn't come home, and Martha's mother

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Speaker 2: begins to worry, and so she's calling around to her friends.

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Speaker 2: She actually goes to the Scay Goals knocks on their door.

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Speaker 2: The door is opened by fifteen year old Michael, who

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Speaker 2: Martha's mother alleges looks a little hungover, a little disoriented,

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Speaker 2: and says he hasn't seen her. Search begins and Martha

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Speaker 2: is found under a tree in the Moxley backyard and

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Speaker 2: she is almost unrecognizable.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, she has discovered. This was actually something that they

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Speaker 1: described in gruesome detail in Venue NBC News podcast, because

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Speaker 1: they interviewed this woman. I was about to say girl,

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Speaker 1: but of course now she is much older. But at

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Speaker 1: the time, this fifteen year old girl named Sheila, and

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Speaker 1: this is something that is clearly the single most traumatic

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Speaker 1: experience of her life. She's walking around and she looks down.

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Speaker 1: She sees a blue puffy material thinks it's some kind

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Speaker 1: of like mattress or something. It is Martha's puffer that

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Speaker 1: she's wearing. And Martha's body is found bludgeoned to death

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Speaker 1: with a golf club, like very psychotically violent. This is

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Speaker 1: not something that could be an accident or self defense

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Speaker 1: or anything like that. It is the golf club itself

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Speaker 1: had been broken into three pieces. One of the pieces

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Speaker 1: had been stabbed into the back of her neck. Famously,

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Speaker 1: there was so much blood that the police couldn't tell

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Speaker 1: what color her hair was. There was so much blood.

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Speaker 1: And then Martha's pants and underwear were pulled down, but

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Speaker 1: investigators found no signs of sexual assault. And apparently, according

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Speaker 1: to forensic evidence, she had been killed near the driveway

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Speaker 1: and the murderer dragged her body eighty feet to the

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Speaker 1: base of a tree where she was found and just

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Speaker 1: to go back to the scalhol connection. Not only did

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Speaker 1: this happen on her way back from the scalholes. But

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Speaker 1: very quickly it became clear that the golf club that

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Speaker 1: was used was discovered to be clearly part of a

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Speaker 1: set that belonged to and scalole.

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Speaker 2: That's right. One of our researchers noted in the documents

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Speaker 2: that despite the fact that it was immediately identified as

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Speaker 2: part of the set belonging to a scale, that Greenwich

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Speaker 2: police never sought or obtained a warrant to search the

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Speaker 2: scale home, which is crazy. And we'll get into more

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Speaker 2: of how the Greenwich police mungled this. But Greenwich is

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Speaker 2: a town where virtually no crime happens, So to say

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Speaker 2: that this shocked this extremely insular, wealthy community is the

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Speaker 2: understatement of the century. But the Greenwich police were clearly

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Speaker 2: ill equipped to handle this case. There had only been

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Speaker 2: three murders in Greenwich in twenty five years, and from

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Speaker 2: the beginning it was I think a foundational mistake is

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Speaker 2: obviously not searching the scale home. But from the beginning

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Speaker 2: it was clear that they were just out of their depth.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and the one sort of fact that I found

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Speaker 1: out actually in this new podcast is that apparently the

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Speaker 1: police didn't even have enough crime scene tape when this happened,

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Speaker 1: I mean they were there to catch people that were

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Speaker 1: speeding on the street everyone, So a while, this wasn't

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Speaker 1: a police force that was equipped to deal with a

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Speaker 1: violent murder case. And at the same time, they did

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Speaker 1: their job. In the years that followed, they ended up

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Speaker 1: questioning and estimated five hundred people. It went on for years,

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Speaker 1: but somehow no suspects were named, no arrests were made,

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Speaker 1: and no grand juries were convened. Later on, years later,

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Speaker 1: someone would say that internally their prime suspect was Tommy Scicel,

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Speaker 1: but he was, but that was never made public and

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Speaker 1: he was never arrested.

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Speaker 2: So, as we said, Tommy was seventeen, Michael was fifteen,

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Speaker 2: and Martha has several entries in her diary that are

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Speaker 2: read in the forty eight hour special in which she

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Speaker 2: explicitly says that Tommy is making passes at her, pulling

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Speaker 2: her onto his lap, putting his hands onto her knees,

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Speaker 2: stuff like that. It's clear that they had some sort

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Speaker 2: of physical relationship with varying degrees of consent, and there's

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Speaker 2: also alliations and different people remember certain things that Michael

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Speaker 2: said about Michael also being enamored with Martha and wishing

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Speaker 2: that she would be his girlfriend. And Tommy and Michael,

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Speaker 2: as two brothers that close in age, often extremely competitive

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Speaker 2: about everything, and both of them, based on varying accounts,

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Speaker 2: had a temper, and that was another thing that was

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Speaker 2: not investigated too thoroughly, basically the history of violent outbursts

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Speaker 2: by both boys. And another thing that is important to

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Speaker 2: note about Michael is his mother died when he was

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Speaker 2: twelve in nineteen seventy two, and there are different accounts

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Speaker 2: that say that basically he had a drinking problem beginning

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Speaker 2: at age thirteen, and he would later go to reform

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Speaker 2: school after getting a at age seventeen. So this was

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Speaker 2: a very chaotic, troubled, extremely wealthy family, which I think

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Speaker 2: is like a really important piece of this whole thing,

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Speaker 2: that this was just a deeply chaotic house which had

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Speaker 2: no mother, a legendly a kind of distant and simultaneously violent.

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Speaker 1: Father, and there were substance abuse issues just like this

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Speaker 1: is a pattern in many pockets of the Kennedy family.

