This is I Fear You, Babe. Before we talk about how Martha Moxley died, we talk about how she lived.

Martha Moxley was fifteen years old when she was murdered on Mischief Night in 1975 in the Belle Haven section of Greenwich, Connecticut. Her body was found the next day in the yard of a wealthy neighborhood, beaten and stabbed with a golf club taken from a nearby home.

What followed was not a lack of evidence, but a lack of urgency. Witnesses went unchallenged. Evidence aged. And for decades, the case stalled under the weight of privilege, hesitation, and silence.

In this mega episode, we trace the full timeline of Martha’s murder and the investigation that followed — from the night she disappeared, through the failed early inquiry, to the eventual conviction and its reversal decades later. We center Martha and her mother, Dorothy Moxley, and examine what happens when justice is delayed long enough to fracture truth itself.

Show Notes

Case Overview

• Martha Moxley was murdered on October 30, 1975, in Greenwich, Connecticut.
• The murder weapon was a Toney Penna golf club from the Skakel household.
• The case went cold for decades before charges were filed.

Legal Timeline

• One person grand jury convened in 1998
• Michael Skakel convicted in 2002
• Conviction overturned due to ineffective counsel
• Prosecutors declined retrial in 2020

Key Themes

• Wealth and influence in criminal investigations
• The cost of delayed justice
• Memory versus evidence in cold case prosecutions
• The emotional labor of grieving families

Sources & Further Reading

• Connecticut Supreme Court opinion: State v. Skakel
  https://jud.ct.gov/external/supapp/Cases/AROcr/CR278/278CR23.pdf
  
  
• CBS News timeline of the Martha Moxley case
  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/martha-moxley-murder-case-timeline
  
  
• The New York Times coverage of the Skakel trial and appeals
  https://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/martha-moxley
  
  
• Justice for Martha Moxley Foundation
  https://www.justiceformartha.org

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