About Those Confessions...

Summary

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Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder

Episode: "About Those Confessions..."

Host: Andrew Goldman (NBC News Studios)
Released: December 16, 2025

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Overview

This episode dissects the confessions that were central to the 2002 conviction of Michael Skakel for the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Connecticut. Host Andrew Goldman scrutinizes the reliability of the so-called confession witnesses, the influence of the abusive Elan School environment, prosecutor tactics, and how the prosecution's closing arguments ultimately swayed the jury despite the lack of physical evidence. Interviews with Skakel, witnesses, and journalists challenge the confessions’ veracity and explore how pressure, rumor, money, and memory shaped the narrative and verdict.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Trial’s Climax and Immediate Aftermath

• Closing Arguments & Verdict
  • The episode opens with the climactic week of Michael Skakel's 2002 trial, highlighting the impact of Prosecutor Jonathan Benedict's closing argument.
  • “I thought it was one of the greatest closing arguments I have ever seen... For the first time, I thought the possibility of a conviction existed.” —Dominick Dunne, journalist (01:19)
  • The jury deliberates and on June 7, 2002, finds Skakel guilty. Skakel himself reacts with shock and disbelief.
  • “All of a sudden it's closing and I'm guilty... Took my breath away. Absolutely. Last thing I thought would happen.” —Michael Skakel (02:19)
• Personal Fallout
  • Skakel is sent to Garner Correctional Institute, separated from his young son, with his marriage falling apart.
  • The Moxley family, especially Martha’s mother Dorothy and brother Jon, express relief and the hope for closure after decades of uncertainty, although Dorothy’s mood is characterized more by relief than joy (03:16).

The Prosecution’s Case: Evidence and Confession Witnesses

• Weak Forensics, Strong Storytelling
  • “There was no forensic evidence, no physical evidence, no fingerprints, no DNA. There was nothing connecting him to that crime.” —Dominick Dunne (06:39)
  • The prosecution’s case leaned heavily on witness testimony and alleged confessions, especially those dating back to Michael’s time at the controversial Elan School.
• Elan School: A Pressure Cooker
  • Michael’s past at Elan, a harsh boarding school for troubled youth, becomes the crucible for many “confession” stories.
  • The show describes how Michael’s personality—eccentric, damaged, and rebellious—made him a convenient target for suspicion (07:05–08:43).
  • Ken Littleton, the Skakel family’s former tutor, described Michael as a violent and unstable youth, but his accusations lack corroboration and seem more rumor-driven than factual (08:43–09:32).
• Anatomy of the Key 'Confessions'
  • The star witnesses who claimed Skakel confessed were three former Elan students: John Higgins, Gregory Coleman, and Geron Ridge (who later recanted).
  • Host Goldman methodically unpacks how Higgins—after learning of a substantial reward and facing financial difficulties—changed his story from vague knowledge to claiming a direct confession. The episode questions whether the promise of money influenced his memory (11:15–17:20).
    • “As you may recall…Higgins first told police he’d never heard a confession. But after learning about the $100,000 reward, he changed his story.” —Andrew Goldman (16:08)
  • Similarly, Coleman’s reliability is called into question due to his serious drug problems, inconsistent stories, and the prospect of reward money. Coleman at times said he’d heard Skakel confess multiple times, but changed this under oath, citing heroin withdrawal (20:12–21:30).
  • Despite their checkered credibility, the prosecution presented them as crucial pieces.
    • “Just because someone ends up in jail or someone has a disease of drug addiction definitely means they're a liar?” —Greg Coleman, defending himself (22:36)
    • However, their testimonies were deemed questionable at best by legal professionals and even by those involved in the case.

The Role and Ethics of Reward Money

• Motivations for Testimony
  • After conviction, it’s revealed that the reward money, ultimately less than promised, was split among Segan, Coleman’s widow, and Higgins. This casts further doubt on the motivations behind the incriminating statements and the reliability of the witnesses (25:26–26:23).
  • “I did go through a lot of bullshit. Yeah, I’ll take it. Five grand.” —Chuck Segan on accepting reward money after testifying (26:12)

The Elan School Experience: Cultivating False Confessions?

