00:00:10
Yeah. You mentioned you grew up in Greenwich and you were there in 75. The first thing people ask you is, "Did you
00:00:16
know Martha Moxley?" >> Bell Haven, Connecticut is a small private community. It has big estates
00:00:26
and almost no crime. But a 15-year-old girl has been brutally murdered there. >> Bell Haven. This was a virtually
00:00:35
exclusive, very wealthy community in Greenwich, Connecticut, where murders just don't occur.
00:00:46
My name's uh Richard Burns and I lived in Greenwich back then. That's the first time in 45 years we'd ever talked about
00:00:53
it. >> My name is Tory Holland. I grew up in Bell Haven and in 1975 I was 15 along
00:00:59
with Martha. She just had this beaming personality and her beautiful blonde hair. Smiled
00:01:07
all the time. I just smile, you know, it just made you feel like you were the center of of of
00:01:13
the world. >> The Skakels lived across the street from the Moxley's. They were a family of all these boys
00:01:22
except for Julie. >> I went to school with them and Michael was a year behind me and Tommy was a
00:01:30
year ahead of me. It >> was a lovely place to grow up. You just felt safe and that all changed after
00:01:37
that night. >> The instrument used in the striking of the Moxley girl was a golf club. We know
00:01:48
that >> it's absolutely devastating. >> Nearly a quarter of a century would pass
00:01:55
before police would make an arrest for the murder of Martha Moxley. >> 39-year-old Michael Skel was charged
00:02:04
with murder. >> Michael, did you kill her? >> I was shocked. I was like, Michael,
00:02:10
>> I know Michael's innocent. [music] The evidence is much stronger suggesting that other people may have committed the
00:02:19
crime. [music] >> Bobby Kennedy Jr. is Michael's cousin and he never believed for a minute
00:02:27
Michael Skaggel committed this crime. >> 27 years after the crime, Kennedy cousin
00:02:33
Michael Skaggel convicted in the murder of Martha Moxley. Michael Skegel spent 11 and a half years
00:02:42
in prison [music] until his conviction was overturned on appeal. >> An innocent man now goes free.
00:02:50
>> But if Michael didn't kill Martha Moxley, then who did? >> This little girl, this cute little
00:02:58
amazing girl was murdered brutally by somebody. And I think it was somebody in that neighborhood.
00:03:04
>> Could [music] Martha's diary hold the clue? I believe all through this case there's someone who's been keeping a
00:03:11
secret [music] >> [music] >> after she was was murdered. Everything had changed. You have no sense of peace.
00:04:08
You you've lost it all. >> I think if she had said yes, they would. >> Tori Holland and Richard Burns have
00:04:14
waited decades to speak publicly about the event that forever marked their lives,
00:04:22
the death of their friend Martha Moxley. My backyard sort of meldted into her front yard.
00:04:29
>> Both Tori and Martha were just 15 years old, living in Bell Haven, Connecticut.
00:04:35
Martha's family had moved to the neighborhood a year earlier from California. And Martha wasted no time
00:04:43
becoming the ITG girl. >> She was not a wallflower. She wanted to meet everybody, but everybody in
00:04:49
Greenwich, you know, was very kind of reserved northeastern personalities. She was very um an extrovert.
00:04:56
>> She was the California girl of of all of us. She was a joy to be around. >> You know, how can you kill someone like
00:05:03
that? >> It still gets you. >> Yeah. >> It was the night [music] before Halloween, October 30th, 1975.
00:05:16
Also known as mischief night. What is mischief? Basically, you would throw toilet paper
00:05:22
into the trees. [music] >> It was fun. >> Martha headed across the street to hang
00:05:28
out with her very wealthy neighbors, the Skakel family. The Skakels were cousins of the
00:05:35
Kennedys. Rushton Skakel's sister, Ethel, [music] had married Robert Kennedy in 1950.
