MURDERED: Martha Moxley

[00:00] Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now wherever you get your podcasts. [00:30] Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today, I want to tell you a story that takes place across decades. Decades of money, power, and privilege. When a teenage girl is found murdered in one of the country's wealthiest and most exclusive neighborhoods, it sets off a hunt for justice that leads straight to the doorstep of a legendary American dynasty. This is the story of Martha Moxley. [01:00] Music

[01:31] When 15-year-old Martha Moxley first asked her mom Dorothy if she can go out with her friends on October 30th, 1975, Dorothy says no. And not because she's overly strict or anything, but because Martha's been grounded for something small that she did the weekend before. But Martha really wants to go out, though, because you see, October 30th is mischief night in her little Connecticut town. Okay, what's mischief night? [02:01] where kids in their town traditionally go around playing like little harmless pranks on their neighbors. Like nothing terribly destructive, just stuff like, you know, toilet papering the trees and playing ding dong ditch, stuff like that. Just like fun teenage stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's not like she's like missing prom, but when you're 15, even the smallest social gatherings make your FOMO act up hard. And she is determined to convince her mom to let her go. And she only has to convince her mom because her dad is actually out of town on a business trip. [02:31] really laying it on [02:33] She's telling her mom it's not fair. Her older brother's allowed to go and have fun. She has to stay home. She just begs and begs using every line in the book. And finally, finally, Dorothy says, OK, fine, go pull some pranks, but make sure you're back by 930. [02:49] The evening drags on for Dorothy pretty uneventfully until 930 rolls around and there's no sign of Martha. Now, Dorothy doesn't freak out right away. Martha's a teenager and being late is sort of kind of a theme on Mischief Night. She's annoyed and Martha's probably going to hear about it.

[03:06] Whatever. But... [03:08] 9.30 turns to 10, then 11. And before she knows it, it's 2 o'clock in the morning and Martha still dies. [03:16] is not home. [03:18] Dorothy decides to call over to Martha's best friend, Sheila's house, to see if maybe Martha decided to spend the night there. But Sheila hasn't seen Martha either. By the time 3.30 rolls around and there's still no Martha, Dorothy tries another one of Martha's friends, the neighbor, Tommy Skakel. But he says that he doesn't know where Martha is now. [03:38] either. So at 345 in the morning, this is now Halloween day, Dorothy makes the decision to call police. According to the New York Daily News, three police officers come to the Moxley's house and right away they start their search for Martha with Dorothy right alongside them. But after a cursory look around the area, they don't find anything. I'm a little surprised the police took this so seriously, like right away. Yeah. Especially on this sort of like mischief [04:08] mischief things, you know? Exactly. I'm not saying that they shouldn't have, but, you know, you and I have been doing this for a while. It's not really what we usually see. No, I was actually kind of surprised as well, because, I mean, often what we hear is, I mean, [04:22] the crazy stuff like 24, 48 plus hours. We're not going to investigate again, especially on mischief night when this is kind of like par for the course. Exactly. But there's another reason I think they showed up right away. So it's important to understand that Greenwich, where this takes place, and especially the Belhaven neighborhood where the Moxley's live, is a very rich area. And I'm talking like generations of old money. This is one of the richest areas in the entire

[04:52] any crime. People definitely don't just go missing from Belhaven. So yeah, it got their attention for sure. [04:59] So with no sign of Martha that first day and no sleep yet for Dorothy, everyone kind of decides that the best thing to do here is just get some sleep and hope that when Dorothy wakes up, she's just going to find Martha sleeping safely in her room. This whole thing is going to be a huge misunderstanding. But before the police head away from the Moxley's, [05:20] They do put together a missing persons report for Martha and they send it to all of the nearby police stations so they can keep a lookout for her, too. And, you know, if it comes to it and she's still not there in the morning, like they can actually join in on the search in this small town the next day if they need it. [05:37] And it turns out that they're gonna need it because by 10 a.m. on Halloween day, Martha's bed is still empty. No sign of her. She never came home. No one's even heard from her at this point. [05:48] Now, Dorothy can't just sit there. She's like, she's too anxious. She needs to do something. So she keeps trying to, like, call around. She calls one of Martha's other friends, Helen. And Helen tells her that, no, she's not with Martha. But she had seen her the night before. And the last time she'd seen her, Martha was leaving the house next door. The Skaggles. Wait, Tommy Skaggle? Yes. So apparently their house was this kind of, like, go-to spot where kids tended to hang out [06:18] over there. Now, remember, Dorothy had already called them in the middle of the night, but the oldest son said that he didn't know where Martha was. So she decided to just go over there herself and see what's up. And Tommy's younger brother, Michael, is actually the one who answers the door. And there's this like big camper thing parked outside. And Dorothy asked Michael if maybe Martha was inside that camper sleeping or something. But when he takes her to the camper