• Ritualized Abuse & Forced Admissions
  • The school applied relentless psychological and physical pressure on Skakel to confess, including forced group confrontations, public shaming, and violence (29:12–36:20).
  • “They put a sign around my neck that said, hi, my name is Michael Skakel, and I’m a murderer... I had to repeat that seven times a day...” —Michael Skakel (35:36)
  • Michael, and multiple other former students, insist he never confessed—at most, under relentless pressure, he’d say “I don’t know” to stop the confrontations (37:06–37:12).
  • Even Joe Ricci, the head of Elan, stated before his death that Michael never confessed and accused others of being motivated by greed (37:53).
  • “He would have shared it with me. I trusted him... Michael was way too smart to have trusted those two. Coleman and Higgins, the two biggest bullies in the place who had beaten him alive, not only him, myself. Why would he trust them?” —Kim Freehill, former Elan student (39:17)
• Testing Memory and Motive in Testimony
  • Chuck Segan, despite testifying for the prosecution, says by the time of the trial he didn’t believe Michael was truly guilty, but admits the emotional toll and breakdowns Michael experienced raised questions (27:13–27:30).

Alibi Gaps: The Shakespeare Testimony

• Andrea Shakespeare’s Shifting Memories
  • Andrea Shakespeare’s trial testimony, which placed Michael at the Skakel house when others left, sharply undercut his alibi—yet her recollection differed significantly from what she told police in 1975 and 1991 (41:09–46:27).
  • The episode reveals that her recollection 25 years later contradicted prior statements and may have been influenced by outside sources, including Mark Fuhrman’s book and extensive media coverage (47:21–47:44).
  • “Had memory failed her twice? Or had she, like so many, simply become convinced by the relentless media coverage that Michael Skakel had to be guilty?” —Andrew Goldman (47:44)

Salacious Narrative: The Tree Masturbation Story

• Weaponized Weirdness
  • Michael’s admission years later that he had climbed a tree near Martha’s window to masturbate became central to the state’s argument, used to explain away potential DNA and provide a “reason” for guilt (48:20–49:29).
  • Skakel insists the story is true but not relevant to the murder and only admitted it due to his commitment to honesty in recovery (50:05–52:29).
  • “If I’m not honest, then I’m in pain.” —Michael Skakel (52:15)
  • The prosecution nevertheless wielded the story as suggestive evidence.

How the State Built the Case Despite Weak Evidence

• Appeals, Brady Violations, and Defense Errors
  • Michael’s 2007 appeal argued the unreliability of confession witnesses and alleged the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence (Brady violations), including alternative suspect sketches and reports. The appeal failed, with the court blaming the defense for not requesting evidence (53:43–56:38).
  • The episode suggests the prosecution’s narrative and witness flaws were compounded by a weak defense—foreshadowing deeper exploration of attorney Mickey Sherman’s failings in the next episode.
  • Notably, evidence is presented disproving the prosecution’s theory that Michael fabricated his masturbation story to preempt DNA—in fact, he told this story to friends and relatives years before DNA evidence was ever used in criminal trials (56:38–56:59).
    • “The story that he was telling at the time of trial was the same story that I’ve been hearing for 20 years. I had heard this story since 1983.” —Robert F. Kennedy Jr., recounting what he’d heard (56:38)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Sensationalism and Weakness of the Case:
  • “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want...” —Dominick Dunne quoting Donald Rumsfeld, on prosecution’s problematic witnesses (23:54)
  • “There are many ways to reward jailhouse snitches… but if you have snitches who aren’t incarcerated, the best enticement is money.” —Andrew Goldman (25:26)
• On the Power of Suggestion and Memory:
  • “Had memory failed her twice? Or had she, like so many, simply become convinced by the relentless media coverage that Michael Skakel had to be guilty?” —Andrew Goldman (47:44)
• On Psychological Pressure at Elan:
  • “They wanted an admission? Oh, they absolutely wanted an admission. And I’m like, this is insane... I finally realized the only way to stop them is just to say ‘I don’t know.’” —Michael Skakel (36:22)
• On Owning Up to the Tree Story:
  • “If I’m not honest, then I’m in pain.” —Michael Skakel (52:15)