00:05:43
Rushton had inherited a fortune from the family's mining company. >> They were a very famous family. They
00:05:50
just had a lot more attitude about, you know, they could do anything. >> Martha was friendly with the seven
00:05:56
Skakel kids, spending time mostly with Michael, who was also 15, and his older brother, 17-year-old Tommy. On mischief
00:06:06
night, Martha and two other friends met Michael at the Skakel [music] house around 900
00:06:13
p.m. They all piled into a Lincoln like this, parked in the driveway. Michael and
00:06:20
Martha are in the front seat of uh the Skakel carp. >> Reporter Len Levit, now deceased, was
00:06:28
interviewed in 2003. He spent more than 30 years investigating the night of Martha's death.
00:06:35
>> Tommy comes and joins them. So, the three of them are sitting in the front seat. Martha's in the middle between
00:06:42
[music] Tommy and Michael. They're listening to music. They were in the Lincoln until around
00:06:49
9:30 p.m. when two other Skel brothers said they needed the car so they could drive their cousin Jimmy Tyrion to his
00:06:58
house to watch the US premiere of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Michael told police he left with his brothers and
00:07:08
cousin while Martha and her friends stayed behind with Tommy. What goes on between
00:07:15
Martha and Tommy then is sort of playful pushing back and forth with sexual overtones. At one point, uh, Tommy
00:07:24
pushes Martha down and falls on top of her. And the friends are so embarrassed, they [music] leave and go home, leaving
00:07:30
Martha with Tommy. Martha never gets home. >> Martha's mother, Dorothy, spoke with 48
00:07:37
hours in 2000. there's Martha >> and remembered that around 1:00 a.m. the next morning.
00:07:45
She began calling Martha's [music] friends and alerted the police. I was getting more worried and more
00:07:52
worried. I mean, it just was not like her. >> When the sun came up and Martha still
00:07:59
hadn't returned home, Dorothy walked over to the Skakel house. Michael answered the door.
00:08:06
I'm Dorothy Moxley and I live across the street and I'm looking for my daughter Martha. Do you know if Martha is here?
00:08:13
[music] No, Martha was not there. And he looked he didn't look healthy. He looked
00:08:19
well, I actually think he looked hung over. >> Hours passed. It was now almost noon on Halloween.
00:08:30
Tori was on her way to join the search when another friend discovered Martha's body under this tree towards the back of
00:08:39
the Moxley property >> and I could see Mrs. Moxley at the front door and she's going
00:08:47
she didn't want me to come any further but I could see the devastation with Mrs. Moxley's.
00:08:54
Steve Carol was among the first investigators from the Greenwich Police Department to walk up to Martha's body.
00:09:01
>> It was a maniacal attack that should have stopped but didn't. >> When Carol spoke with 48 hours in 2000,
00:09:10
he was still shaken by what he had seen. We didn't even know what color hair she
00:09:18
had because [music] it was all uh blood red and all of the blows or damage were all to her head.
00:09:28
And then we could see a path that she had been dragged down in the high grass down to where her final resting place,
00:09:37
which was under the pine tree. >> Investigators traced the trail of blood to the Moxley driveway. She had been
00:09:45
bludgeoned right near the driveway because there was a huge pool of blood >> there. They discovered a piece of the
00:09:51
murder weapon. The shaft of a golf club, former Hartford current reporter and 48 hours
00:10:00
consultant Lynn Tui. >> It was a Tony Penna 6iron golf club. and she was struck so violently
00:10:11
that the shaft of the golf club shattered and one portion of the shaft was uh driven through her neck.
