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The Skakel's "Cooperation""
Over the last two decades, according to the many paid Skakel defense attorney's in this case, the family cooperated fully with the police during the early stages of the investigation. Is this just typical defense attorney-speak or is this fact? We might even ask, why the need for so many defense attorney's when this case is only now, in the year 2000, going to court? Have any other suspects in this case, had defense attorney's on retainer for 25 years?
At first glance, it does appear that the Skakel family cooperated with the Greenwich
police investigation. The evening Martha's body was found, Tommy went willingly to the
police station for questioning. Although it was not necessary to have Rush's consent as
Tommy was 17, Rush did allow his son to be taken in for questioning. Then again,
considering he was the last one seen with her and Martha was at his home that evening, not
cooperating would certainly have raised a few eyebrows.
Rush Skakel SR and his daughter Julie, offered to check their home for the set of golf
clubs that the murder weapon had originated from. The fact that the police themselves had
not secured a search warrant or demand to go along with them on this search is certainly
no fault of the Skakel family. Neither Rush nor Julie were ever able to locate the
remainder of the Tonny Penna set.
Steven Skakel had told a fellow school chum, he had heard Martha screaming in his backyard
the evening before. This becomes significant when you consider that at the time of this
conversation, Martha's body had yet to be found. Was Steven Skakel the only ear witness to
her murder? When this information was given to Rush SR, Steven's father, he agreed to
"talk to the boy" and get back to the police with his findings. Needless to say,
the story Steven had originally told his classmate, was altered, he did indeed hear sounds
outside in his backyard the evening before, but it was Helen or Martha laughing. This
seems odd only when considering that the flavor of what Steven had related to friend Lucy
Tart had now changed dramatically. Why would Steven Skakel have felt that laughing was so
out of the ordinary that he told his friend about it , the next morning on the bus. He
told Lucy that what he heard had awakened him from sleep. Why on earth would hearing
someone laughing in his yard be such an oddity that he related this story to his pal?
Considering the size of the Skakel family, it would not be such a remarkable thing to hear
laughing in his own yard on any given day or night. The change in story deserves a closer
look.
Many felt that the Greenwich police handled the Skakel family with kid gloves. The
Greenwich police deny that this ever happened. Both instances above are certainly examples
of a family being shown deference. The fact that a murder weapon was already linked to the
Skakel home makes anything they say or do biased. Didn't the police understand this simple
concept? Where they so intimidated by the Skakel money and power, that they would allow
this investigation to become improper? Allowing the father of a prime murder suspect to
"search for golf clubs and interrogate witness's" to this crime is beyond
ineptitude. It is impossible to believe that even the most naive of police officers did
not catch a clue by then that having the head of the Skakel family offering to do their
investigation for them was not a very wise move. Yet, this was allowed. When Rush returned
with the new version of Steven's story, didn't this sound an alarm? Didn't the police feel
an instinctive need to question Steven themselves? Why would they take the word of a prime
suspect's father? Because of these highly questionable actions and inaction's, the
police are deserving of public criticism. If they really wished to get to the truth of the
matter, they were going about it in a very lackadaisical manner.
When comparing how Maria Hammond and her son were treated with how Rush SR and his family
were, it does make one want to look more closely at the entire police investigation in the
Moxley case. Certainly they were not inept at evidence collection when it came to rounding
up items at the Hammond home. Ed had no link to Martha, the murder weapon was not from his
home, and he was not the last person to be seen with her. Why then was pressure placed on
one suspect who had no obvious link to Martha's murder, yet the one that did was coddled?
For the police to claim they treated the Skakel family as they did all suspects in this
case is obviously not a truthful statement. Why did they protect the Skakel family? Was it
the money and prominence of this particular family, was it the family connection to the
powerful Kennedy family in nearby Massachusetts, or maybe a combination of both? Or were
there other reasons that the police offered the Skakel family more courtesy than normally
extended to a suspects family?
The Skakel's had a long history with the Greenwich police going back at least one
generation. The Skakel family had a reputation of being wild and often out of control.
Rush SR's family was not the only Skakel family to have run-ins with the law. The police
had several encounters from other offspring of George and Big Anne Skakel over the years.
Off duty police officers looking to make some extra cash to subsidize their modest
incomes, often were hired by Rush Skakel to do odd jobs around his home. In fact, it was
not an unusual sight to see police officers having lunch around the Skakel table, even,
during the time of this investigation. The bond that Rush had created over the years,
seems to have paid off nicely when it came time to consider Tommy Skakel as a suspect in
Martha's murder. His family was afforded trust, courtesy and the benefit of the doubt from
the moment Martha's body was found, despite the fact the police had already spotted a
match to the murder weapon that very day, in the Skakel home.
So in closer examination of the Skakel's "cooperation" one might say that it was
in their best interest to comply in the manner in which they did. "Cooperating"
by their definition, certainly afforded them the luxury of time to make sure all their T's
were crossed and I's were dotted. In the very least, the months wasted before Rush finally
locked the police investigators out, made the trail to Martha's killer all the more colder
and much more difficult to navigate. Time, in relation to a homicide investigation, is of
the essence. Rush Sr's stalling techniques ended up being a great strategic win for them.
Business as usual for a head of a major corporation used to strategic planning and
surrounded with legal minds to offer their assistance.
The simple truth is, if Tommy Skakel had been treated as Ed Hammond had the first day of
this investigation, there would not be room for the defense to "claim" that they
fully cooperated. Waiting 3 months to go knocking on the Skakel's door looking for school
records was what shut down this investigation and Skakel family "cooperation".
Had they done this October 31, 1975, as they should have, the police would have been
looking at a closed door and Skakel attorney's, a lot sooner than January 1976.
Did the police cover-up the Skakel's involvement in the case? I do not think so. I do
believe, the way the police handled the Skakel family, however, did lead to the case
becoming derailed and eventually facing a wall of attorney's hired to protect them. A wall
in which the Greenwich police helped to create, and that has taken 25 years to tear down.