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Speaker 1: And we will get to RFK Junior later, but one

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Speaker 1: of the ways that RFK Junior, who is the Scagell's

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Speaker 1: first cousin. One of the ways that he and Michael

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Speaker 1: scaqlebonded is that they both got sober around the same

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Speaker 1: time man supported each other through their sobriety process. We're

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Speaker 1: going to take a short break, stay with.

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Speaker 3: Us, and we're back with United States of Kennedy.

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Speaker 1: It should also be noted that during his time as

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Speaker 1: a troubled teen, according to a couple of sources, Michael

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Speaker 1: Skaigel confessed is maybe too strong of a word, but

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Speaker 1: almost like in a provocative way, would either brag about

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Speaker 1: being able to get away with murder or allude to

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Speaker 1: that night in provocative ways. And so there are many

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Speaker 1: classmates of his that said that he made incriminating statements

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Speaker 1: during group therapy sessions while they were all in school together.

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Speaker 1: So that is also something that sort of people have

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Speaker 1: had to deal with over the years. That said, the narrative,

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Speaker 1: from what I understand from Michael's perspective, has just been

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Speaker 1: like I was a troubled teen, I was an addict,

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Speaker 1: I was even under the influence while some of this

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Speaker 1: stuff was happening, and I finally in my twenties and thirties,

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Speaker 1: turned my life around and became an upstanding member of

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Speaker 1: society and I should not be held accountable for crazy

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Speaker 1: things I said when I was in school. Right.

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Speaker 2: So, going back to the night of there were really

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Speaker 2: two to three initial suspects in this murder case. When

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Speaker 2: they were questioned by police, Tommy and Michael each explained

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Speaker 2: where they were at the time of Martha's murder, and

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Speaker 2: both of them said that they were hanging out with

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Speaker 2: Martha outside of their house at nine pm. Michael originally

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Speaker 2: told police that he left Tommy and Martha at nine

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Speaker 2: thirty PM and went to his cousin's house to watch

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Speaker 2: TV until eleven thirty and then came home. Tommy told

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Speaker 2: police that Martha left his house soon after. Michael so

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Speaker 2: also around nine thirty and that was the last time

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Speaker 2: he saw her. Both of them ended up changing their

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Speaker 2: stories after that. Also, there's something in the forty eight

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Speaker 2: Hours documentary that said that Tommy claimed that he went

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Speaker 2: inside and wrote a paper about Abraham Lincoln.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know who among us. It's a really amazing

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Speaker 1: way to relieve stress, to just write a quick paper

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Speaker 1: about Abraham Lincoln.

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Speaker 2: But there was also one other suspect, George, can you

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Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about.

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Speaker 1: Right, So we alluded to him earlier. We said that

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Speaker 1: literally the night of the murder, there was a live

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Speaker 1: in tutor that had moved into the Scayhole household because

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Speaker 1: again the father Rush Scaycole, wanted another adult figure in

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Speaker 1: his children's life. So that man's name is Kenneth Littleton

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Speaker 1: and he was twenty four years old. He was a

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Speaker 1: twenty four year old science teacher at a Greenwich private

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Speaker 1: school called Brunswick School, and the night of the murder

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Speaker 1: he moved into the Scalgell household to be a parental

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Speaker 1: teacher figure there. So he wasn't a prime suspect in

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Speaker 1: the murder case for more than a year. And then

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Speaker 1: the Greenwich police learned that he had been arrested in

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Speaker 1: Nantucket in the summer of nineteen seventy six, six months

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Speaker 1: after the murder, and he got drunk at least three

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Speaker 1: separate times and stole things. Who was found guilty of

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Speaker 1: larsity and handed a suspended sentence and five years of probation.

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Speaker 1: The point is this is someone who had a history

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Speaker 1: of alarming behavior and he was there, yes, but.

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Speaker 2: It could be it's not necessarily a history. It was

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Speaker 2: like it seems like perhaps citing incident was the Martha

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Speaker 2: Moxley murder. And then that was one of the big questions,

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Speaker 2: was like, was he racked with guilt or was he

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Speaker 2: just so traumatized by this event? And you know, goes

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Speaker 2: without saying that petty larceny and drunken disorderly conduct is

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Speaker 2: a horse of a different color than murder. But yes,

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Speaker 2: he has remained a kind of looming figure in the

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Speaker 2: case for fifty years.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, as you're saying, it seems somehow emblematic of his

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Speaker 1: guilt that his life sort of goes off the rails

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Speaker 1: after the murder happens, and he is eventually fired from

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Speaker 1: the Brunswick school. He's able to get a job at

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Speaker 1: another private school. Then he was fired from that school

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Speaker 1: after Gratich police showed up to question him. But all

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Speaker 1: that aside, Kenneth Littleton was never arrested or charged with Martha's.

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Speaker 2: Murder, and neither was anyone else.

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Speaker 1: Now there was anyone else for twenty five years. So

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Speaker 1: that's it. There were these three suspects that at various

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Speaker 1: given times seemed guilty. We had Tommy Skaegel, we had

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Speaker 1: Michael Skagel, and we had Kenneth Telittleton, no one was arrested,

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Speaker 1: people lose interest in the case, and twenty years go.

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Speaker 2: By, And it should be noted that the family patriarch

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Speaker 2: agreed to work with the Greenwich Police, but about six

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Speaker 2: months into the case stopped answering your questions and stopped

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Speaker 2: cooperating with them.

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Speaker 1: So basically now we're just fast tracking to two thousand

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Speaker 1: and one, that's the next time that there were any

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Speaker 1: major updates on this case. The Moxley parents did not

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Speaker 1: get any sort of closure or any sort of useful

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Speaker 1: information about who killed their daughter. It was just this

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Speaker 1: tragedy that happened in this otherwise wealthy, charming enclave.

