by Margaret Garrett
When the battered, bludgeoned body of fifteen-year-old Martha Moxley was found on her own Belle Haven lawn on the afternoon of October 31, 1975, the story of how she came to be there was a complete mystery. Over the years, however, the details have been slowly collected, analyzed and vetted and an accepted timeline now exists, without question or challenge.
Martha left her home about 6:00 pm on October 30th, after her mother Dorothy prepared her a grilled cheese sandwich. She and her friends then visited other friends, trying to entice them to join in the fun of Hackers Night (mischief night). Traditionally, the night before Halloween in Belle Haven was a night of mild pranks and minor vandalism. Belle Haven had its own security force, and in anticipation of the mischief, they increased the number of patrols throughout the neighborhood. Other than a motorist reporting an egg thrown at their car, however, very little happened. By the time the patrol arrived on the scene, the teens had scattered. It was a quiet night.
Sometime between 7:00 and 7:30, Martha enjoyed a treat of ice cream at one of their stopovers. There was talk of a party at the Skakels that night. Rushton Skakel Sr. was away, believed to be hunting in Vermont. The group stopped in a couple of times at the Skakels, but the Skakel children were at the Belle Haven Club, having dinner, accompanied by their newly hired tutor, Ken Littleton.
The Skakels returned home shortly before 9:00 pm and the kids decided to listen to music in a Lincoln, which was parked in the Skakel driveway. 15-year-old Michael Skakel sat in the driver’s seat with Martha beside him. Friends, Helen Ix and Geoffrey Byrne, were in the backseat. At 9:15 pm, Thomas Skakel, 17, joined the group, saying he wanted to retrieve a tape from the car. Instead, he slid in beside Martha and began to flirt with her, placing his hand on her knee. Martha rebuffed his advances.
The group didn’t notice any particular reaction from Michael over his brother flirting with a girl he was known to be interested in. Some members of Martha’s crowd considered Martha and Michael to be an “item.” Some even thought she was his “ex.” What defines the term, boyfriend and girlfriend, in not-yet-dating-teens, is hard to say. Dorothy Moxley was unaware that Martha even knew the Skakel brothers. Rushton Sr, had sponsored the Moxley’s membership in the Belle Haven Club, but the Skakel children went to private schools, Martha to the public school. Dorothy thought that Martha had a boyfriend from her school, a “puppy love” situation. The question of when Martha could begin to truly date had not yet come up.
At approximately 9:25 pm, the Skakel brothers, Rush Jr and John, along with a Skakel cousin, Jim Terrien, ordered everyone out of the car. They were going to use it to go over to the Terriens to watch “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” Michael decided to go and 
asked Martha and Tommy to join them. Martha said she needed to get home and Tommy said he had to do some homework. The car drove away.
Helen and Geoff also headed home and Helen later admitted feeling a bit of disgust with Martha, as the flirting with Tommy continued. Now, they were on the lawn, pushing and shoving at one another. Helen’s last view of Martha was of her falling, out of view, behind the fence surrounding the Skakel pool and Tommy either falling or jumping on top of her. Tommy would later say that he talked to Martha for a couple of minutes; then they said goodnight and she headed home. As he entered the Skakel home, Andrea Shakespeare, a friend of Tommy’s sister, Julie, rang the doorbell, asking for the set of keys to the other Skakel car, saying that Julie was driving her home. Tommy gave her the keys and headed up to his room to do a report on Abraham Lincoln and log cabins. When he was finished, he watched the chase scene from the movie, “The French Connection,” in the newly hired tutor’s room, where Ken Littleton was unpacking his belongings. Then Tommy went up to bed. Michael returned from the Terriens’ at 11:20 pm and later stated that he went straight up to bed.
Martha’s fate quickly became public. She was attacked shortly after entering her own yard. A blow to the back of her head rendered her unconscious. She exhibited no defensive wounds and there was very little blood at the attack site. She was then grabbed by her feet and ankles (some believe she was dragged by her HAIR) and pulled face down over the gravel and asphalt driveway. The abrasions to her chin, nose and forehead bear this out. Then she was struck again, once again on the back of her head. The force of these blows fractured the golf club into four pieces. The large pools of blood at the second site indicated that Martha lay there, undisturbed, for a period of time. (Did her attacker(s) leave and come back?) Then, while Martha was still breathing, she was stabbed through the neck, with the grip portion of the golf club. Blood aspirate was discovered in her lungs. The golf club handle was indeed present at the scene — her face resting on the club would bear the impression of the shaft, which over the hours became implanted. She was found with her jeans and panties pulled down below her knees, though it was reported that she was not raped. She also did not consume any alcohol or drugs that night. After the final blow, Martha was dragged again, in slightly zig-zag fashion. Her body was then stuffed under the boughs of a large pine tree.
Martha’s autopsy was not performed until well over 36 hours after her death. Whatever forensic information could have been recovered by a medical examiner’s 
investigation at the crime scene, or the insight he could have provided into how best to collect the evidence, will never be known. The blood at the scene was assumed to be Martha’s but none was collected. The blood-smeared leaves would dry up and blow away. The handle grip of the golf club that was later proven to be one of the set owned by the Skakels by the FBI crime lab metallurgical tests… was “LOST.”
A pair of jeans and tennis shoes that was thrown away in the Skakel’s trash the week of the murder was also lost by the Greenwich PD. Testing was said to be inconclusive…. The Skakel’s twenty-five foot Revcon camper was driven away from the Skakel home within hours of the discovery of Martha’s body and was never searched. The disposition and whereabouts of this camper are still the subject of internet discussions.
Right from the start, Tommy Skakel and Ken Littleton emerged as strong suspects in the minds of the public as well as the police. Although the residents of Belle Haven were often accused of indifference regarding Martha’s murder …some expressed relief when the Moxley family moved away a year after the murder… The reality was that they were afraid. Neighbors quickly began accusing neighbors. A graduate student living at home, Edward Hammond, came under intense police scrutiny for months, with accusations that he, “drank heavily and sometimes acted weird.” He alleges illegal search and seizure of his room and property, after police realized that his room overlooked the tree where Martha’s body was found. Wives accused husbands…anyone known to have a bad temper and swing a golf club was under scrutiny.
Rushton Skakel Sr cooperated with the police, giving them free access to his home. No formal search, looking for clothing or blood, was ever performed. Another opportunity lost forever.
Martha’s time of death was listed within the impossibly narrow window of 9:35 pm to 10:00 pm. This was not based on science or autopsy findings, but rather on the assumption that Tommy said she left his house at 9:30 pm. Dorothy Moxley reported hearing an angry male voice or voices during that time frame and that several neighbors reported the sustained and frantic barking of their dogs during this interval.
The case stalled. Over the years, whenever the case regained the attention of the public, there was always a sense of, “Let’s find out what really happened…” but then it would die out again. Many believed that someone in the Skakel house had gotten away with murder.
In the next installment, we’ll explore what life was like for the Skakel family, living under suspicion and intense scrutiny and what became of the newly hired tutor, Ken Littleton.
Please click below to view Margaret Garrett’s earlier posts introducing the Michael Skakel – Martha Moxley murder case:
Kennedy Cousin Michael Skakel Granted New Trial in Martha Moxley Murder Case
Cover-Up in Connecticut? The Martha Moxley Murder Investigation
Margaret Garrett resides in New England. She is a retired RN, who has been married to the same wonderful man for over thirty-five years. She is the mother of grown children and “Nana,” to two, delightful grandchildren. She enjoys gardening, reading true crime, trial watching and blogging.