What is the episode about?
The Trial from the podcast series Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder focuses on the legal culmination of one of the USA's most talked-about cold cases. In 2002, 27 years after 15-year-old Martha Moxley was found brutally murdered in her backyard in the exclusive neighborhood of Belle Haven in Greenwich, Connecticut, neighbor Michael Skakel was brought to trial. The episode dissects the prosecution's strategy and the enormous media frenzy that followed the case due to Skakel's familial ties to the Kennedy clan. The focus is on how to conduct a murder trial nearly three decades after the crime without the use of modern DNA evidence or direct eyewitnesses to the act itself.
The case behind the episode
The case of Martha Moxley began on the so-called 'Mischief Night', October 30, 1975. Martha was found killed with a six-iron golf club, which was later traced directly to the Skakel family home. Despite early suspicion against both Michael Skakel and his brother Thomas, nothing happened in the case for years. It was not until the publication of several books and a renewed investigation in the late 1990s that charges were brought. Michael Skakel was found guilty in 2002, but the case has since been marked by numerous appeals, overturned convictions, and an ongoing debate about due process and privilege. The podcast highlights how the prosecutor based his case on three key witnesses who claimed that Skakel confessed to the murder while enrolled at Elan School in Maine.
About the podcast
NBC News Studios is behind this in-depth production, utilizing their extensive archival material from decades of coverage of the case. Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder serves as a chronological review of the investigation, the social dynamics of wealthy Greenwich, and the legal aftermath. Through interviews with investigators, journalists, and people close to the case's actors, the podcast paints a picture of a case where justice feels as complicated as the resolution itself. The episode 'The Trial' is central as it marks the shift from speculation to legal conviction.