[06:48] like when she's she's going and asking them like this stuff. I still don't think anything like sinister is going on in her mind. Like she's sleeping off in a camper. She fell asleep somewhere. Maybe she's with a friend. It's mischief night. Like this is what is supposed to happen almost. Yes. But when she's not in the camper, it's completely empty. Both the Greenwich police and Dorothy and a growing group of people who have like come out to help are all starting [07:18] 1 p.m., Sheila comes running into Martha's house, totally hysterical, practically hyperventilating. And through her tears, Sheila is able to tell Martha's mom that something terrible has happened. Martha's been attacked. She's not moving. Call 911. [07:38] Now, Dorothy's friend, Jean, who was with Dorothy at the time that Sheila comes running in, tells Dorothy, listen, you stay put. I'm going to go check. I'm going to go see if Martha's all right. Like, you don't need to go look. But when Jean goes to check on Martha, Martha isn't all right. What she sees is Martha lying face down on the ground with her jeans and underwear pulled down to her ankles. [08:08] stabbed in the neck with a broken golf club. Like, I mean, it's literally sticking out of the back of her neck still when Jean comes upon this scene. And pieces of this golf club are scattered all over the place.

[08:22] Now, interestingly, what isn't around, I mean, again, pieces of this are all around everywhere, but the piece that might be the most useful for them, the grip, because, I mean, instinct would tell you that's probably where you're going to get fingerprints from. That part is nowhere to be found. But when she brings police there, there is enough for police to determine the club is a six iron and this high end brand is made by a company or a person called Tony Penna. [08:52] her body. So this is the crazy part to me. She was actually so close to her own home. According to A&E's American Justice episode called A Murder in Greenwich, they find Martha laying face down under some pine trees about 200 feet away from her very own house. Like literally, she is still on her own property. Weren't Dorothy and the police searching, you know, the night before and even into the morning? Like, how could they miss that? [09:21] To be honest, I don't know for sure. But what I do know is that the Moxley property is huge. I mean, they don't even call it a property. They call it an estate and it's two and a half full acres. [09:33] I wonder if maybe it was that that first night, A, there was only a few of them searching and B, it was in the middle of the night, like 4 a.m. So it's like super dark. I can see how it's possible to miss something like that at first, especially in the pitch black darkness. Well, and on mischief night, like, yes, you searched a property, but like she went out. She could be anywhere like you aren't going to concentrate on your home. Right. And I think that's part of it. Right. You bring up the fact that it's mischief night.

[10:03] I think when they went out searching, they're looking for Martha, like skipping out on her curfew or like getting into trouble. They're not looking for Martha's body. Or Martha's body or Martha at all on her own property. If she was on her property, she'd be home. Right, right. Now, once she is found, law enforcement officers are just totally stunned by all of this. [10:33] violent and to someone so young. And I don't think the local police were even prepared for something like this. You know, I mean, there isn't even anyone available in Greenwich to do an autopsy. So the police department has to call in the Connecticut State Medical Examiner. [10:49] And while the medical examiner goes to work to figure out as much as he can about what happened to Martha, police start putting together a timeline of exactly what Martha was doing on the night that she died. According to William Heffernan and William McFadden's article in the New York Daily News, they learn that she left her house with three of her friends, Jackie, Jeffrey and Helen. And then all four of them headed over to the home of their friend, Tommy, the one who lives next door to Martha. OK. Now, what? [11:18] What's interesting about them is, I mean, I already told you this area is a super, like, ritzy, wealthy area, right? Right. [11:26] Tommy and his family, he has six brothers and sisters. They're a little bit of kind of a special family in this neighborhood because they are all Kennedy cousins.

