Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel speaks out on Martha Moxley murder case

Five decades after Martha Moxley, the daughter of a wealthy Connecticut family, He was found murdered Outside her home, Kennedy’s cousin who was once at the center of the case speaks for the first time.

Michael Skakel, cousin Robert F. kennedy jrspent 11 years behind bars for Moxley’s 1975 murder. Despite being released from prison in 2013 and having his conviction later overturned, Skakel still looks to assert his innocence in a case that captivated the nation.

On NBC News’ new podcast “A Certain Dead: The Martha Moxley Murder,” Skakel spoke publicly at length for the first time since his conviction was overturned to recount his upbringing and explain his side of the murder case.

Moxley was only 15 years old when she was 15 Beaten and stabbed to death With a golf club in the yard of her family’s suburban Greenwich home on October 30, 1975. She was last seen hanging out with friends at “Mis Chief Night,” an annual evening in which children participate in neighborhood pranks the night before Halloween.

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Archive photo of Martha Moxley when she was 14 years old. (Eric Freeland/Corbis via Getty Images)

An autopsy later revealed that Moxley was killed with the golf club, which was eventually returned to the Skakels’ home.

Investigators initially began searching for Thomas Skackle, Michael’s older brother, and the family’s resident mentor, Kenneth Littleton, before eventually turning their attention to Michael, who was 15 at the time of Moxley’s death.

For decades, Skakel remained largely silent. However, he is now speaking out to tell his side of the story, while recounting painful details of his traumatic childhood.

Skakel explained how his family’s Catholic faith played a large role in his upbringing, while recalling how he was bashed in Playboy magazines as a child.

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Michael Skakel reacts to being granted bail during his hearing in Stamford Superior Court on November 21, 2013, in Stamford, Connecticut. (Bob Lackey-Ball/Getty Images)

He went on to discuss how parenthood He primarily showed affection towards his brother Tommy when the brothers were growing up. Skakel also noted that his parents rarely visited him after he was hospitalized with a broken neck when he jumped off a desk in his childhood home.

When Skakel’s mother was dying of cancer, the little boy was told her hair was falling out because of the shampoo — not the treatment — and his father ultimately blamed her illness, he said.

Skakel remembers the time his father, whom he had not seen in weeks, told him, “You’re making me feel sick. If only you did better in school, your mother wouldn’t have to stay in the hospital.”

“I just wanted to die,” Skakel said in the episode, recalling how his father barely dealt with his mother’s death.

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Archive photo of 13-year-old Martha Moxley with her father, David Moxley. (Eric Freeland/Corbis via Getty Images)

While his mother struggled with her illness, Skakel began drinking as a teenager. He said that on the day of her death, he finished an entire bottle of Smirnoff in his family’s garden.

“His alcoholic and abusive father physically and psychologically tortured him throughout his childhood, including beating him and telling him he was responsible for killing his mother,” Dr. Carol Lieberman, a forensic psychiatrist, told Fox News Digital.

Lieberman noted how Skakel’s psychological damage affected him throughout his adult life, with his drinking eventually escalating. In 1978, he borrowed his brother’s car and, while driving with a few friends, crashed into a telephone pole.

In exchange for not being charged with DUI, the family’s attorney concocted a deal in which Skakel was sent to the controversial case. Elan School in Maine In an attempt to correct his unruly behavior.

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Archive photo of Martha Moxley when she was 14 years old. (Eric Freeland/Corbis via Getty Images)

Individuals from The boarding school traveled to Connecticut To pick him up, Skakel recalls being “dragged out of there like an animal,” before being loaded onto a plane where he was thrown into “a world of absolute madness.”

Ilan’s school had nearly 300 students living at home, who were often subjected to harsh physical punishments, yelled at for long periods, and sometimes wore stupid hats, according to the podcast. Counts were conducted every 15 minutes to prevent residents from escaping, which Skakel attempted several times.

In an emotional account, Skakel described how he was subjected to various punishments, including a “general meeting” and a “boxing ring” where students would face forms of physical brutality.

“They sent maybe 10 guys upstairs to get me,” Skakel said, recalling a failed escape attempt. “They literally lifted me over their heads and carried me down the stairs like I was a crash test dummy. When I was probably 10 feet from the stage, they threw me and I thought I broke my back on the stage.”

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Moxley’s residence in the Belle Haven area of ​​Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1975. (Media News Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images)

After Skakel left school, he… Diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) He spent a month in a residential care facility in California.

He married in 1991 and established a skating career. However, his new life in Hobe Sound, Florida, came crashing down in 2000, when authorities issued a warrant for his arrest in Moxley’s murder.

“My Uncle Tommy chartered a private plane for me the next morning,” Skakel said. “And I flew out [the] Jupiter Airplane Port, Private Jet Port, to Teterboro, and I watch the news the next morning and it’s on every stop.”

Skakel did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

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On January 19, 2000, Skakel turned himself in to authorities after police issued a warrant for his arrest, 25 years after Moxley’s murder. Skakel, who was 39 at the time, was initially arraigned as a juvenile, and the case later ended up in regular court.

He was convicted of murder by a panel of 12 jurors in Norwalk Superior Court on June 7, 2002, and was later sentenced to 20 years in prison.

In 2013, after several failed attempts Appealing his convictionSkakel was granted a new trial after a judge ruled that his attorney, Michael Sherman, did not adequately defend him in his original case.

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Skakel’s conviction was eventually overturned by the Connecticut Supreme Court on May 4, 2018, with prosecutors later deciding not to seek a second trial for Skakel on the murder charge.

“Michael Skakel should not have spent a single day in prison because there is no way to determine that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” Lieberman said. “Many threads were left hanging. From the questionable police investigation, to the questionable attorney who did not bring an alibi witness to testify, to the media sensationalism and lack of forensic evidence.”

“Michael was a victim of torture his entire life, from his childhood through the court system,” Lieberman said, adding that Skakel “unconsciously continues to play the victim today.”

While the mystery surrounding who killed Moxley still looms over the case, Skakel is trying to assert his innocence in the case. Podcast He adds a new voice to a story marred by decades of silence.