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Speaker 2: So before we get to that, we have to make

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Speaker 2: a pit stop in the nineteen nineties, because in nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety two nineteen ninety three, there's still no answers about

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Speaker 2: the Martha Moxley case, and Rush Skeaykele, the family patriarch,

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Speaker 2: decides to hire his own investigative firm to reopen and

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Speaker 2: reinvestigate the case privately, and the results of this investigation

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Speaker 2: become known as the Sutton Report. So Tommy and Michael

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Speaker 2: both sat for testimony in the Cuttain Report. Again, they

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Speaker 2: just thought that it was like an internal family investigation,

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Speaker 2: but both Tommy and Michael had their stories had changed.

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Speaker 2: Tommy now said that Martha didn't go home when Michael

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Speaker 2: left at nine point thirty. Tommy admitted that he and

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Speaker 2: Martha engaged in a sexual act and that Martha went

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Speaker 2: home around ten PM. Michael said that he went to

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Speaker 2: his cousin's house to watch a movie, which was part

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Speaker 2: of his initial statement, but he came home around eleven PM.

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Speaker 2: He said that he then went outside at midnight, climbed

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Speaker 2: a tree outside of Martha's window and masturbated, and then

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Speaker 2: investigators checked that out and alleged that there was no

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Speaker 2: tree that matched Michael's description outside of her bedroom window.

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Speaker 1: It's one of those updates that only makes it more

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Speaker 1: confusing because it doesn't actually incriminate either of them, but

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Speaker 1: it does at least prove they lied to the police

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Speaker 1: at some point, whether it was their first alibi or

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Speaker 1: their second alibi. But also it's just strange behavior on

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Speaker 1: all sides. At the end of the day, these are

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Speaker 1: all teenagers. Their behavior on a drunken night the night

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Speaker 1: before Halloween, regardless of whether it ended in murder or not,

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Speaker 1: is going to be strange. I mean, these are rowdy,

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Speaker 1: rich kids who want to be adventurous, who want to

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Speaker 1: be naughty and who are.

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Speaker 2: You know, they're essentially feral, Yes, they're essentially fair, and

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Speaker 2: they're also the popular kids.

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Speaker 1: They are the kids that are the ones getting into

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Speaker 1: trouble and they know that at any given point their

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Speaker 1: parents are going to bail them out. It's an archetype

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Speaker 1: we're all very familiar with from teen movies.

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Speaker 2: Right, and the Scale Goals Again, it really can't be

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Speaker 2: overstated how wealthy of the Scale Goals were. Like this

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Speaker 2: is like Koch Brothers level money of that era. They

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Speaker 2: don't have that much money anymore, but they were extremely

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Speaker 2: wealthy and powerful at this time.

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Speaker 1: So fast forward to two thousand and one. Basically what

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Speaker 1: happens is through a kind of like renewed true crime

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Speaker 1: craze and with the legacy of the OJ Simpson case

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Speaker 1: in court TV and in a renewed interest in true crime.

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Speaker 1: Basically the case, which is a classic old case, gains

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Speaker 1: traction again in the public imagination. And the two things

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Speaker 1: that help with that are two books that are written.

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Speaker 1: So first we have this Dominic Doune fiction book that

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Speaker 1: is clearly heavily inspired by the case, and for listeners

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Speaker 1: of the podcast, you might remember Dominic Dunn is a

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Speaker 1: long time Kennedy enthusiast. People might remember in the episode

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Speaker 1: we did on the William Kennedy Smith trial he wrote

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Speaker 1: a very long and comprehensive profile of the William Kennedy

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Speaker 1: Smith accuser, who at the time believed to be credible.

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Speaker 1: And so he is someone who has always been very

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Speaker 1: fascinated by the mechanations of the Kennedy family and by

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Speaker 1: the corruption they're in and by the ways they are

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Speaker 1: able to bend the justice system to their whims. So

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Speaker 1: that book, which is called A Season in Purgatory, is

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Speaker 1: sort of a fictional account of the Moxley case. It

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Speaker 1: ended up becoming a TV mini series and it got

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Speaker 1: a lot of people talking about the case again. The

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Speaker 1: second book, which was not build as fiction and was

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Speaker 1: a bit more problematic, was a book written by none

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Speaker 1: other than Mark Furman. Julia, do you want to remind

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Speaker 1: maybe some of our younger listeners who Mark Furman is.

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Speaker 2: For those of us who are extremely young, as George

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Speaker 2: and I are, Mark Furman was the disgraced former LAPD

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Speaker 2: officer who was very much at the center of the

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Speaker 2: OJ Simpson case.

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Speaker 1: Yes, so his testimony against Simpson was largely discredited after

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Speaker 1: it was revealed that Furman was a true just literally speaking,

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Speaker 1: a racist. He denied under oath that he regularly used

435
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:40,800
Speaker 1: the N word and that it was charged with perjury,

436
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 1: and his closing statement even the prosecution called him a

437
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:46,520
Speaker 1: bad cop. I mean, this is someone who is an

438
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 1: archetype of a racist.

439
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:54,560
Speaker 2: Cop, like admitted to a reporter, admitted bragged about extra

440
00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:56,560
Speaker 2: judicial violence against black people.