[11:39] The Kennedys, the Kennedys. The one and only. And our fan club members will know that I have this weird obsession with all things Kennedy related. Totally. And have for like... [11:51] decades at this point. Yeah, I'm obsessed with this scandal that seems to follow them. And actually, The Secret Life of JFK is actually the subject of the very first episode of my new podcast that comes out tomorrow, August 11th. It's called Very Presidential. So if anyone wants, you can deep dive on all things Kennedy scandal with me there. [12:11] So not only is this family super wealthy, but they're also close to fame and political power. Yeah. And you see, so the Skaggle kids aunt Ethel was married to Senator Robert F. Kennedy until he was assassinated back in 68. So between the money and the family connections, these kids are super well off, even by Greenwich standards. [12:36] And what police learn is that in this house, the two people that they're really looking at who would have been hanging out with Martha are these two boys around Martha's age. Tommy, who's 17, and his little brother, Michael, who is 15. And they all run in the same crowd with Martha and her friends. And since Martha was last seen alive at their house, according to the Chicago Tribune, that's where they go first. That's where police want to check out first. They want to talk to both Tommy and Michael. [13:06] on a hunting trip that night, and their mom had actually passed away a couple of years before. So the only person really there that night looking after the kids was their brand new tutor, Ken Littleton.

[13:19] And when I say brand new, I mean literally brand new. Ken actually had just started that very same day on the 30th. Oh. So when Rushton finds out, like, what's going on in his neighborhood and that police want to talk to his sons, he hurries back to Greenwich. And at first, the family is super cooperative. And both Tommy and Michael are questioned that very same day. Both boys say they have alibis for the time of the murder. Michael says that he was away from home visiting his cousin Jimmy. [13:49] And Tommy says that he was in for the night by 930. First, watching a movie with Ken, the new tutor, and then working on homework. He said he had to write some kind of paper about Abraham Lincoln. [13:59] Well, Michael's alibi checks out, but Tommy's not so much. Like, yes, they can verify that Ken watched a movie with him, but when police... [14:11] talk to Tommy's teachers. I mean, A, not only can you not verify that he's like in his room writing a paper, there's no one to corroborate that. But his teachers, like not a single one knows anything about an Abe Lincoln assignment. So this starts to pique their interest. Something is up here. And Tommy starts to look even worse to them when police find a set of Tony Penna clubs [14:41] of clubs as the weapon used to murder Martha, but one single club, the six iron, is missing.

[14:50] As police do a little more digging, they find out that this family is the only people in Bellhaven with this kind of set of clubs, which are super high end, actually like a collector's item. Not only that, but the Los Angeles Times reported that part of the club found at the crime scene is actually engraved with the name Ann Skagel, which is Tommy's late mom. So there's no doubt that the clubs came from that house. [15:20] You know, even though this seems really great, we know that this isn't like the end all be all. You can't take someone to court just because the murder weapon at some point was in their home. I mean, there's a thousand ways. Right. It's definitely not like a smoking gun. Yeah. A thousand ways to get out of that. So police know that they need more evidence if they're going to try to link Tommy to Martha's murder. And they're able to find more once police get a look at Martha's diary. [15:52] Summer's here, and whether you're traveling, shuttling kids to camp, or spending long days by the pool, staying healthy and on budget, is always top of mind. That's where GoodRx can help. GoodRx can help you save up to 80% on prescriptions for you and your family. [16:07] Even your pets, too. Just check GoodRx before every pharmacy run to find big savings on both brand name and generic medications. [16:14] I love seeing how many options they have to save. [16:17] GoodRx is free and easy to use. Just search for your prescription on the website or app, compare prices, and get a free coupon to show your pharmacist. Use GoodRx to save at over 70,000 pharmacies nationwide, including Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Publix, Kroger, and many more. GoodRx is not insurance, but it works whether you have insurance or not, and it could even beat your copay price. Save time and money at the pharmacy this summer.

[16:40] Go to GoodRx.com slash Crime Junkie. [16:43] That's goodrx.com slash crimejunkie, or download the free GoodRx app. [16:49] In Martha's diary, she actually wrote that Tommy had a crush on her and kept trying to, as she put it, get to first and second base. And she wasn't into it? Not so much. In September of 1975, she wrote, quote, "I can't be friends with Tom. Just because I talk to him, it doesn't mean I like him. I really have to stop going over there." [17:17] End quote. [17:18] But she didn't stop going over there, as we know, because the last place Martha was seen alive was his house. [17:25] Now, to go back to the autopsy, because of this whole like rigmarole with the out-of-town medical examiner, the autopsy was delayed. And so that doesn't happen until November 1st. Ideally, an autopsy should happen within 24 hours after a person dies. And the longer you wait, the harder it is to be precise about certain things, like, for example, time of death. [17:55] Martha died sometime between 9.30 p.m. on October 30th and 5 a.m. on the 31st. Okay, but that's a huge window. Huge window. [18:06] But based on what police are finding out in their investigation, they think that Martha was most likely killed around the start of that time span. So closer to that 930 mark. And best I can tell, they got to that time not because of something physical in her autopsy, but because Dorothy and a few others in the neighborhood all say that they heard dogs barking around 930 p.m.