00:10:22
Just a few hours later, while canvasing the skake property, police discovered a matching golf club that came from the
00:10:30
same set as the sixiron that was used to kill Martha. >> [music] >> It came from a set owned by Anne Skakel,
00:10:39
Michael's and Tommy's late mother. >> Police began taking a hard look at the Skakels, and they would find what
00:10:45
sounded like tantalizing clues [music] left by Martha herself in her diary. [music]
00:11:07
I think I was still in shock that she was gone, but that this had to be [music] a
00:11:13
beautiful tribute to her to send her off. [music] A few days after Martha's murder
00:11:22
on November 4th, 1975, about 500 people gathered for her funeral. [music] And while family and
00:11:30
friends mourned the teenager, investigators were learning more about Martha's relationship with Michael and
00:11:37
Tommy Skakel. Do you remember either the Skakels having a crush on Martha? >> Well, it would be hard not to. I know I
00:11:47
did. >> Martha's friends [music] told police that Tommy wanted to date her, but his
00:11:53
advances may not have always been welcomed. On September [music] 12th, Martha wrote in her diary about going
00:12:00
for ice cream with Michael and Tommy. Went driving in Tom's car, and I was practically sitting on Tom's lap. He
00:12:09
kept putting his hand on my knee. And on [music] October 4th, a little over 3 weeks before her murder, Martha wrote,
00:12:17
"I went to a party. Tom S was being an ass. At the dance, he kept putting his arms around me and making moves.
00:12:28
>> I did not know she was spending the time that she was spending with them. >> I did not hang around with them. They
00:12:35
scared me a little bit. >> Why? What do you mean? >> Well, they because they were very
00:12:39
rambunctious. [music] >> Two years earlier, the seven Skaggel siblings lost their mom an cancer. Their
00:12:51
father Rushton struggled to parent them. On the night of Martha's death, he was away on a hunting trip. [music]
00:13:00
>> Their father traveled quite a bit. They were allowed to do whatever they'd like.
00:13:03
>> They definitely got into a lot of trouble. There's a lot of partying going on in that house.
00:13:08
>> I read that Michael Skakel had a drinking problem at age 13. Really? >> I would say that's true.
00:13:16
And that drinking may have created conflict with Martha. In her diary the month before her death, Martha wrote,
00:13:24
"Michael was so totally out of it that he was being a real He kept telling me that I was leading Tom on. Michael jumps
00:13:32
to conclusions. I really have to stop going over there." Tommy and Michael were both known to
00:13:41
have very explosive tempers. The two of them were fierce rivals for anything, you know, from sports to
00:13:51
affection, a girl's attention. >> Martha's possibly. It was [music] daylight when Martha's
00:14:02
body was found, but based on reports of neighborhood dogs barking the night before. Investigators believed that
00:14:10
Martha was killed sometime between 9:30 and 1000 p.m., around the time she was thought to be at the Skake.
00:14:23
Remember, Michael told police at around 9:30 he had left to go to his cousin Jimmy Terrion's home and Martha had
00:14:31
stayed behind with Tommy. >> Tommy's story is that he last sees her at 9:30 and he goes inside home to write
00:14:40
a paper on Abraham Lincoln. The police later find out that no teacher at Tommy's school ever assigned this paper.
00:14:51
Levit says police initially considered Tommy a strong suspect. But it turns out that even if Tommy lied about writing
00:14:59
that paper, he had an alibi witness. >> Tommy is seen [music] again shortly after 10:00 with Ken Littleton.
00:15:10
>> Ken Littleton was a new tutor who had just moved into the Skakel house that very day. He told police [music] that
00:15:17
Tommy was watching TV with him around 1000 p.m. [music] He noticed nothing unusual about Tommy and that's
00:15:26
significant because Martha had been murdered violently. >> How does Tommy do this? How does Tommy
00:15:32
manage to beat her to death, move her body, clean himself up, compose himself so that Ken Littleton says of Tommy, "I
00:15:40
notice nothing about him out of the ordinary." No arrests were made. Months passed by
00:15:46
and with advice from Tommy's lawyer, Rushton Skakel stopped cooperating with police. [music] He also fired Ken
00:15:54
Littleton, whose life unraveled shortly after. >> He moved to Nantucket. He drank heavily,
00:16:01
did drugs, committed crimes of petty larseny. Investigators honed in on the Skakel
00:16:10
tutor, speculating that his downfall could be rooted in his involvement in Martha's murder. But there were problems
00:16:18
with that theory. >> He's got no motive to kill Martha. He never knew Martha. The manner in which
00:16:24
[music] Martha is killed indicates that it was somebody who had a relationship with Martha.