441
00:24:56,760 --> 00:24:59,040
Speaker 1: Right. And after leaving the police force, he became the

442
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:02,200
Speaker 1: very classic like fixture of trash TV. He went on

443
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:04,520
Speaker 1: TV as an expert on the OJ case. He wrote

444
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:07,800
Speaker 1: a book called Murder in Brentwood about the OJ murders,

445
00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:13,160
Speaker 1: and he then developed this second career as a author

446
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: of popular airport nonfiction books about unsolved murders. So a

447
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: huge run for him was this Martha Moxley murder. He

448
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:24,880
Speaker 1: wrote the book Murder in Greenwich Who killed Martha Moxley

449
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 1: in June of nineteen ninety eight, and in the book,

450
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:32,040
Speaker 1: Furman concluded that Michael Skekell was most likely Martha's killer,

451
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:35,200
Speaker 1: saying he was spinning into a jealous rage after seeing

452
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 1: Tommy and Martha making out. So this brings us to

453
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:42,000
Speaker 1: Michael Skekell actually being tried for murder. So this is

454
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:46,199
Speaker 1: January twentieth, two thousand, This is nearly twenty five years

455
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 1: after Martha's murder. Michael Skekell is charged with murder.

456
00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:54,200
Speaker 2: Based on the findings of the Sutton Report, and then

457
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:59,120
Speaker 2: Greenwich hired a one person grand jury investigator to review

458
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:01,639
Speaker 2: all the new abvidae and then he was brought to trial.

459
00:26:02,359 --> 00:26:05,080
Speaker 1: It should be noted there is no new physical evidence

460
00:26:05,119 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 1: connecting Michael to the murder. This is just the evidence

461
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:11,439
Speaker 1: that we had before. A sort of funny justice system

462
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:13,800
Speaker 1: quirk is that initially he was going to be tried

463
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:16,440
Speaker 1: as a juvenile, even though he was thirty nine years old,

464
00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:19,359
Speaker 1: because he was a minor when the crime originally took place.

465
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:22,199
Speaker 1: But then a federal judge ordered for him to be

466
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 1: tried as an adult, and so obviously conviction as an

467
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:28,000
Speaker 1: adult for a murder could carry a maximum of a

468
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 1: life sentence. So there's no new physical evidence. However, the

469
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:36,119
Speaker 1: judge is clearly out for Michael. He even specifically instructs

470
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:38,359
Speaker 1: the jurors that they are allowed to convict on the

471
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:42,480
Speaker 1: basis of circumstantial evidence, and then after only four days

472
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: of deliberation, the jury returns a guilty verdict. This was

473
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 1: stunning for Skygell and his team. He delivered this crazy

474
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 1: ten minute final statement where he quotes Bible verses and

475
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 1: compares his arrests to the trials of Jesus. It was

476
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,440
Speaker 1: classic Kennedy se and there were other Kennedys that were

477
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 1: there at the trial, including Ethel Kennedy an RFK junior.

478
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:08,360
Speaker 1: Ethel sends a letter praising Michael for his mental toughness, fortitude, courage,

479
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 1: and tenacity, but it's just not enough. He was sentenced

480
00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 1: to twenty years to life, which was five years short

481
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: of the maximum sentence.

482
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:21,119
Speaker 2: So that's the last we hear of this case for

483
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:26,159
Speaker 2: over ten years, and after eleven years in prison, Michael

484
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:30,560
Speaker 2: was released in twenty thirteen when a Connecticut judge ordered

485
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 2: a retrial of his two thousand and one conviction. So

486
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:37,280
Speaker 2: the reason for this was a fewfold Scale's defense lawyer

487
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 2: in the two thousand and one conviction. The judge determined

488
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 2: that Michael Skegele's defense lawyer, Michael Sherman, had failed Michael

489
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 2: Skekell on multiple levels. Sherman failed to call a witness

490
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 2: named Dennis Osario, who would have backed Skegele's alibi that

491
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 2: he was at his cousin's house at the time of

492
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 2: the murder. The defense attorney failed to rebut the testimonies

493
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:05,639
Speaker 2: of scacals classmates from his reform school. And that's another

494
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:08,119
Speaker 2: thing about the trial is that basically a centerpiece of

495
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 2: the original two thousand and one conviction was that one

496
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 2: of Michael's classmates at Elon, which was a reform school,

497
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 2: said that Michael had bragged or made specific references to

498
00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:24,119
Speaker 2: getting away with murder and bragging about the murder and

499
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:29,879
Speaker 2: specifically mentioned something about the golf club. And it wasn't

500
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:32,680
Speaker 2: just him, it was nine other classmates who also testified

501
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 2: to that effect. However, their testimonies were called into question

502
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 2: because being that it was a reform school, many of

503
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 2: the kids who are now adults had substance abuse problems,

504
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 2: and the main witness that they had from Elan ended

505
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 2: up dying of a heroin overdose. So there were lots

506
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 2: of people who thought that his testimony was shaky at best.

507
00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:00,360
Speaker 2: So the defense attorney Sherman also selected a journy who

508
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 2: was not only a police officer, but a friend of

509
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 2: the lead investigator on the Greenwich Police Force, and he

510
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:11,720
Speaker 2: failed to make a coherent closing argument. So Michael Skaigel

511
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 2: ended up being freed on one point two million dollars

512
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:18,080
Speaker 2: bail and ordered not to leave the state of Connecticut

513
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 2: until the retrial, and then the Supreme Court of Connecticut

514
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:25,080
Speaker 2: ended up deciding not to retry him.

515
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 1: This is a lot of information to take in, but

516
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:31,640
Speaker 1: basically what people need to know before we get into

517
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 1: the more wild parts of this case is that the

518
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 1: murder happened in nineteen seventy five, Michael Skeegel was convicted

519
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:41,719
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one. He was in jail for

520
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 1: eleven and a half years. Then in twenty thirteen a

521
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:47,880
Speaker 1: judge ordered a retrial, then he was freed on bail.

