Kennedys Attend Skakel Hearing

STAMFORD, Conn. — Members of the Kennedy clan Wednesday expressed support for a relative charged with committing a 1975 murder, as a hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence to bring Michael Skakel to trial wrapped up.

Skakel, 39, is accused of beating Martha Moxley to death with a golf club on the night of Oct. 30, 1975, in their exclusive neighborhood in Greenwich, Conn. Both were 15 years old and neighbors at the time.

At the end of the one-day defense phase of Skakel’s pretrial hearing in Stamford Superior Court, Judge Maureen Dennis indicated that she would rule on whether there is sufficient evidence to bring Skakel to trial, and also on whether he should be treated as a juvenile or an adult. She did not say when she would rule.

Skakel did not testify during the hearing. The defense presented a witness who contradicted prosecution witnesses who earlier testified that Skakel had admitted during a stay at a substance-abuse treatment center that he had killed Moxley.

The Moxley case is considered one of the most stubborn unsolved murders in modern American history and has spawned best-selling books.

“I am here to support my cousin Michael,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose father, former U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated while running for president in 1968.

“This was an unspeakable thing, but it only compounds it to blame Michael, who is innocent,” Kennedy told reporters on his way into court in the morning.

Kennedy, an environmentalist and lawyer in New York, was accompanied by his brother Douglas. Wednesday was the only day that immediate members of the Kennedy family appeared at the court proceeding, which was held for two days last week before reconvening on Wednesday.

Skakel’s father is the brother of Ethel Skakel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy.

Skakel, who lives in Hobe Sound, Fla., was arrested on Jan. 19 but remains free on $500,000 bond.

John Moxley, the victim’s brother, said he was not impressed by the Kennedy family presence.

“I don’t see how it involves Bobby Kennedy,” Moxley told reporters. “If he’s got the time to come here, good for him.”

Moxley said he hoped that Skakel would take the witness stand, but it turned out that Skakel did not testify during the hearing.

Skakel’s lawyer, Mickey Sherman, called to the witness stand two former students at the Elan School, a residential substance abuse treatment center in Poland Spring, Maine.

Skakel attended Elan from 1978 to 1980, and prosecutors last week produced former Elan students who testified that Skakel had admitted killing Martha Moxley and that the slaying was common knowledge around the school.

Defense witness Alice Dunn, a former Elan student, told the court Wednesday that Skakel never admitted at any time to the murder, and that when he repeatedly screamed “I’m sorry” at a group therapy session, it was over pain and guilt from his mother’s death from cancer.

Dunn said it was not, in fact, “common knowledge” around the school that Skakel had killed a girl.

“Absolutely not,” she said, contradicting the testimony of a prosecution witness.

“Michael Skakel never admitted doing this heinous crime to anyone,” Dunn said.

“If I thought for one minute that he committed this crime, I would never . . . ,” Dunn said. She was prevented from completing her thought when prosecutor Jonathan Benedict objected.

“I don’t believe that reasonable cause has in fact been found,” Sherman told reporters at the close of the proceeding.