00:16:31
>> Authorities found no evidence to prove Littleton was involved. Years went by. Martha's murder became a
00:16:39
cold case. >> There were no more leads to pursue. There was no new evidence. >> In 1991, the [music] trial of another
00:16:50
Kennedy cousin, William Kennedy Smith, who was charged with rape in Florida but acquitted, would open a new chapter in
00:16:59
the [music] Moxley case. There's an allegation which is false that William Kennedy Smith was at the Skakel house
00:17:05
the night of the murder. >> That unfounded rumor and persistent press coverage kept the heat on the
00:17:14
Greenidge Police Department and prompted them to reopen the investigation. >> And now they announced a reward and a
00:17:22
hotline. >> This time in an effort to clear his family name, Rushton Skakel hired his
00:17:28
own team of investigators. Their findings became known as the Sutton report. But the effort [music]
00:17:34
backfired because that report for the first time pointed a finger at another of Rushton's sons, Michael Skakel.
00:17:44
>> Michael lied to the police. >> Michael told police that after watching Monty Python's flying circus at his
00:17:50
cousin Jimmy Terrion's house, he came home around 11:30 p.m. and went straight to bed. But he told his dad's
00:17:59
investigators another story. >> I don't know. Oh my god. If I tell anybody that I was out that night,
00:18:08
they're going to say I did it. For 20 years, investigators seemed stymied in their effort to find Martha's
00:18:30
killer. [music] But all that changed in 1995 when someone leaked the Sutton report to
00:18:37
the press. >> It was never supposed to see the light of day. >> The report was an eyeopener. Tommy
00:18:43
admitted to his father's investigators that all those years ago in 1975, he had lied to the police. Tommy told
00:18:52
the Sutton investigators that he did not go into his house at 9:30. He stayed outside making out with Martha for 20
00:19:01
minutes. Mutual petting, semisexual encounter, and suddenly cast himself as being most likely the last person to see
00:19:09
her alive. And not just the last person to see her alive, but who's with her at the time that investigators believe she
00:19:16
may have been killed. >> Correct. >> But it wasn't just Tommy who changed his story, was it?
00:19:23
>> No. Michael also changed his story. >> Remember, Michael told police that after
00:19:30
watching Monty Python at his cousins, he came back home around 11:30 p.m. and went straight to bed.
00:19:38
The report was devastating to the Skakel family. >> But then he described a very different
00:19:43
scenario to those private investigators. He's >> feeling horny around midnight. He's
00:19:50
drunk and he goes out and he climbs a tree outside Martha's window and he masturbates in the tree.
00:19:57
>> In fact, in 1997, Michael even made a tape recording of that story while working on a book proposal for a tell
00:20:05
all autobiography. I pulled my pants out. I masturbated for 30 seconds in the tree. And I remember
00:20:13
thinking, "Oh my god, I hope God never saw me." Then I woke up to Mrs. Moxley saying, "Michael, have have you seen
00:20:21
Martha?" I was like, "Oh my god, did they see you last night?" >> Reports had also begun to circulate that
00:20:32
Michael had actually confessed [music] to Martha's murder. It was said to have happened while he
00:20:39
was a student at Alain, a reform [music] school that his father sent him to after
00:20:44
a drunk driving incident when he was 17. One former Alain student, Gregory Coleman, recounted to a local news
00:20:55
reporter what he says Michael told him back then. >> The first words he [music] ever said to
00:21:00
me uh was, "I'm going to get away with murder. Kennedy >> Coleman says Michael detailed what he
00:21:08
did to Martha that night. >> He had made advances towards her and she rejected his advances and uh quote
00:21:16
unquote that he drove uh her skull away the golf club. [music] After hearing from Coleman and other
00:21:25
former Alain students, states attorney Jonathan Benedict convened an unusual and rarely used oneperson grand jury to
00:21:35
look at all the evidence and all the suspects in the case after 18 months and more than 40 witnesses.