[18:36] happening in the neighborhood around that time that was abnormal. And of course, this is the only thing that night that is this big, right? Right. Now, I wasn't able to find anything else meaningful, really, that came out of the autopsy. But I was curious to know about sexual assault, since we know that Martha was found with her pants down. But honestly, I don't feel like I got a definitive answer since we don't have an actual copy of the Emmy's final report. [19:06] the equation, at least according to sources like E! News and the Los Angeles Times. [19:11] By early November, police are more confident than ever that Tommy is their guy. There's just one big problem. There is no more physical evidence to tie Tommy to the scene. So police move on to basically start crossing their T's and dotting their I's to make sure that they've ruled out like everyone else that it could possibly be, even though they think they have their man. [19:36] And their work was cut out for them because, as it turns out, Tommy wasn't the only guy in Martha's life. And he's not even the only potential suspect in the mix. Police also talk to Martha's boyfriend, Peter. They also interview the Skaggle tutor, Ken. And they even look hard at a neighbor in Belhaven that everyone thought was kind of creepy. This guy named Dan Connors, who's this, like, 26-year-old grad student. [20:00] But none of those leads get them any closer to the truth. [20:04] And by Christmas of 75, police have interviewed 250 people. They've done dozens of polygraph tests, but any leads they might have had early on in the investigation are just drying up fast. Wait, so they...

[20:18] didn't end up arresting Tommy? No. I mean, but not for a lack of trying. They even polygraphed Tommy not once, but twice. The first test came back inconclusive and police think that maybe they were like getting somewhere. But the next test, just a couple of days later, comes back clear. According to the test, he wasn't lying. So it feels like they're back at square one. And square one is where this investigation would stay. [20:46] for fifth year. [20:47] years. Nothing moves on this case. There are [20:52] No leads, no suspects, no arrests, until the early 1990s, when Martha's murder hits the headlines again. And this time, it's not because of the Skaggles, but because of their very famous relatives, the Kennedys. [21:10] In 1991, William Kennedy Smith, who's one of President JFK's nephews and one of Tommy and Michael's cousins, is actually charged with rape down in Florida. And during his trial, a rumor pops up that he was actually at the Skaggles' house the night Martha Moxley was murdered. What? How did police miss that? Well, it turns out they didn't. The rumors end up being just that. Rumors. [21:40] Martha's murder. And it turns out their digging pays off because there is more to uncover. In the early summer of 1991, the New York Post publishes an article about how nearly a decade prior, so this would have been 1982, a couple of Greenwich newspapers recruited a reporter named Leonard Levitt to do an investigative piece on the case. But when he did, after it was

[22:10] During his investigation, Leonard unearthed these old rumors that the Greenwich police were paid off back in the 1970s. By who? Leonard doesn't say. But that's honestly the least of their worries at this point. Because Leonard's investigative work also uncovered just how badly the whole Greenwich law enforcement community actually handled the entire investigation. I mean, I mentioned before they didn't have a murder to investigate in the 30 years before Martha's death. [22:40] they really didn't have any good idea of what they were doing. Like, here's a perfect example of what he found. Apparently, after her body was discovered, police left her body totally unattended. Like, to the point that a neighborhood dog was, like, walking all over the crime scene. What? And not only that, they had a funeral director, not a medical examiner, move her body from the Moxley property to the ME's office for the autopsy. [23:10] completely violates a sort of chain of custody. Right. [23:12] Right. And I mean, again, [23:14] After you've already had a dog trample all over the crime scene, like, again, none of this was protected. It's not what you would want to see if you were conducting a thorough investigation. [23:24] And I think part of the problem was there had to have been on the police's part some kind of fear of misstepping or somehow offending these incredibly wealthy and powerful people. And that's what you see over and over again. I think it's part of the reason they responded so fast and maybe part of the reason they didn't hammer in hard in the early days like they should have.

