About This Episode
On October 31, 1975, 15-year-old Martha Moxley was found bludgeoned to death in her family's backyard in the Belle Haven neighborhood of Greenwich, Connecticut—a crime that would captivate America for decades and remain officially unsolved to this day.
Martha's body was discovered around noon that Friday, lying beneath a tree near the driveway of her family home. She had been savagely attacked with a Toney Penna 6-iron golf club. The force of the blows was so violent that the shaft shattered; one portion was driven through her neck. A trail of blood led from the crime scene to the driveway, where investigators found part of the broken shaft. Her jeans and underwear had been pulled down around her knees, though no evidence of sexual assault was found.
**The Last Night**
Martha's final hours unfolded on Halloween Eve—what locals call Mischief Night. She had been out with friends pulling pranks around the neighborhood when she made her last stop at the Skakel home, which sat directly across the street from the Moxleys. There, she spent time with two brothers: 15-year-old Michael Skakel and his older brother, 17-year-old Thomas "Tommy" Skakel. Tommy was the last person reported seen with Martha that night.
The Skakel family was no ordinary neighbor. They were wealthy and well-connected, with ties to the Kennedy family through marriage. Michael was nephew of Robert F. Kennedy, a lineage that would shape the case's trajectory for decades.
**The Murder Weapon**
The breakthrough came when investigators traced the shattered golf club to a set owned by the Skakel family. Police recovered a matching club from the same set on the Skakel property shortly after the discovery. This connection moved the investigation inward, away from theories of a random outside killer, and toward the family whose home Martha had visited that night.
Initially, the case went cold. For years, it remained one of Greenwich's most infamous unsolved mysteries. Then, in the 1990s, renewed interest sparked fresh investigative efforts. Between 1991 and 2000, new witness statements emerged—most notably from Gregory Coleman, who claimed that Michael Skakel had confessed to him at school, allegedly saying he had made sexual advances toward Martha, she rejected him, and he "drove her skull in" with the golf club.
**The Arrest and Conviction**
Based largely on this hearsay evidence, Michael Skakel was arrested in 2000—nearly 25 years after the murder. He was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. The case seemed closed. But it wasn't.
**Exoneration and Lingering Questions**
In 2018, the Connecticut Supreme Court overturned Michael Skakel's conviction, citing concerns about the reliability of the evidence against him. Notably, no DNA evidence had linked him to the murder weapon or the crime scene. As of 2025—the 50th anniversary of Martha's death—no retrial has been announced. Michael Skakel maintains his innocence.
Tommy Skakel, the last known person with Martha, was an early suspect but was never charged. The case officially remains unsolved.
Today, Martha Moxley's murder stands as a cautionary tale about wealth, influence, and justice—a half-century reminder that even the most notorious crimes can resist definitive answers, leaving a community haunted by unanswered questions on a Halloween night in 1975.
**Sources**
https://www.oxygen.com/murder-and-justice-the-case-of-martha-moxley/crime-time/who-killed-martha-moxley-theories
https://unsolved.com/gallery/martha-moxley/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-killed-martha-moxley/
https://www.aetv.com/articles/martha-moxley's-halloween-murder-50-years-ago-and-its-kennedy-connection
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/5cda11c4-b4e7-4058-b196-f8079499f5ee/episodes/e532d412-5930-463b-a24b-1b1bfaad6098/dead-certain-the-martha-moxley-murder-1---mischief-night
