Michael Skakel, a cousin of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., served ten years in prison for a murder he says he did not commit. Twenty-seven years after the death of his 15-year-old neighbor Martha Moxley (she was beaten to death with a golf club that belonged to a set owned by the Skakels), Skakel was found guilty of her murder. Skakel was also 15 at the time of Moxley’s murder. During his trial in 2002, former students of Élan, the private boarding school for troubled kids in Maine that Skakel attended, claimed Skakel later confessed to the murder.
[Skakel’s cousin Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wrote the book, Framed: Why Michael Skakel Spent Over a Decade In Prison For a Murder He Didn’t Commit]
In 2002, Elan was described as an institution that “practices a controversial behavioral modification program that relies on shouting sessions, long hours in a corner and sometimes even boxing matches to rid unruly teenagers of their anti-social mind-sets.” The school closed in 2011. The owner of Élan, Sharon Terry, said: “The school has been the target of harsh and false attacks spread over the Internet with the avowed purpose of forcing the school to close.” Skakel’s case is currently in the hands of the Connecticut Supreme Court. The case will be featured on Dateline NBC on Friday, July 15 at 10pm.