522
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,479
Speaker 1: Then in twenty sixteen he went back to jail, and

523
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:55,680
Speaker 1: then after that he was finally released again in twenty eighteen.

524
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 1: There was going to be another retrial, but interest had

525
00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:01,280
Speaker 1: waned in the case so far. Finally, in twenty twenty,

526
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: after the pandemic began, to give you a sense of

527
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 1: just how recent this is, Michael skekell was officially declared

528
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 1: a freeman.

529
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 2: Forty five years to the day after the murder.

530
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:12,840
Speaker 1: We're going to take a short break, stay with.

531
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 3: Us, and we're back with United States of Kennedy.

532
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 1: So those are the facts of the case. But one

533
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 1: of the elements of this that we haven't really touched

534
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:38,719
Speaker 1: upon is the RFK Junior connection. RFK Junior has been

535
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: a longtime supporter of his cousin. Again r is Michael

536
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 1: Skikele's first cousin. He has maintained that Michael has been

537
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:47,760
Speaker 1: innocent this whole time. In two thousand and two, right

538
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:51,480
Speaker 1: after his conviction, RFK wrote a fifteen thousand word piece

539
00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 1: in The Atlantic refuting the case against Skekell. He talked

540
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 1: about his moral character, he talked about how deep their

541
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 1: relationship of friendship was, he talked about how they helped

542
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 1: each other become sober. And then in the Atlantic article,

543
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 1: RFK Junior also proposed a variety of alternative theories as

544
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 1: to who committed the murder.

545
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:14,800
Speaker 2: So, as George said, in this twenty and two Atlantic piece,

546
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 2: RFK Junior completely refutes the idea that Michael Skagull is guilty.

547
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 2: He proposes an alternative theory into Kenneth Littleton and then,

548
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 2: following the publication of that piece, as so often happens

549
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:32,600
Speaker 2: with cold cases, RFK Junior received a lot of tips,

550
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:35,120
Speaker 2: and one of those tips was telling him to get

551
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 2: in touch with this man named Tony Bryant, who, in

552
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 2: another insane twist of fate, happens to be the cousin

553
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:45,959
Speaker 2: of Kobe Bryant. And Tony Bryant was allegedly a classmate

554
00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:51,280
Speaker 2: of Martha Moxley and the Scaygirl Boys, who alleged that

555
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 2: he was there the night that Martha Moxley was murdered,

556
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:57,479
Speaker 2: and that he brought two of his friends from the

557
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:02,200
Speaker 2: Bronx into Greenwich and that bragged about killing her. The

558
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:05,320
Speaker 2: problem with that story is manifold, but it is worth

559
00:32:05,360 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 2: mentioning that two edit three of those kids now adults

560
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 2: were black men. So there's no evidence that has ever

561
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 2: put Tony Bryant or the two men that he alleges

562
00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 2: were there that night in Greenwich on the night of

563
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 2: Martha Moxley's murder. It's also highly unlikely that two large

564
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:27,520
Speaker 2: black boys would be able to go around a place

565
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 2: like Greenwich completely unnoticed.

566
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:32,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, and not have any eyewitnesses. I mean again, I

567
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 1: know we said that they were not the most competent

568
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 1: police force, but they did interview an estimated five hundred people,

569
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:41,600
Speaker 1: and no one mentioned two boys that would look out

570
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 1: of place in a predominantly white Connecticut suburb.

571
00:32:45,560 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 2: And we really don't think that in nineteen seventy five

572
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 2: era Greenwich police would not have just stopped two black

573
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 2: boys on the streets of Greenwich. Anyways, it strains credulity

574
00:32:56,520 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 2: for sure.

575
00:32:56,920 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: Really, it really does has do many things that our

576
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 1: Kidjuter has said twenty sixteen when that came out. So

577
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 1: RFK Junior writes this Atlantic piece, then starts getting various tips,

578
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 1: then starts forming his own other theories. Cut to twenty sixteen,

579
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 1: right in time for Michael's retrial, he publishes a full

580
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: length book. So RFK Junior publishes a full book called Framed.

581
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:22,400
Speaker 1: Why Michael Skagle spent over a decade in prison for

582
00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 1: a murder he didn't commit?

583
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 2: And it is it should be noted that not only

584
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 2: is Michael Skeagle on the cover of this book, but

585
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:31,320
Speaker 2: RFK Junior himself is also on the cover of this book,

586
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:33,720
Speaker 2: which doesn't make any sense. I mean, it makes sense

587
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 2: in that he wanted to kind of lend the Kennedy

588
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:41,520
Speaker 2: Gravitas to project, and the book became a national bestseller.

589
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 1: Became a national bestseller, it caused quite a stir. As

590
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 1: you might remember twenty sixteen, A bunch of other stuff

591
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 1: was happening around that time too, So somehow we did

592
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:50,040
Speaker 1: miss hit.

593
00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 2: I it did get lost in the shuffle. I don't

594
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 2: know how.

595
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:54,960
Speaker 1: I don't remember the book making that much of a stir,

596
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 1: but surely in the Kennedy enthusiast true crime communities it

597
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 1: was a big deal. And again it accuses the two

598
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: Bronx teens, who both obviously denied the allegations. It also

599
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:10,960
Speaker 1: brings the tutor back up as another alternative theory. And

600
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 1: I believe that rf K Junior published the book because

601
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:16,320
Speaker 1: he wanted to help his cousin, and it had the

602
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:19,719
Speaker 1: opposite effect. I mean, it was widely discredited. The Connecticut

603
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 1: State Division of Criminal Justice released a statement in response

604
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:26,360
Speaker 1: to the book, calling his claims inflammatory and accusing the

605
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:29,279
Speaker 1: book of presenting no valid or new information. That's a

606
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:32,240
Speaker 1: direct quote. So it really did not do what RFK

607
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 1: hoped it would do. And as we said, Skagull did

608
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 1: end up going back to jail, only of course, to

609
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 1: be released two years later.

