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The Police Investigation 
According to Greenwich Police records, Dorthy Moxley phoned at 3:48 AM October 31st to report Martha missing. Patrolman Daniel Merchant responded to the Moxley residence. Both he and Dorthy searched the Moxley property for any signs of Martha but were unable to locate her. They did not look underneath the pine tree where Martha lay dead. It would be several hours before the child's body would be found.
Shortly after 12:15 PM, Martha's friend, 15 year old Sheila Maguire, discovered Martha's
body while using a cut through between her home and the Moxley backyard. Frantic, she ran
to the Moxley home and informed the adults present that she had found Martha. The police
were summoned. Not one of the police officers assigned to the Moxley case had ever
participated in a homicide investigation. This fact would prove disastrous in the days and
months to come. In fairness to the Greenwich police, the community had not had the
opportunity to be involved in such an investigation as it had been decades since the last
murder in town. Even still, their actions in the crucial first days of this case would
bring the case to a stand still and impede on the Moxleys right to justice..
In 1975, forensics was in its infancy, and somewhat unheard of in the small community of
Belle Haven. The collection of evidence and crime scene procedure which followed
were subject to the naivete of the local police force. They were in a reactive state of
confusion and disorganization in the crucial first hours and days after the murder.
Hindsight is 20/20, but I believe it is safe to say that in 1975, the Greenwich police
were trying their best to do the right things and find Martha's killer. The state of shock
that fell upon the community of Belle Haven resulting from this horrific crime seem to
have, extended over to the police officers in charge of tracking down Martha's killer.
According to police officials at the Moxley residence that day, the crime scene was
chaotic. Perhaps in their sincere efforts to "collar the killer" and lack of
communication between the officers and detectives assigned to investigate, what resulted
would be a mishmosh of interviews, evidence collection and general mismanagement of the
crime scene. The medical examiner at the time, Elliot Gross, was contacted and stated that
he was not available to come to the scene. Gross ordered her body be taken to the morgue
where he would perform an autopsy the following day. It is incredulous that something else
could be so pressing that he could not come to the crime scene of the first murder
in years, but that was the case. He would not view the body until the next day.
When the detectives set off on their mission to canvas the Belle Haven community, they
already knew or should have known, that the murder weapon was a Tony Penna 6 iron and that
the Moxley's neighbor, Tommy Skakel, was the last person known to have seen Martha alive.
This information was made available to them from the victim's mother Dorthy, as she had
spent the wee hours of the morning making frantic phone calls to Martha's friends and
neighbors hoping to locate her daughter. This would have also been confirmed while
interviewing Helen Ix. The murder weapon was still at the scene, so we can assume, those
in charge gave the detectives this information, and had already viewed it themselves,
before heading out to question neighbors.
In hindsight, it would seem Thomas Keegan, who had been in charge that day, would have
sent a detective to the Ix home to speak to Helen, one to the Byrne home to speak to
Geoffrey and immediately send someone over to the Skakel home to question Tommy. Why the
Skakel home was not also roped off and treated as a crime scene after hearing Dorthy's
statement that Tommy had last seen her alive at 9:30 at his door, is beyond me. As Mark
Fuhrman suggested in his book "Murder in Greenwich" there certainly could have
been trace evidence in the Skakel home or yard, that could have assisted the police in
their investigation. Even if they initially did not wish to believe Martha's
killer was a Skakel, after finding the matching iron in the Skakel home that day, not
treating it as a second crime scene was negligent. Even if a Skakel was not involved in
with the killing, it would have had to dawn on the officers that someone HAD been to the
Skakel property to retrieve the murder weapon and perhaps may have left trace evidence
somewhere in the home or yard. Had this person smoked? Did he chew gum and spit it out?
Could he have dropped something of his to assist the police in revealing his identity? We
will never know, as the Skakel yard would not be searched for months. When it was finally
searched, it was for dirt samples.
