Greentown

March 30, 1998
On the night of October 30, 1975, Martha Moxley, 15, was bludgeoned to death in her front yard with a golf club in affluent Greenwich, Conn. Dominick Dunne fictionalized these events in his 1993 bestseller, A Season in Purgatory. Now Dumas, formerly the managing editor of the Greenwich News, recounts the true story of Moxley's death and of how wealth and privilege appear to have been able to subvert justice. After describing the murder in harrowing detail, Dumas documents the investigations of the past 20 years, investigations that have seen information suppressed, once-willing witnesses back away and a battery of lawyers throw a protective wall around the prime suspect, Thomas Skakel, a classmate of the victim and a nephew of Ethel Kennedy. Skakel was the last person to see Moxley alive; the golf club that killed her came from the Skakel household. While the Skakel family initially agreed to cooperate with police, when it became evident that Thomas was a suspect, they closed ranks. While he remains a suspect, it seems unlikely that Thomas Skakel will ever be indicted, according to Dumas. People have moved on with their lives; many hope that memories of the crime will just fade away. Familiar with the area and the people involved, Dumas brings an unusual sensitivity and clarity to this disturbing tale. In the end, his book seems less about a murdered girl than about the devastation visited upon those whose lives were forever altered by the tragic events of a long-ago night. 8 pages of b&w photos.