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Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------| | 01:09 | Impact of closing arguments; Dunne and the possibility of conviction | | 02:19 | Skakel’s reaction to shock guilty verdict | | 03:16 | Moxley family expresses relief after conviction | | 06:43 | Dunne and Skakel: No physical evidence connected Michael | | 08:43 | Ken Littleton’s dark view of Michael; rumors discussed | | 11:15 | Dissection of "confession" witnesses Higgins and Coleman| | 16:42 | Higgins’s changing story after reward introduced | | 21:30 | Coleman’s fluctuating accounts and addiction struggles | | 25:26 | Reward money split among witnesses; snitch motivation | | 35:36 | Michael describes the Elan humiliation rituals | | 39:17 | Kim Freehill challenges credibility of confession witnesses | | 41:09 | Andrea Shakespeare’s trial testimony scrutinized | | 48:20 | Prosecution’s use of masturbation story | | 52:15 | Skakel on honesty and recovery | | 53:43 | The 2007 appeal and Brady violation claims | | 56:38 | Evidence that Skakel told “tree” story long before DNA possible | | 58:21 | Teaser for next episode: Skakel’s defense problems |

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Tone and Style

The episode maintains a skeptical, investigative tone, laced with dry sarcasm and transparency about the difficulties of memory, trauma, and bias in high-profile cases. Goldman is methodical but empathetic, allowing space for the messy humanity of all involved while exposing the mechanisms—both legal and psychological—that led to Skakel’s conviction.

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Conclusion

This installment makes a compelling case that Michael Skakel’s conviction depended on precarious witness testimony—shaped by the toxic pressure of Elan School, financial incentives, and dubious memory—rather than hard evidence. It lays the groundwork for a deeper critique of both the prosecution’s and defense’s roles in the controversial trial, with promises of more revelations about attorney Mickey Sherman’s inadequacies in the next episode.

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Transcript

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[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

The investigation was less than perfect, but is there enough evidence to convict Michael Skakel? The jury is about to decide. In early June 2002, after a month of testimony, Michael Skakel's trial drew to an end. Prosecutor Jonathan Benedikt and Michael's defense attorney, Mickey Sherman, presented their closings on a Monday.

[Narrator/Host]

Dominic Dunn has been following the Moxley case for years. Mr. Dunn, good morning. I know you were quite impressed with Jonathan Benedikt's closing arguments. You said he electrified the courtroom.

[Dominic Dunn]

In fact, I mean, I thought it was one of the greatest closing arguments I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot of them now over the years.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

For the first time, I thought that.

[Dominic Dunn]

The possibility of a conviction existed, and I had not thought that through the whole trial.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

On Wednesday, the juror sent a note to the judge requesting to review three pieces of evidence, Andy Shakespeare's testimony, where she said Michael absolutely hadn't left the Skakel house that night and gone to Sursum Corda, Julie Skakel's, in which she admitted she'd said, Michael, come back here after the Lovemobile had departed the driveway. And Helen Icses, who had to admit on the stand that she had no specific recollection of Michael getting into the car. Nearly 27 years before, it was clear if Michael stayed or went was a primary concern. And then on Friday morning, June 7, the jury sent word they'd reached a decision. Guilty.

[Michael Skakel]

All of a sudden it's closing and I'm guilty.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Done.