00:21:43
>> Mr. Skaggel, do you have anything to say? >> Michael, did you kill her? The grand jury indicted Michael Skakel
00:21:52
for murder a little space. >> 24 years after Martha's death, Michael was 41 years old when his trial began.
00:22:01
And how big a story was that? It >> was huge. The scene outside was circus like >> Mr. Skele, do you have anything to say?
00:22:09
>> Anything to say, Mr. Skele? >> All the national media was there. They had tents. They had lights. It's
00:22:15
Michael's defense and his only defense is that he did not commit this crime. >> Michael Skel was being represented by a
00:22:23
well-known local defense attorney, Mickey Sherman. >> As charismatic as they come, Mickey
00:22:28
[clears throat] is no amateur when it comes to television. >> What's the motive for Michael Skakel
00:22:35
killing Martha Mossley? The only motive really is jealous rage over the attention she was showing Tommy Skakel.
00:22:50
In fact, in that same book proposal for his autobiography, Michael wrote, "I wanted her to be my girlfriend." [music]
00:22:59
>> I think Martha just rebuffed him. She could have been flirting with Tommy and
00:23:06
maybe that made him angry. >> On trial, Michael Skakel. >> Michael. >> At trial, prosecutor Jonathan Benedict
00:23:14
[music] began with discrediting Michael's alibi that he had gone for that ride to his cousin's house around
00:23:21
the time of Martha's murder. Prosecutors called Skakel family friend Andrea Shakespeare, who had been at the Skakel
00:23:30
house that night. Andrea Shakespeare is one of the witnesses who was certain that Mr.
00:23:36
Skakel never took that alibi ride. >> Benedict put holes in Michael's alibi, but he later said Michael himself
00:23:44
provided the most damaging evidence. >> The truth of the matter is that Michael Skaggel couldn't keep his mouth shut for
00:23:51
a quarter of a century. Benedict is referring to all those admissions Michael allegedly made to killing
00:23:57
Martha, like the one to Alain classmate Gregory Coleman. Although Coleman had died from a drug overdose before the
00:24:06
trial began, his testimony from an earlier hearing was read to the jury. That infuriated Michael's brother,
00:24:14
Steven. >> Greg Coleman was high on heroin on methadone. He was doing 20 to 25 bags of
00:24:21
heroin a day. >> It turns out that before trial, Coleman admitted to Michael's attorney that he
00:24:27
was actually high on drugs when he testified before the grand jury. But the state put on nine other
00:24:36
witnesses who told the jury that Michael implied he had killed Martha. [music] >> Michael, how you feeling? And then of
00:24:47
course there was Michael's own words from that tell all book proposal. In closing arguments, prosecutor Benedict
00:24:56
played an edited excerpt for the jurors. >> Oh my god, did they see me last night?
00:25:03
And I remember just having a feeling of panic. >> I think it very well may have been the
00:25:08
lynch pin. >> Michael, Michael, [music] >> what do you mean by that? driving the nail into the coffin of
00:25:15
Michael Skakel in terms of a guilty verdict. [music] >> It took the jury 4 days. Michael Skel
00:25:24
was convicted for Martha's murder. His sentence, 20 years to life. [music] >> I know Michael Skakel and I know he
00:25:38
didn't commit the crime. >> Robert, can you talk with us? A few months after trial, Michael Skel's
00:25:43
cousin, Robert Kennedy Jr., accused the prosecutor of deliberately misrepresenting Michael's words in that
00:25:52
closing argument. >> His tape recorded words were used out of context by the prosecutor to imply that
00:26:00
he was confessing to to the crime. I like, "Oh my god, did they see me last night?" Because here's what the
00:26:08
prosecutor didn't play in court. >> And I remember thinking, "Oh my god, I hope Scott nobody saw me."
00:26:16
>> Correspondent Leslie Stall asked Benedict about it. >> In hearing this myself.
00:26:22
>> Yeah. >> Without the the preamble about masturbating to anybody is that he's actually talking about murdering her.