[23:54] He didn't get formally questioned until the summer of 1973. [24:03] Like, yeah, they asked him, like, a couple of questions at the time, but police didn't actually... Bring him in, sit him down, do a formal, like, questioning. Not until almost a year after Martha's murder. Oh, my God. And... [24:15] Again, to put it in perspective, he's not even a Kennedy cousin. He's just like attached to them. Right. And here's another example. Even though police knew Tommy was the last person to see Martha alive, even though they could match the murder weapon directly to the Skaggle family within 48 hours of Martha's murder, police never met. [24:35] got a warrant to do a full search of their property. You're kidding me. Now, they did get permission from the family to do a search of their home. [24:45] But here is the part... [24:47] that like makes me want to rip my hair out and scream. The police didn't. [24:51] didn't even conduct the search themselves. Wait, so... [24:56] The Skagels offered their place to be searched to the police. And the police were like, thanks, but no thanks. Well, no, no, no. They had it searched. But by who? Exactly. So... [25:07] They are like, okay, we'll let you search our place. And police have Tommy's older sister. So someone who lives in that house. Her name's Julie. She was 18 at the time. Lives in the house and is connected to the possible suspect. They have her do the actual search. Like. [25:21] I just can't even imagine. She is the teenage sister of a murder suspect conducting a search of her own home with no oversight. I mean, again, it's not like someone followed her. No oversight, no accountability. Like, again, you can see how this like attitude of, you know, trying to be so polite and sorry not to bother you really got in the way of a freaking murder investigation. Yeah. And.

[25:47] I have such a hard time believing that things would have happened the same way if the Skagels weren't who they were. They were not so wealthy. They weren't so connected. Anyway, according to E! News, after that scathing New York Post piece goes to print, not only do the Greenwich papers suddenly publish Leonard's 1982 article, but the Connecticut state's attorney, Donald Brown, reopens Martha's case. And the Greenwich police dive back into their investigation. [26:17] And as you can imagine, after being absolutely skewered in the local and national news, the pressure is on the Greenwich police. But instead of reinvestigating Tommy, again, the last person to see Martha alive, they decide to start their investigation all the way back at Kent. [26:36] the Skaggles' tutor. [26:40] Summer's here, and whether you're traveling, shuttling kids to camp, or spending long days by the pool, staying healthy and on budget, is always top of mind. That's where GoodRx can help. GoodRx can help you save up to 80% on prescriptions for you and your family. [26:54] Even your pets, too. Just check GoodRx before every pharmacy run to find big savings on both brand name and generic medications. [27:01] I love seeing how many options they have to save. [27:04] GoodRx is free and easy to use. Just search for your prescription on the website or app, compare prices, and get a free coupon to show your pharmacist. Use GoodRx to save at over 70,000 pharmacies nationwide, including Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Publix, Kroger, and many more. GoodRx is not insurance, but it works whether you have insurance or not, and it could even beat your copay price. Save time and money at the pharmacy this summer. Go to GoodRx.com slash CrimeJunkie.

[27:31] That's goodrx.com slash crimejunkie or download the free GoodRx app. [27:37] In 1991, when the DA reopens the case, one of the first people police reach out to talk to is Ken Littleton. Wait, didn't you say that they already interviewed him and ruled him out? So police did talk to him back in the beginning, I remember within that first, like, year. But once the case is reopened and the new investigators look into the file with fresh eyes, they see that Ken actually failed a polygraph when he was questioned that first time. [28:06] left turn since Martha's murder. I mean, at this point, when they go look at him, he now has a criminal record. He has a long history of substance use and mental illness, which thanks to all the stigma around mental health and addiction, especially back then, pretty much counts as evidence at the time to these police. And they're just assuming like, oh, my gosh, I mean, look at this guy now. He must have had something to do with it. So they bring him back in again for [28:36] But… [28:38] There's nothing to actually link him to the crime. No forensics. They can't even come up with a motive. There's just nothing. So while police don't rule him out just yet, they can't charge him with anything either. [28:51] And even though Polisa's heat is squarely on Ken, the media interest remains where it's always been. [28:59] On the Skaggles. Finally, Tommy's dad, Rushen, is just like over it. He's been over it for 15 years. But now in 91, he decides to shut the rumors down once and for all. So what he does is he hires a PI and starts their own investigation in hopes of finally ending the speculation that any member of his family had something to do with Martha's murder.

