The next day, Moxley's body was found beneath a tree in her family's backyard. Her pants and underwear were pulled down, but there was no evidence of sexual assault. Pieces of a broken six-iron golf club were found near the body. An autopsy indicated that she had been both bludgeoned and stabbed with the club, which was traced back to the Skakel residence.Thomas Skakel was the last person seen with Moxley on the night of the murder. He became the prime suspect, but his father forbade access to his school and mental health records. Kenneth Littleton, who had started working as a live-in tutor for the Skakel family only hours before the murder, also became a prime suspect. However, no one was charged, and the case languished for decades. Over the years, both Thomas and Michael Skakel significantly changed their alibis for the night of Moxley's murder. Michael claimed that he had been window-peeping and masturbating in a tree beside the Moxley property from 11:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Two former students from Élan School, a treatment center for troubled youths, testified they heard Michael confess to killing Moxley with a golf club. One of the former students, Gregory Coleman, testified that Michael was given special privileges and had bragged, "I'm going to get away with murder. I'm a Kennedy".
When William Kennedy Smith was tried (and acquitted) for rape in 1991, a rumor surfaced that he had been present at the Skakel house on the night of Moxley's death, with the clear insinuation that he might have been involved. Although this proved to be unfounded, it resulted in a new investigation of the then-cold case.The Sutton Associates, a private detective agency hired by Rushton Skakel in 1991, conducted its own investigation of the killing. The Sutton report, later leaked to the media, revealed that both Thomas and Michael altered their stories about their activities the night of the murder.
In June 1998, a rarely invoked one-man grand jury was convened to review the evidence of the case. After an eighteen-month investigation, it was decided there was enough evidence to charge Michael Skakel with murder. On January 9, 2000, an arrest warrant was issued for an unnamed juvenile for Moxley's murder. Michael Skakel surrendered to authorities later that day. He was released shortly thereafter on $500,000 bail. On March 14, Skakel was arraigned for murder in a juvenile court, since he was 15 years old at the time of Moxley's murder. On January 31, 2001, a judge ruled for Skakel to be tried as an adult.
Skakel's trial began on May 7, 2002, in Norwalk, Connecticut. He was represented by attorney Michael Sherman. Skakel's alibi was that at the time of the murder he was at his cousin's house. During the trial, the jury heard part of a taped book proposal, which included Skakel speaking about masturbating in a tree on the night of the murder – possibly the same tree under which Moxley's body was found the next morning. In the book proposal, Skakel did not admit to committing the murder. Prosecutors took words from the book proposal and overlaid them on graphic images of Moxley's dead body in a computerized, multimedia presentation shown to jurors during closing arguments. In the audiotape, Skakel said that he was afraid he might have been seen the previous night "jerking off", and had panicked. Though the jury heard the whole tape, during the closing arguments the prosecutor did not play the portion of the audiotape in which Skakel had said "jerking off", giving the impression that he was confessing to the murder.
On June 7, 2002, Skakel was found guilty of murdering Moxley and was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. He was assigned to the Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown, Connecticut....
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