00:26:31
And and isn't that really taking him out of context? No, I don't think so. I think
00:26:37
>> if I did this on 48 hours, I'd be fired. >> I think it's a fair suggestion based
00:26:41
upon the evidence of the case. >> It appeared to anybody who looked at it that he was confessing. He was saying
00:26:49
that he was panicked because he had committed this crime. And um and that was really the segment that everybody
00:26:57
agrees ended up convicting Michael Skel. And Robert Kennedy was determined to exonerate his cousin. Eight months after
00:27:07
Michael Skaggel was sent off to prison, Kennedy got a tip he believed would reveal Martha's real killers.
00:27:30
To Robert [music] Kennedy Jr., it was the break he had been hoping for. Kennedy got a tip that a former
00:27:36
classmate of Michael Skakel, a man named Tony Bryant was [music] claiming he knew
00:27:42
the identity of Martha Moxley's killers. So Kennedy and Michael's attorneys tracked Bryant down in Florida.
00:27:50
>> Bryant has made a full confession of his involvement in that crime. >> Well, that night,
00:27:58
>> this is Tony Bryant in 2003 videotaped by Michael Skakel's team. We decided to
00:28:04
go up to Greenidge and hang out. >> He told them on the night of the murder he had taken two friends, Adolf Hasbro,
00:28:12
also known as Al and Burton Tinsley, to Bell Haven. >> So, do you believe that they killed her?
00:28:19
There's no doubt in my mind that they were involved. >> Bryant knew the two teens from New York
00:28:24
and told Skaggel's investigators that Hasbro had become obsessed with Martha. >> I mean, love their beautiful blonde
00:28:31
hair. Brian said that Hasbro met Martha during previous trips to Bell Haven, at a street fair and again at a dance.
00:28:40
>> I'm trying to remember at one of the mixers and he got jealous of other guys coming up to her and talking to her.
00:28:45
>> Tony claims Hasbro complained to him saying, >> "I don't understand why she's spending
00:28:51
her time with those guys when she would be with me." On the night of the murder, Bryant says
00:28:56
he was with Hasbro and Tinsley when they all picked up golf clubs from the Skakel
00:29:01
backyard. He claims that either Hasbro or Tinsley bragged about wanting to hurt someone.
00:29:08
>> I got my caveman club, right, and I'm going to go grab somebody and pull them
00:29:12
by hair and do what caveman do. >> Tony says he wanted no part of it, so he left Bell Haven. And then right after
00:29:21
the murder, when you met up with both Adolf and Burke, they told you, "We got we did it. We did it. We achieved our
00:29:28
fantasy." >> Brian stated that while his friends never mentioned Martha Moxley by name,
00:29:34
>> I knew who they were implying, it was it was so obvious because I mean, the next
00:29:38
day it was all over. I mean, it was everywhere. Armed with Tony Bryant's story, in 2005,
00:29:48
Michael Skel's attorneys filed an appeal asking for a new trial. >> Your honor, the petition for new trial
00:29:55
that we've filed on behalf of Michael Skakel claims newly discovered evidence, which involves the allegations
00:30:01
concerning Tony Bryant. >> But at a hearing to present the new evidence, Bryant refused to testify
00:30:08
under oath. Well, of course he's not going to do that because he admits that he brought the murderers to Greenwich
00:30:15
because he could be charged with that crime. >> Kennedy says Brian wouldn't testify
00:30:20
without immunity. So, Skakel's attorneys played his video statement, but the judge wasn't persuaded and ruled against
00:30:28
Michael Skakel. >> Michael Skakel versus the state of Connecticut has been concluded.