[29:29] all of it. [29:30] And even though this is great, I mean, there's something about a wealthy family like hiring their own P.I.s to clear their kid's name in a 15 year old murder investigation that. [29:40] Just turns some heads. And one of those heads is that of writer Dominic Dunn. Now, Dominic is a pretty polarizing figure. And honestly, we could probably do a whole episode just about like his own. [30:10] Like even the O.J. Simpson trial, which is probably how you know him. And he actually lived through the trauma of his own daughter's murder, which spurred an interest in murder and like high society and all of this. So Dominic convinces Dorothy Moxley to let him write a novel based on Martha's murder with the details changed just enough so nobody gets like sued, basically. And this novel comes out in 1993 under the name A Season in Purgatory. [30:40] goes crazy for Martha's story all over again. [30:44] According to a piece Dominic wrote in 2000 for Vanity Fair, what he says is that a forensic pathologist who used to work with the Greenwich police actually comes to him when he's in Colorado on his book tour back in 93. And at this book tour, he actually gives him a copy of Martha's autopsy photos. Wait, what? Yeah. And the pathologist also tells him everyone's got this all wrong. Tommy didn't kill Martha.

[31:14] Okay? Who did? [31:16] If the pathologist knows, she won't say. But a couple of years later, in the fall of 1995, another source approaches Dominic and a handful of other well-known journalists with a copy of the report from the PI firm that Rushton hired. [31:32] And if Rushin's goal was to repair his son's reputation and clear the family name, boy, did that backfire. According to excerpts from this report that CNN published, by the early 90s, Tommy had changed his story completely about what he was doing on the night Martha Moxley was murdered. And not only Tommy, but his brother Michael was also changing his story. [32:02] talking about like huge, huge differences. So remember how back in 75, Tommy told police he last saw Martha in the evening, but by 930, he's like home. He's with Ken. He's writing this paper about Abe Lincoln. Right. The paper that none of his teachers know about. Yes. That fake paper. Cool. Well, [32:18] During the PI's investigation, Tommy says he lied to police about more than just the paper. He said he was actually with Martha longer than that, until about 10 p.m. And according to the Daily Beast, he now says that before they parted ways, the two engaged in basically like some hand stuff. OK, that might explain why her pants are pulled down, but there's no sign of a sexual assault or anything. So I was thinking about that.

[32:48] that's an explanation but to me that only makes sense if tommy was the person who killed her because it's not like he's gonna pull up his pants and you know like [32:59] whatever they're doing is done. He pulls up his pants and walks away. And she's just like sitting there hanging out with her underwear at her ankles. Like that makes no sense for anyone to do. And you can't even say that they were like in the middle of something. And then she got attacked by someone else because then Tommy should have been there for the attack and said something and he would have known. You know what I mean? Right. So what about Michael, though? You said his story had changed, too. Yeah. In a very weird way. So his original story was that he was visiting [33:29] And that is still his story. He visited his cousins, then came home. The difference is now he says that he left his house again around midnight, climbed a tree outside Martha's window and masturbated up in the tree. I'm sorry, what? What? [33:49] Isn't that the weirdest, strangest thing? [33:52] thing you've ever heard? It's definitely up there. And my biggest thing with this is [33:58] This isn't even something you can misremember. Neither of these stories, these new stories, are the kinds of details that you, like, accidentally leave out. You don't forget that you climbed a tree. Yeah, they're, like, really, really specific. Right. And they're super incriminating for both brothers. And it puts them both in and around the crime scene.

[34:28] book and this article and there's all this media interest. [34:33] Eventually, it all dies down. [34:36] again. [34:37] But the case doesn't stay out of the limelight for long because in 1998, a whole new generation learns about the case after another book comes out called Murder in Greenwich, Who Killed Martha Moxley? And this is actually how I first learned about the case. And the author of this book claims that he's cracked it. And get this, the author of that book is none other than Mark Furman. Oh, that's the name I recognize. [35:07] So it is the same LAPD detective Mark Furman who became notorious for his racial slurs, his perjury during the O.J. Simpson case, which, again, I know you're obsessed with, so I knew you'd recognize his name. So Mark gets interested in this case because of Dominic Dunn, who gives him access to the P.I. report. Now, Mark's book is pretty clear on two things. First, that the Greenwich police dropped the ball in a big way investigating Martha's murder. [35:37] And second, he says he knows who the killer really is. According to Mark Furman's book, Martha Moxley was murdered, not by Tommy Skagel. [35:48] but by his older brother, Michael. [35:51] Uh, based on what? Well? [35:54] He says, based on Michael's confession. And confession is a loose word. I'm going to call it confession-ish statement. So let me explain. It's like there's air quotes around the word confession. Yeah. So the thing about Michael is that he's kind of this textbook poor little rich kid. Now, we talked about the Kennedy curse in one of our headline segments over in our fan club. And that extends all the way out to the cousin. So the Skaggles weren't exactly one big happy family.