[Michael Skakel]

Like, what happened took my breath away. Absolutely. Last thing I thought would happen.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Michael Skakel was cuffed, put into a transfer van and taken 45 minutes north to Garner Correctional Institute, Connecticut's prison for men with mental health problems and the first stop for newly incarcerated inmates, a place that Steven Skakel said could have doubled as the ward depicted in one Flew over the cuckoo's nest. He left behind his three year old son. George Michael's marriage to his wife Margo had fallen apart under the strain of his arrest and trial. Michael says he never saw it coming.

[Narrator/Host]

The mother of Martha Moxley says the prison sentence given to Kennedy relative Michael.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Skakel Thursday was reasonable.

[Narrator/Host]

Skakel was given 20 years to life for killing the teen almost 27 years ago. His attorney plans to appeal.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

I don't imagine what Dorothy Moxley experienced after the trial could really be called joy. But her relief was palpable.

[Dominic Dunn]

I just could hardly believe it. I thought, no, I just imagined it. But, you know, I didn't. So, you know, I'm very pleased. I'm hoping now that I can go.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Out and help other mothers who've lost.

[Dominic Dunn]

Their children and, you know, feel as though there's no hope.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Martha's brother Jon Moxley was also vocal in his feelings about the outcome. Yeah, his life has been hell for 27 years. I mean, it's clear that the consciousness of guilt has followed him wherever he went. Perhaps now maybe he can start to find the other side of that. For the Skakel family, the conviction was a devastating and unexpected blow. In front of a bank of cameras outside the courthouse, Steven Skakel, whose rasp faced you won't even recognize, made a vow to the media. I know Michael and I know that there is no way on earth he could have done this. I love my brother and I believe in him 100%. And I will fight till the last breath in me to get him freed. Just as he had vowed, Steven Skakel and his brothers did everything in their power to free their brother and including filing multiple appeals. We'll get more into the details of those appeals soon. But suffice to say, convictions are incredibly difficult to overturn and the wheels of justice are notoriously slow moving. In the meantime, Michael counted the days from inside a cell in prison.

[Michael Skakel]

Everyone says they're innocent, or a lot of people do, but there were a lot of people in there. I mean, the real gangsters, the real, they're like, man, you don't belong here. You know, my kid, I wrote him all the time. My brother Steven made sure that he was remembered on his birthday, on holidays. I miss my kid every single day.

[Dominic Dunn]

Of that visit.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Every minute, every hour.

[Michael Skakel]

I had a heart attack in prison and when I woke up, my cellmate was banging on my chest. Prison wasn't a great place.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

As I've mentioned before in this series, the first time I heard Michael Skakel's name was when he was arrested for Martha's murder. Similarly, I recall learning of his conviction and not giving it too much thought. Justice was served. The right guy was behind bars. Case closed. Of course, as you know, my thinking has changed since then. And what I uncovered while researching Michael's trial is one of the key reasons why Jonathan Benedict may have pulled a rabbit out of his hat with his closing. But as you heard Dominic Dunn reiterate a moment ago, up to that point, pretty much everyone agreed that the case was an obvious loser. Michael's first cousin, RFK Jr. An attorney himself, had attended the trial briefly. He later recalled being stunned by the verdict.

[Dominic Dunn]

I was shocked. I think, you know, everybody was shocked.

[Michael Skakel]

There was no forensic evidence, no physical.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Evidence, no fingerprints, no DNA.

[Dominic Dunn]

There was nothing connecting him to that crime.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

In our conversations, Michael has always vehemently denied being involved in Martha's murder.

[Michael Skakel]

Had no idea when Martha was killed, had no idea what happened. I was a good fall guy.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

You may not believe Michael. If we took every person tried for murder at their word, there'd be a lot more empty prison cells. But based on a careful postmortem of this case, there's a lot of reasons to believe he's telling the truth. I'm Andrew Goldman from NBC News studios and highly replaceable productions. This is dead certain. The Martha Moxley murder. You've probably determined by now that Michael is a complicated character. I happen to like him, but I can understand why others, authorities, certainly some of his peers and even some of his own family members might not. He's not everyone's cup of tea. He's crass, a cut up, a wise ass, but also deeply damaged and has a manic energy that can be exhausting. Talk to enough Belhavenites and you'll hear a dozen crazy stories about Michael's youth. Like that chocolate cake he filled with mud and delivered to a neighbor. One way to put it. Michael has a personality that makes it easy to wag and even point a finger at him. Traits that may have rendered him particularly vulnerable to prosecution. Not guilty, but a personality that makes it easy to believe he's guilty. You'll recall from an earlier episode that Ken Littleton, the former Skakel tutor and longtime suspect in Martha's murder, who seemed to particularly loathe Michael, had this to say about him.