00:30:36
Despite the judge's ruling, almost [music] a decade later in 2016, Robert Kennedy Jr. repeated Brian's allegations
00:30:46
in his book, Framed. Using Martha's diary as evidence, Kennedy claims that three weeks before her murder, Martha
00:30:55
wrote that she saw Tony and two strangers at a dance. But that's not quite accurate. In her entry, [music]
00:31:04
Martha doesn't mention Tony and she never uses the word strangers. She writes, "October 4th, dear diary,
00:31:14
tonight was a sacred heart dance. When we walked in, some guy asked me to dance. Some other guy asked me. It
00:31:21
turned out to be a slow dance. It was stairway to heaven. At the fast part, he wouldn't even let go. I also dance with
00:31:28
Dicki, Neil, and Peter Zammenski. a lot with Dicki. The Dicki she mentions is actually Richard Burns who says he was
00:31:37
with Martha much of that night. Seen Tony Bryant. Do you remember that at all? >> No.
00:31:43
>> Did you ever meet Al Hasbrook? >> No. >> Or Burton Tinsley? >> No. >> Don't you think you would have
00:31:49
remembered if she was dancing with someone else who seemed possessive of her? >> She didn't.
00:31:56
She didn't. We danced the whole night. Al Hasbrook is innocent. >> Al Hasbrook declined to be interviewed
00:32:07
and we were unable to reach Burton Tinsley, but Hasbuk's attorney, Larry Shomach, describes the allegations as
00:32:15
false and inflammatory. >> To coin a phrase, it's black versus white. Let's blame somebody [music]
00:32:22
else. It's the black guy. Let's blame him. Why not? Let's take the most vulnerable person in our society [music]
00:32:29
and accuse him. I am as certain as certain can be that neither had anything to do with this. Burton Tinsley and Al
00:32:38
Hasbrook don't deny that they have been to Bell Haven on several occasions. But Shonach says there's no evidence that
00:32:46
either one was in Bell Haven the night Martha was bludgeoned to death. >> Nobody saw Al Hasbrook. Nobody. They
00:32:54
would have seen a young guy, a black man in a very, very white community and a big guy, but nobody saw him because he
00:33:03
wasn't there. >> Somebody would have seen a strangers and recognized that they were strangers.
00:33:09
Nobody did. >> And I just thought that was kind of a cheap shot that they were going after
00:33:14
this black kid from New York City. I mean, you know, really, >> I think it's they're trying to find a
00:33:19
scapegoat. What's more, Hasbro's attorney is baffled as to why anyone would believe
00:33:26
Tony Bryant. Bryant has a criminal history that includes a 1993 conviction for armed robbery in California. We
00:33:35
tried to reach him, but up until a few weeks ago, [music] he was serving a 7-year sentence in a
00:33:41
Florida prison for tax evasion. >> How are you feeling? Still, Shenbach says Kennedy irresponsibly perpetuates
00:33:51
Bryant's allegations. >> With no facts and no evidence, he continues to put forth this lie as a way
00:34:00
of trying to clear his cousin and I [music] guess by extension the Kennedy name.
00:34:06
In November 2020, Kennedy insisted to us that Tony Bryant has no reason whatsoever to lie about Al Hasbrook and
00:34:15
Burton Tinsley. When we pressed him about it, he got up from the interview chair. Do you have any regrets of
00:34:23
pointing the finger at two people who've never been suspects? There's no physical
00:34:27
evidence to tie them to the crime. >> At the area, there's lots of evidence that ties them to the crime. you have
00:34:35
their best friend who says that they confess to him. >> But in the end, it wouldn't be the words
00:34:41
of Tony Bryant that [music] changed everything for Michael Skakel. Michael Skakel did not give up. On April
00:35:02
16th, 2013, Skaggel was back in court. >> Thank you. >> With his attorney, Hubert Santos, and a
00:35:10
new argument that that media savvy defense attorney, Mickey Sherman, >> Mickey, >> hired to defend Michael at his 2002
00:35:20
trial. >> He was advised of his rights, >> had botched the case. >> Mickey had me believing he was the real
00:35:30
deal. He accused his former lawyer of being too chummy with the press. >> He said he was a media [ __ ] Uh,
00:35:36
everything about this trial is unique. >> You spent most of your time talking to
00:35:41
the media, right? >> Is that a question? >> Yeah. >> No. >> And Skel claimed that Sherman failed to
00:35:47
focus on a more viable suspect in Moxley's murder. Michael's own brother, Tommy. You knew that Tommy Skakel was
00:35:57
the last person to see Martha Moxley alive? >> I believe so. [music] >> Sherman never presented evidence of
00:36:04
Tommy's infamous temper. >> Did you know that he strangled a fellow classmate right in front of his teacher?