[36:24] He was an alcoholic. He was away from home a lot. And after his wife Anne died, he left kind of the whole parenting of seven kids thing to nannies and tutors, religious figures in the church, kind of basically opting for like an open checkbook, closed emotions kind of style of nurturing. [36:40] Often the kids would like fight with each other. It would get violent. Drugs and alcohol were easily accessible even at very, very young ages. And in his book, Mark Furman says that by age 15, Michael was already a very heavy drinker and was actually drunk the night Martha died. [36:57] Now, we know there's at least some truth to him being a heavy drinker because he got a DUI in 1978. And afterward, he was sent to this fancy like rehab slash reform school in Maine called Elon School. And it's a pretty well-known like school for being a haven for troubled rich kids. And Michael actually wrote about his time there in his own book proposal, which is where Mark gets the information to prop up his claims and what he's calling this like confession-ish thing. [37:27] So according to Time magazine, Michael wrote in that book proposal that part of his treatment was group therapy, which sounds pretty standard, right? Yeah, totally. Except it wasn't, or at least it was nothing like any group therapy that I've ever heard of. According to Michael, he was forced to wear a sign around his neck that said, quote, [37:49] I am an arrogant rich brat. [37:52] Confront me on why I killed my friend, Martha.

[37:57] End quote. What? Mark says he confirmed this story about the sign, which was in Michael's own would-be book proposal by talking to some people who had actually been with Michael during these group sessions. And one of the people said that he was at group therapy that Michael allegedly blurted out that he killed Martha. So, I mean, this is like a huge revelation at this point. [38:27] actually puts together a grand jury to go over all of the evidence and see if they can actually use this and press charges. Based on a book about a book proposal from what I can gather? I mean, apparently, like, that's what I'm gathering from this. So when they bring this grand jury together, 53 witnesses testify over the next year and a half. [38:57] death, an arrest warrant is issued. [39:00] But... [39:01] It's not a warrant for Michael's arrest. According to E! Online, the warrant is for an unnamed juvenile. [39:13] Summer's here, and whether you're traveling, shuttling kids to camp, or spending long days by the pool, staying healthy and on budget, is always top of mind. That's where GoodRx can help. GoodRx can help you save up to 80% on prescriptions for you and your family.

[39:27] Even your pets, too. Just check GoodRx before every pharmacy run to find big savings on both brand name and generic medications. [39:34] I love seeing how many options they have to save. [39:37] GoodRx is free and easy to use. Just search for your prescription on the website or app, compare prices, and get a free coupon to show your pharmacist. Use GoodRx to save at over 70,000 pharmacies nationwide, including Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Publix, Kroger, and many more. GoodRx is not insurance, but it works whether you have insurance or not, and it could even beat your copay price. [40:07] Download the free GoodRx app. [40:11] It turns out, though, that the unnamed juvenile listed in the warrant is actually Michael Skagel, who by this time is almost 40 years old, but who at the time of Martha's death was just 15. And there was this whole like confusion and mix up because I guess at first he was charged as a juvenile because, again, he was a juvenile when this crime took place. [40:39] Now, he says he's innocent, just like he said since the 70s, and he sticks to that script. But the prosecution is confident that they have their guy. They play audio tapes from his book proposal, which he recorded on cassette, by the way, where he admits that, yes, he had a thing for Martha and yes, he was up in the tree that night.

