The Trail Went Cold - Episode 350 - Martha Moxley (Part 1)

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2023

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

October 31, 1975. Greenwich, Connecticut. After she fails to return home the previous night, the body of 15-year old Martha Moxley is discovered in her backyard. She has been stabbed in the neck and bludgeoned with a golf club and pieces of the shattered club are traced to the residence of the Skakels, a prominent family from the neighborhood. Decades later, one of the family’s children, Michael Skakel, who was 15 at the time of the crime, is charged and convicted of Martha’s murder. However, Michael’s conviction winds up being vacated on two separate occasions due to ineffective counsel at his trial, so he is released from prison. In 2020, the state announces that they have no plans to retry Michael, meaning there are no conclusive answers about what happened. Did Michael Skakel actually kill Martha Moxley or was someone else was responsible? This week, “The Trail Went Cold” will be releasing the first part of a special two-part episode about one of the most controversial murder cases of the past half-century. Special thanks to listener Jeremy Indick-Connelly for narrating the opening of this episode. Additional Reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Martha_Moxley https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-killed-martha-moxley/ https://unsolved.com/gallery/martha-moxley/ https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Martha_Moxley http://thesuttonreport.com/The%20Sutton%20Report/campysuttontoc.html https://web.archive.org/web/20130315150324/http://www.marthamoxley.com/news/050502gt.htm http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-skakel0522.artmay22-story.html https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2003/01/kennedy.htm https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ct-supreme-court/1455643.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/24/nyregion/skakel-gets-new-trial-in-75-killing-of-teenager-in-connecticut.html?ref=nyregion https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/30/nyregion/michael-skakel-martha-moxley-timeline.html http://nypost.com/2017/09/17/i-tutored-a-kennedy-relative-and-wound-up-accused-of-murder/ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/04/nyregion/michael-skakel-conviction-reversed.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/30/us/skakel-no-retrial-moxley-murder/index.html https://www.nytimes.com/article/skakel-moxley-murder-case.html “The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. “The Trail Went Cold” is doing a weekly livestream show on Vokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Transcript

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0:00.0	October 31st, 1975, Greenwich, Connecticut.
0:05.0	After she fails to return home from the previous night,
0:08.0	the body of 15-year-old Martha Moxley discovered in her backyard.
0:12.0	She has been stabbed in the neck and bludgeoned with a golf club and pieces of the shattered club are traced to the residents of a prominent family from the neighborhood.
0:20.0	Decades later, one of the family's children, Michael Scaquel, who was 15 at the time of the crime, is charged and convicted of Martha's murder.
0:28.0	However, Michael's conviction winds up being vacated on two separate occasions due to ineffective
0:33.8	counsel at his trial so he is released from prison and there are no conclusive
0:38.0	answers about who was responsible for killing Martha. After, the trail went cold. Oh, uh, uh, and uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, I see the Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of the Trail Went Cold.
1:26.0	I'm your host Robin Warder and we're about to begin a two-part series on what is undoubtedly one of the most controversial cases ever featured on this
1:34.0	podcast, the 1975 Murder of Martha Moxley.
1:39.2	That voice you just heard narrating our intro was Jeremy Indec Connolly, the latest winner of our most recent
1:45.0	Trail went cold listener voiceover contest, so thank you very much Jeremy.
1:49.6	This is a recurring monthly contest which we've been holding for six years now, so if you'd like to enter and haven't already done so, I will be providing instructions near the end of this episode.
1:59.0	Anyway, you probably know that it's always been tradition for us to spend the month of October covering
2:04.0	mysteries which have some sort of Halloween slant to them, and this is definitely one of the most
2:09.2	infamous crimes to take place on or around October the 31st. It involves a 15 year old girl named Martha Moxley
2:17.1	who lived in the affluent Belhaven neighborhood in Greenwich, Connecticut, and spend the evening
2:21.9	before Halloween
2:22.8	celebrating what was known in the area as mischief night
2:26.0	as it was common practice for the local teenagers to go out and play pranks.
2:30.3	However, Martha never returned home and the following day she was found murdered in her own backyard.
2:36.0	Pieces of a shattered golf club which have been used to repeatedly strike her head were found nearby,
	...

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