STAMFORD, Conn. — A Connecticut prosecutor says Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel will not face a second trial in the 1975 murder of teenager Martha Moxley in Greenwich.
Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo Jr. made the announcement Friday at the state courthouse in Stamford.
Friday is the 45th anniversary of Moxley’s death. Skakel was convicted of murder in 2002 and served 11 years in prison, but was freed when a judge overturned his conviction in 2013.
Prosecutors faced several difficulties in retrying Skakel, including a lack of physical evidence and the death of a key witness.
Former Scarborough Downs owner Joe Ricci testified in Skakel's original trial. Prosecutors believed Ricci overheard or knew about potentially incriminating statements made between 1978 and 1980 by Skakel at the Elan School in Poland, ME, which Ricci founded for troubled teenagers. Ricci insisted that he never overheard or heard about any allegedly incriminating statements made by the defendant.
“The Kennedy family has gone from Camelot in America right to Dante’s Inferno,” he told The Associated Press in 2000. “One wonders when are they going to stop persecuting this family which has been fraught with tragedy.”
Ricci died in 2001.
The murder investigation gained headlines in part because Skakel is a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy.