00:36:12
>> I don't recall that. >> Sherman also failed to convince the judge to allow Tommy to testify, which
00:36:19
could have raised doubts about Michael's involvement. Did you try? He was going to invoke the Fifth Amendment no matter
00:36:25
what we did. >> Perhaps most shocking. Sherman failed to call a critical witness who supported Michael's alibi
00:36:33
that he was miles away the night Martha was murdered. That was Dennis Sorio, who
00:36:39
was at the Terran household the night they were all allegedly watching >> Montipython's Flying [music] Circus.
00:36:46
Michael was allegedly there >> and Mickey Sherman instead [clears throat] of doing that instead of
00:36:52
calling never talked to that witness. >> But in 2013, Santos did. >> Was there anybody else at the home?
00:37:00
>> The boys were there. Was Michael Skakel one of them? >> Michael was with them.
00:37:04
>> He puts Michael Skaggel at that house and has no motive to lie. He's not related to Michael Skaggel.
00:37:13
Skaggel's team argued that these missed opportunities [music] would have created reasonable
00:37:19
doubt for the jury [music] and the judge agreed. 6 [music] months later, he overturned
00:37:29
Skel's conviction. Wednesday, a Connecticut judge granted the 53year-old a new trial in the 1975
00:37:38
murder of Martha Moxley. After 11 and a half years in prison, Michael Skel walked out of the
00:37:45
courthouse. No longer a convicted killer, >> an innocent man now goes free. >> But not for long.
00:37:53
>> In 2016, the Connecticut Supreme Court in a sharply divided decision, reinstates his conviction, saying the
00:38:02
defense was adequate. Skel faced with returning to prison then filed for reconsideration.
00:38:11
And in [music] 2018 with a new judge on the bench, the Connecticut Supreme Court reversed
00:38:18
itself now ruling that Skegel is entitled to a new trial. That trial would never happen. Looking
00:38:29
at the evidence, your honor, looking at the the state of the case, it is my belief that uh the state cannot prove
00:38:36
this case beyond a reasonable doubt. >> On October 30th, 2020, the 45th anniversary of Martha Moxley's
00:38:48
murder, the [music] state of Connecticut announced it would not retry Michael Skakel.
00:38:58
You know, Michael's going to walk around the rest of his life with that on his head, no matter whether or not it's been
00:39:03
vacated by the court. Public opinion matters. >> As for his brother, Tommy, >> years later, I ended up playing some
00:39:10
golf with him a bunch of times. >> I mean, did you ever ask him point blank? >> I did. He I didn't do it, and it ruined
00:39:16
my life. >> This case has been a long and winding road, a very painful case emotionally
00:39:24
for many people. For Dorothy Moxley, time has done little to ease her loss. >> Martha,
00:39:34
my baby, will never have a life. This was devastating to the Moxley family. Dorothy to this day remains
00:39:45
convinced Martha was killed by Michael Skakel. >> To lose a child is the worst thing in
00:39:54
the world. And so after almost half [music] a century of questions and two families
00:40:03
shattered, all that remains is one terrible truth. As we sit here today, no one has been [music] convicted of Martha
00:40:14
Moxley's murder. >> No, that's true. >> It's very frustrating. It's very upsetting.
00:40:22
[music] >> I think it's sad that she's not around to you know, live these 45 years.
00:40:30
I think she would have done great things. I think she would have been a great mother. She was always a great
00:40:34
friend. Lasting impressions of a life ended too soon. A [music] life that, in Martha's
00:40:44
own words, was full of hope. Dear diary, today is the last day of 74. Boohoo. 74 [music] has been one of the
00:40:56
best years of my life. Well, hope 75 is as good.