[41:09] that he wanted to arrest Tommy back in 76, but the DA wouldn't grant him a warrant. Which, I mean, to me, that makes sense. And we see this a lot where someone looks so good for a crime, but there is enough evidence [41:23] reasonable doubt for a reason. Like, in this case, the golf clubs, yes, they were in Tommy's house, but... [41:30] Also, [41:31] everyone else in the house would have had access to them. Right. I mean, and that's what we talked about earlier. And we said, like, yes, this seems like such a damning piece of evidence. But, I mean, anyone could have got them. I mean, not even just people in the house. Because remember, there's more siblings than even just these two. There's a tutor. There's whoever. But it doesn't help that. And it's mischief night. Someone could have broken in and stolen them. Well, and not even stolen them. Rushton actually says that his kids would play with those clubs and leave them outside and, like, around the property all the time. So, again, if we're talking reasonable doubt, [42:01] You could say that anyone went out and picked it up off of the lawn. It's... [42:06] It opens it up to anyone who could have walked through the neighborhood, basically. But the same problem still remains with Michael as with Tommy. The prosecution has zero physical evidence that actually ties Michael to Martha or her murder. There's no bodily fluids, no fingerprints, nothing. Everything they have is all circumstantial. [42:28] Because again, Michael was around the area. He had access to the clubs, but so did a lot of people. But there was that sort of weird confession-ish thing, like the sign around his neck. Yeah, so here's the thing about that sign. The Elon School had some super controversial tactics like humiliation therapy, which is exactly what it sounds like. With basically the premise of trying to break someone down and then build them back up.

[42:58] each other? According to the New York Times, one of Michael's old classmates testified that he saw Michael thrown into a boxing ring, like an actual boxing ring, and get beaten up by other students as means to get him to confess to the murder. And all of this was totally sanctioned by the staff as part of their treatment. So I don't know. And let's do air quotes around treatment as well. Yeah, exactly. So you can see the testimony in this trial is very much kind of a he said, [43:28] We said scenario with one side saying one thing, the other saying entirely different thing. And after months of arguments and evidence, the jury deliberated for three days. And on June 7th, 2002, Michael is found guilty of the murdering Martha Moxley. And he's sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. So, yeah. [43:51] If this was a normal case, it might have ended there, right? Like maybe some appeals, but legal fees and court costs to keep fighting year after year really add up for most people. But Michael isn't most people. In 2003, his lawyers filed an appeal on seven different grounds, saying that he should have been tried in juvenile court. And basically the prosecution biased the jury against Michael when they called him a spoiled brat. [44:21] Supreme Court is having none of it and they uphold Michael's conviction. But later that same year, Michael gets a new lawyer who asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the lower court's judgment and the Supreme Court shuts it down. They say, nope, no thanks.

[44:36] And I won't bore you with all of the legal wranglings over the next few years because there is a lot of it. But in 2013, after Michael's been in jail for 11 years, a superior court judge ends up granting him a new trial. On what grounds? Michael's new lawyers argue that his original lawyer was ineffective, ineffective assistant of counsel. We've seen this in a lot of cases. Yeah. They basically say that he did a bad job during the trial. [45:06] to how the original one didn't get in contact with witnesses to back up Michael's alibi, and how he didn't mention... [45:14] another suspect. Like specifically, he believed that his lawyer should have pointed to his brother, Tommy. [45:20] Well, if Michael's first lawyer was ineffective, this new one certainly isn't because Michael gets out of prison on bail in November of 2013. And he's still out on bail in [redacted address] reinstates his conviction. [45:38] The opinion from that court says basically like, hey, no, your lawyer did a good enough job. You are back to being guilty. And now I kind of feel like Billy Mays from all those infomercials when I was in college because, wait, there is still more. So Michael's lawyers go back to court in 2018. The Connecticut Supreme Court vacates the murder conviction and reverses the decision from 2016.

[46:08] have a new trial, but then that was vacated. [46:12] So he gets a new trial? So he is now entitled to one. Yes. The state of Connecticut tried to get the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, but in January of 2019, they said no. So technically, Michael could still be tried again for the murder of Martha Moxley. But as of today... [46:34] 2020, that retrial has never happened, and I don't know that it ever will. Money, power, and privilege cover up a lot of sins. Someone in the Skaggle house is potentially keeping a secret. Whether they're involved or not, they just may know more. But secrets don't stay secrets forever. And when [46:59] Whenever that happens, Martha Moxley will finally get the justice she's deserved for almost 45 years. [47:08] If you want to see pictures and our source material for this episode, you can check that out on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast. [47:38] Ashley Flowers, where I'll be talking about some Kennedys.

[47:42] Thank you. [48:01] you [48:02] you [48:03] you [48:04] you [48:07] you [48:09] Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? [48:17] Okay, Crime Junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? [48:35] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years. [48:39] I think you'll love it too. [48:41] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.