610
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:43,280
Speaker 2: So I've done a lot of research about RFK Junior

611
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:46,760
Speaker 2: over the years, and I found so many similarities between

612
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:50,440
Speaker 2: the way that he writes and speaks about the Michael

613
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:53,040
Speaker 2: Scagell trial to the way that he writes and speaks

614
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:56,680
Speaker 2: about everything else. It's very fly by the seat of

615
00:34:56,680 --> 00:34:59,719
Speaker 2: his parents. When he was being interviewed for a documentary

616
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 2: for his work with Riverkeeper, his own sister was like,

617
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:04,839
Speaker 2: you need to fact check everything he says because he

618
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:07,120
Speaker 2: will sound like he is the smartest person in the room.

619
00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 2: He sounds very authoritative when he speaks, but he just

620
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 2: makes stuff up. And I think we saw a clip

621
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 2: of that actually in the forty eight Hours documentary where

622
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:21,880
Speaker 2: RFK Junior was originally interviewed by the forty eight Hours

623
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:24,919
Speaker 2: team maybe fifteen or so years ago about this case,

624
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 2: and then was interviewed again in twenty twenty, and he

625
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:29,799
Speaker 2: ended up walking out of the interview when he was

626
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:34,120
Speaker 2: asked if he had any regrets about accusing these two

627
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 2: Bronx teens with no evidence, and then he got up

628
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:40,200
Speaker 2: and went to walk out and said there's plenty of

629
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:43,359
Speaker 2: evidence and of course gave no sources or anything like that.

630
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he has this sort of vibe of just

631
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:48,920
Speaker 1: asking questions about everything. I mean, it's the same way

632
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:51,960
Speaker 1: he talks about public health. Now, even with this book,

633
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily that he presented a point by point

634
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,200
Speaker 1: case for a specific theory. It's more that he wanted

635
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:01,760
Speaker 1: to muddy the WAW And I do think he believes

636
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 1: this firmly, that his cousin is innocent, and so he's

637
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 1: just grasping against straws to come up with a variety

638
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:11,400
Speaker 1: of other theories. Obviously, if there was another theory, it

639
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 1: would exist somewhere, but there just isn't and it is

640
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:16,680
Speaker 1: one of those like weird cases where the answers are

641
00:36:16,680 --> 00:36:19,719
Speaker 1: not quite easy to come by. But yes, I think

642
00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:23,480
Speaker 1: that the book didn't help either side. But I do

643
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 1: want to say just to bring it to present day.

644
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:27,920
Speaker 1: I mean, as we said, Michael Skaigle was released in

645
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and he is free. And as we talked

646
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 1: about in the beginning of this episode, it is this

647
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:38,080
Speaker 1: insane coincidence that we are recording on the day when

648
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 1: it has been announced that in this new podcast he

649
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:44,360
Speaker 1: is finally breaking his silence. So I started listening to

650
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 1: the first episode of this new podcast. It is produced

651
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 1: by NBCUS, obviously a reputable news source. It is called

652
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:53,240
Speaker 1: Dead Certain the Martha Moxley Murder, and it is hosted

653
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:56,239
Speaker 1: by Andrew Goldman. So I start listening, I'm like two,

654
00:36:56,360 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 1: three or four minutes in. It's very well produced. I'm

655
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 1: ready to learn more about the case, and the host

656
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:05,239
Speaker 1: drops the most insane bomb I can think of, which

657
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 1: is he starts talking about how in twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen,

658
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:13,840
Speaker 1: he was approached by RFK Junior to ghostwrit this Michael

659
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:16,440
Speaker 1: Scaple book. And so I'm thinking this story is going

660
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: to end with him saying no to the ghostwriting offer,

661
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:23,760
Speaker 1: but then developing his own independent interest in this case.

662
00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:27,399
Speaker 1: But in fact, he did ghostright the book. So this

663
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:30,680
Speaker 1: new podcast, the Podcast that seeks to Exonerate Michael Skekell,

664
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:34,400
Speaker 1: is produced by NBC used and hosted by the literal

665
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:39,040
Speaker 1: journalist who ghost wrote the RFK Junior book that sought

666
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:42,640
Speaker 1: to exonerate Michael Skekell at this point almost ten years ago.

667
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:45,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a real doozy. I don't know, I'm excited

668
00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 2: to listen to that show. But this is one of

669
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:51,120
Speaker 2: those examples that we talked about at the beginning, where

670
00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 2: everything just keeps getting muddier and muddier. Every new piece

671
00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 2: of information that is introduced into this case makes it

672
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 2: less clear, not more. Yes, i don't know how you

673
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 2: feel about this, but I've gone on a real journey

674
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 2: and I think where I've ultimately come out is I

675
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 2: don't know, but I do think Michael or Tommy have

676
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:13,640
Speaker 2: the motive. Are They're the only people in this case

677
00:38:13,719 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 2: with motive in my reading of it. I mean, again,

678
00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:20,360
Speaker 2: it is absolutely insane that GRWCH police did not search

679
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:24,880
Speaker 2: the Scahall house and there were just like a million

680
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 2: missed opportunities. But the idea that it was hoodlums who

681
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:33,920
Speaker 2: came in from New York City, yes, is crazy to me.