One can only shake their head in amazement while reading how the rest of that afternoon
and evening of October 31st unfolded. The following days and weeks would prove to be no
better. Was it truly police ineptitude or was it something far more sinister? Rumors would
begin that the police were paid off to take this case off track. Others have concluded
that the Greenwich police had a clear desire not to arrest a Skakel until all other leads
were exhausted, resulting in wasted time and a cold trail. Others felt the police
were totally inexperienced with this type of crime and were in way over their heads. David
Moxley, Martha's father, finally concluded the same.
Reviewing the Greenwich police investigation, a reasonable person feels a strong urge to
question how the case was handled. The few solid clues they did have were not acted on
quickly or forcefully enough. When it appeared that there were no other viable suspects
than those living in the Skakel home, the police had no choice but to start knocking on
their door. Unfortunately by then, the Skakel's had already circled the wagons and hired
defense attorneys to feign off further questioning.
The deference shown to the Skakel family is obscene. Within hours of Martha's body being
found, detectives had collected (5) bags of evidence from the Hammond home, a man that had
met Martha only once, and had no motivation to kill her. At this exact time,
another team of detectives interviewing residents of the Skakel home happened upon a match
to the murder weapon. A Tony Penna 5 iron was spotted among a container of clubs but was
not taken from the home. Rushton Skakel had been away and the detectives were awaiting
his return to confiscate this crucial piece of evidence. Had the detectives in the
Skakel home, responded the same as the ones in the Hammond home, we probably would not
still be discussing the Moxley case a quarter of a century later.
Interestingly enough, Steven Skakel made a comment to a friend while riding to school the
day after Martha's murder, before her body had been found. He related his friend
Lucy Tart, that he had been awakened by Martha screaming the night before. When this was
brought to Rushton Skakel's attention he was allowed to question his own son
about what he heard. Clearly, this is an example of the deference extended to the Skakel
family or the stupidity of the Greenwich police. The results of Rushton's talk with his
son is plain suspect. Rushton told Greenwich police that Steven had not heard Martha
scream, he had in fact heard Helen or Martha laughing the night of the murder. It appears
that there was not follow up on what Steven Skakel did or did not hear the evening of
October 31st.
The fact that a murder suspects father was allowed to question another one of his son's
about what he heard is beyond ineptitude. Justifiably it opens the door for people to
question what was really going on back then. Steven Skakel could have possibly been
the only witness to this horrific murder, yet the police did not feel it
important enough to question the boy themselves? Why did the police allow Rush SR to
question him to begin with? When the story changed, why did they accept this without
questioning Steven further? Didn't the police realize the man they were allowing to do
their job for them, had an obvious bias and great motivation to lie?
Curiously enough, Chief Baran reported in a local Greenwich paper that it was possible
that the killer was a transient coming off of nearby interstate 95 and the Skakel's were
known to leave sporting equipment around their yard. So apparently Chief Baran theorized
that this transient was lucky enough to have come across it just as Martha was returning
home and even luckier still, to remain undetected through out his evening of pillage. Why
on earth was the police chief providing an out for the Skakel family so soon after the
discovery of Martha Moxley's body? That logic was not applied to the Hammond family
because the police had no problem interrogating Ed Hammond, collecting evidence from his
home and treating him as a very viable suspect in this case just hours after the body was
found. Why did focus turn to a transient, when Ed Hammond did not pan out as a suspect?
Why was the obvious suspect overlooked until months later?
It is hard to swallow that the police did not believe that a Belle Haven resident was a
vicious animal, yet know how they treated the Hammond family that day. It makes one wonder
if it wasn't so much that the Greenwich police could not fathom a Belle Haven
resident as Martha's killer, as evidenced from the Hammond interrogation, but rather which
Belle Haven family had given birth to such a monster. This is just one of the many
mysteries that envelopes this case and keeps all of us intrigued wondering who killed
Martha Moxley.