Murder in Greenwich: Who Killed Martha Moxley? by Mark Fuhrman

Description

Following in the bestseller star tracks of his Murder in Brentwood (more than 300,000 copies sold), Mark Furhman turns his investigatory skills to the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley — a heinous crime cover-up with connections to the Kennedy clan.

Martha Moxley was a popular, pretty, wealthy fifteen-year-old high school sophomore, whose family lived in the exclusive community of Belle Haven in Greenwich, Connecticut. On the night of October 30, 1975, Martha and some neighborhood friends, including Michael and Tommy Skakel, nephews of Ethel Kennedy, sat in a van parked in the Skakel driveway listening to music. Around 9:30 P.M., most of the kids went home, leaving Tommy and Martha alone in the van. At 3:45 A.M., Martha's mother called the police to say that her daughter had not come home. Later that morning, Martha's body was found on the Moxley property that diagonally adjoins the Skakel home. The girl had been beaten to death with a Tonna Penna golf club — and the only family owning such a set of clubs in the area were the Skakels. Tommy, the last person seen with Martha, became a prime suspect. However, Tommy Skakel was never prosecuted, and the author raises interesting questions about the Skakel family and the ensuing investigation.

Shocking, fascinating, and expertly researched, Murder in Greenwich is not only a reexamination of a famous murder, but also a step toward solving the crime. As an experienced homicide detective, Mark Fuhrman takes a hard look at both the evidence and the investigation itself, and attacks the criminal justice system and the wealth and power of a prominent family.

Editorial Review

On the night before Halloween in 1975, 15-year-old Martha Moxley was bludgeoned to death with a golf club in front of her home in the ultra-upper-class Belle Haven district of Greenwich, Connecticut. Though many suspects were brought forth, to this day no one has ever been arrested for the crime and no trial has taken place. Notorious former detective-turned-author Mark Fuhrman attempts to shed light on the Moxley case in a book that summarizes the fruits of his new investigation.

Among Fuhrman's controversial opinions is his conclusion that the killer is Moxley's neighbor Michael Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy and at the time the same age as Martha Moxley. Some townspeople have long suspected Michael's older brother Thomas of performing the deed, but Fuhrman argues that only Michael had both the opportunity and the temperament to commit such a crime.

Readers familiar with Fuhrman's role in the O.J. Simpson trial, or his subsequent book about that case, Murder in Brentwood, will not be surprised to find him hitting his familiar themes: the abuse of wealth and power, the arrogance of the high and mighty, and the vanity of celebrity. Otherwise, this is very much a hard-hitting detective work. Fuhrman's spare prose drives the book toward an inevitable conclusion with a moral or two in tow. –Tjames Madison