682
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 1: And to be honest, I don't know if this podcast

683
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:39,440
Speaker 1: is ultimately making that argument. I mean, I have no

684
00:38:39,480 --> 00:38:41,520
Speaker 1: way of knowing. It to twelve part series and only

685
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:43,799
Speaker 1: one episode has come out. But one thing that I

686
00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 1: did find intriguing is that there is new evidence that

687
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:51,359
Speaker 1: has been released since all the other books have been

688
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:55,279
Speaker 1: written about this case. So the value add of this

689
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 1: podcast is that they have new information that they're working

690
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 1: with that has not been reported before. So as much

691
00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 1: as I am listening with a critical I And of

692
00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:06,400
Speaker 1: course I don't inherently trust the guy that ghost wrote

693
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 1: the RFK book that was then widely discredited.

694
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:12,760
Speaker 2: It seems like he's a reputable journalist.

695
00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:15,400
Speaker 1: He's a reputable journalist. And as much as what can

696
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 1: I say, I still have some trust in mainstream media.

697
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:21,439
Speaker 1: I still believe that NBC News would not just give

698
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:24,719
Speaker 1: any house a podcast to rewrite the history on a

699
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 1: settled case.

700
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:29,600
Speaker 2: I also trust NBC News. I'm also a shill for

701
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 2: the mainstream media. I love them, and I give them

702
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:34,600
Speaker 2: a little kiss every day.

703
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 1: Yes, every day we wake up and we say thank

704
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:39,279
Speaker 1: God for Jake Tapper and all the rest of the

705
00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:44,560
Speaker 1: gangs such work. I'm looking forward to our listeners never

706
00:39:44,640 --> 00:39:48,560
Speaker 1: understanding when we're joking it when we're not showking. If

707
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: there's one place where kind of deadpad humor works, it's

708
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:55,759
Speaker 1: on a history podcast about topics that are right famously

709
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:58,600
Speaker 1: difficult to form opinions about. I mean, we had no

710
00:39:58,640 --> 00:40:01,520
Speaker 1: way of knowing when we planned this episode that it

711
00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:06,319
Speaker 1: would truly coincide with a Bobshell investigation that included the

712
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:10,239
Speaker 1: first interview with the actual convicted or exonerated at this point,

713
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 1: but with a formally convicted murder of the case itself.

714
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:17,000
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I'm thinking, you know, it really

715
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 1: is one of those news stories that I could convince

716
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:21,959
Speaker 1: myself either way, I guess, is what I'm saying. Yeah,

717
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:25,680
Speaker 1: and I think the only thing that is convincing to

718
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:28,560
Speaker 1: me is that there's some sort of evidence that has

719
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:31,680
Speaker 1: been hidden. I don't think based on the facts that

720
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:35,319
Speaker 1: I have, reading the research that was given to us,

721
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:37,279
Speaker 1: and reading the articles that have already been written, I

722
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 1: don't think based on those facts I could draw any

723
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:43,279
Speaker 1: conclusion that makes sense. But you know, I would not

724
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:46,600
Speaker 1: be surprised if somehow some huge part of the story

725
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:49,240
Speaker 1: has been hidden all these years. I mean, one small

726
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 1: thing that was mentioned in the first episode of this

727
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 1: show is that there was a ton of blood on

728
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:58,040
Speaker 1: the crime scene, but then no blood was found anywhere else.

729
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 1: It was as though the person that did it cleaned

730
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:03,799
Speaker 1: up everything but the actual crime scene itself. Yeah, it's

731
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:07,800
Speaker 1: just this very strange thing. There was an allusion to Obviously,

732
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:09,919
Speaker 1: this show is doing the true crime thing of edding

733
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 1: every episode on a Cliffhagger, but they alluded to the

734
00:41:12,239 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 1: fact that blood was found in a different house in

735
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:18,680
Speaker 1: the neighborhood, but that the police never followed up with it.

736
00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:21,799
Speaker 1: They said the potentially Martha had had a boyfriend that

737
00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:24,319
Speaker 1: is not part of the official narrative during this time

738
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:28,000
Speaker 1: which she's potentially hooking up with tomby scicole, she also

739
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:29,920
Speaker 1: had a boyfriend that could have been upset. I mean,

740
00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:31,840
Speaker 1: there was just all this stuff that has not been

741
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:33,279
Speaker 1: part of the official narrative, right.

742
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 2: But that's so funny because in the forty eight hour

743
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:38,920
Speaker 2: special they go pretty in depth into Martha's diary, and

744
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:41,720
Speaker 2: she doesn't mention a boyfriend, but she does mention Tommy

745
00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:46,640
Speaker 2: and Michael, and she mentions Tommy in a romantic sense

746
00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:49,040
Speaker 2: and how he had all of these advances on her,

747
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:52,720
Speaker 2: not all of which were welcome. But she also mentions

748
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 2: Michael's drinking. She said that they were at a dance

749
00:41:56,160 --> 00:41:58,799
Speaker 2: or something like that, and that Michael was loaded and

750
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:03,000
Speaker 2: being an asshole. And it's clear, based on a few

751
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:05,719
Speaker 2: different things, that he was in some way jealous of

752
00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 2: Tommy's relationship with Martha. So I think that if she

753
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 2: did have a boyfriend, maybe it was a secret, But

754
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:14,320
Speaker 2: I don't know that it would have been a secret

755
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 2: from her diary.

756
00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:18,120
Speaker 1: Well, yes, that's the thing. You hear that and you're like, wow,

757
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:19,960
Speaker 1: that's the key that unlocks it a little. But then,

758
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:22,279
Speaker 1: of course again you have to remind yourself, well, this

759
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 1: is being reported by the person who wrote this other book.

760
00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: It's just it's very confusing, I mean.

761
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 2: And also the fact that the case is now fifty

762
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:31,480
Speaker 2: years old.

763
00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:33,799
Speaker 1: Right exactly. I mean, I have to say, so far,

764
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 1: I'm impressed with the number of people from the community

765
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:38,279
Speaker 1: that they are interviewing. I mean, just the fact that

766
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 1: they have the woman that found the body on record

767
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:44,200
Speaker 1: and she's describing that experience. They have a lot of

768
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:46,839
Speaker 1: other neighbors that are discussing what Martha was like as

769
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:49,839
Speaker 1: a young girl. But it is impressive that they were

770
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 1: able to get all these people. And it is one

771
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:53,600
Speaker 1: of those things where the clock is ticking. I mean,

772
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:56,279
Speaker 1: fifty years is already way too long, but this is

773
00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:58,960
Speaker 1: Michael Skeigel's last chance to prove his innocence, right. And

774
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 1: another thing, I know I've now mentioned this many times,

775
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:06,280
Speaker 1: but it really is important to note the sheer violence

776
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:08,080
Speaker 1: of the act. This is something that would happen in

777
00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:11,160
Speaker 1: a horror movie. I mean, there is a graphic description

778
00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:14,319
Speaker 1: of how they found the body in the podcast, and

779
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:18,160
Speaker 1: one visual that has really stayed with me is that

780
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:21,400
Speaker 1: one of the blows that she took the golf club

781
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:23,799
Speaker 1: went through her neck, and so there is literally a

782
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:26,840
Speaker 1: strand of her hair that went through that hole and

783
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:28,480
Speaker 1: came out the other side of her neck. I mean,

784
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:30,279
Speaker 1: that is the level of violence we're talking about. And

785
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:35,080
Speaker 1: so obviously, yes, I could see Michael as a troubled

786
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:39,720
Speaker 1: teen with substance abuse issues and a difficult home life

787
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 1: committing an act of violence, But something like pushing someone

788
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:48,120
Speaker 1: off a cliff or something is different than this kind of.

789
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:51,480
Speaker 2: Playing someone with a six iron so hard that the

790
00:43:51,560 --> 00:43:53,280
Speaker 2: shaft of it shatters exactly.

791
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:55,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's this catch twenty two, right, because

792
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:59,120
Speaker 1: if that is what happened, then he is the literal

793
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:02,640
Speaker 1: psychopath and you can't trust anything he says in this series,

794
00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:04,279
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Someone who is able to

795
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:07,880
Speaker 1: commit that level of violence is I'm sure also able

796
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:09,719
Speaker 1: to lie with a straight face about it.

797
00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. This is one of those cases that I think

798
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 2: will be cold forever until all parties involved are dead.

799
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 2: I honestly was thinking even when the case was going

800
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:24,480
Speaker 2: on in the early two thousands, how credible are everyone's memories,

801
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:28,440
Speaker 2: then my memory is barely credible for things I did

802
00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:29,800
Speaker 2: last week totally.

803
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 1: I mean, I really think, and this is something that

804
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 1: I've discovered with so many of these Kennedy related cases,

805
00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:39,719
Speaker 1: especially the more salacious ones that we've talked about, is

806
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:43,600
Speaker 1: every case like this is so dependent on the time

807
00:44:43,800 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 1: in which it is being covered by the media. Like

808
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:48,320
Speaker 1: the fact that this was happening in two thousand and

809
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:52,080
Speaker 1: two thousand and one. People have such strong memories at

810
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:55,040
Speaker 1: the time of the oj Simpson trial of other kind

811
00:44:55,080 --> 00:44:58,360
Speaker 1: of like salacious live stream trials. You know, for example,

812
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:01,640
Speaker 1: the Johnny Depp case could only have gone the way

813
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 1: it went in a media environment that was dominated by TikTok,

814
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:09,319
Speaker 1: that was dominated by these sort of like very strange

815
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:12,680
Speaker 1: forces on each side. I mean, who knows if the

816
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 1: same exact thing, with the same exact actions had happened

817
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:18,520
Speaker 1: in I don't know, twenty ten or nineteen thirty five,

818
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:21,840
Speaker 1: if it would have gone the same way. Right, So anyway,

819
00:45:22,040 --> 00:45:24,360
Speaker 1: that's where we're at. This is a very non traditional

820
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,839
Speaker 1: episode because we really both are still working through how

821
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:30,920
Speaker 1: we feel about this case, and as Julia keeps saying,

822
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:33,880
Speaker 1: we highly recommend the forty eight hours special about it.

823
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 1: It's all available on YouTube, and I have to say

824
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:41,240
Speaker 1: so far, I am cautiously recommending this new NBC podcast

825
00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:45,360
Speaker 1: that's we listen. It's called Dead Certain the Martha Moxley Murder.

826
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:46,840
Speaker 2: Andrew Goldman, Come on the show.

827
00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 1: Andrew Goldman, We would love to have you on the show.

828
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:52,080
Speaker 1: I think even if the podcast is a complete bust,

829
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:55,359
Speaker 1: I think there is certainly new information that they are

830
00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:58,879
Speaker 1: somehow bringing to light. So it's an open topic here

831
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 1: in the United States of Kennedy. We're going to talk

832
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:04,520
Speaker 1: about it again. If you have any tips, please, said

833
00:46:04,560 --> 00:46:06,399
Speaker 1: the mid Thank you for bearing with us as we're

834
00:46:06,440 --> 00:46:09,600
Speaker 1: thinking about this in real time. But that is this

835
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 1: week's episode.

836
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:13,719
Speaker 3: United States of Kennedy is a production of iHeart Podcasts.

837
00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 2: Subscribe and follow United States of Kennedy for all Things

838
00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:18,479
Speaker 2: Kennedy every week