[Dominic Dunn]

Michael, I always knew him as a bloodthirsty, coked up motherfucker who killed animals on golf courses, who shot small birds with double odd shotguns on hunting grounds.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Ken claimed that Michael caught and crucified a chipmunk or squirrel with golf tees while they were playing around at Greenwich Country Club. Kids killing or harming animals in childhood is an oft cited predictor of future violent tendencies. Michael denies that he ever took part in any kind of passion of the rodent.

[Michael Skakel]

It's so nonsensical. Something about killing chipmunks with. I don't know how you do that. I mean, I'm not Jackrabbit Slim. I can't run that fast. And I don't believe I ever played golf with Ken Littleton, ever.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

I looked into it and found no evidence that Ken's story is true. But I also thought about it. Imagine the practical difficulties of carrying out a crucifixion on the busy fairway of an exclusive, well staffed club. Ken, I believe from my research was just repeating a rumor he'd heard. Even Mary Baker, who was on the other end of that call when Ken spoke of it, told me she never once believed Ken's squirrel tail. Michael also told me he did coke for sure, but not at 15 and only for a couple years prior to getting sober in 1982. Ken Littleton's accusations may have played a small part in convincing investigators to that Michael was Martha's killer. But the real heart of the case was the witness testimony the state put on at trial. As prosecutor Benedict would say in a 2002 interview when asked why he was so sure that Michael Skakel killed Martha. Ask those witnesses. Many reluctant. But those witnesses we put on who all provided various incriminating statements by Michael Skakel, I think that tells me who did it. The statement's Benedict references ranged in their level of incriminating. Some witnesses, like Michael's friends Andy Pugh and Michael Meredith, claimed they'd heard him tell the masturbation story. Others said they'd heard Michael wonder if he could have killed Martha and somehow not remembered it. But the most serious allegations were made by the three so called confession witnesses who claimed they'd heard an explicit admission by Michael. One of them, Geron Ridge, retracted her statement on the stand. The other two former Elan students, John Higgins and Gregory Coleman, were problematic. But as Jonathan Benedict would posit after the trial, I suspect jurors wanted to believe they were telling the truth. I think juries are able to sift out what's real and what's not.

[Chuck Segan]

I think the grains of truth in.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

What many witnesses said are very easy to understand. In the last episode, you heard the meat of the confessions that Higgins and Coleman claim they heard. To continue the meat metaphor, confessions by the time they get to trial, may appear to be as smooth and gristle free as filet mignon. But when you dig in a bit, they're actually more like hot dogs. Perhaps outwardly appearing uniform and neat, but disguising some less than savory processes that occur behind the butcher's doors. I want to take you behind those doors, show you how the proverbial sausage got made. 39 year old auto mechanic John Higgins was far from the type of witness a prosecutor dreams of. First, he hadn't kept his nose clean after a lawn. He had a rap sheet with six arrests, including ones for theft and battery. Higgins first landed on Garr's radar in the fall of 1996 after he got a call from Chuck Segan. You'll remember Segan from earlier episodes of this series. He's the one who called the Greenwich police to report that Higgins told him that Michael Skakel had confessed to Martha's murder. But what we haven't talked about is that Higgins didn't tell Segan this while they were both at a lawn. And he didn't even tell him. In the 80s, when the pair regularly.

[Chuck Segan]

Got drunk together, we drank a lot of beer and we did this several times. And we talked about Elan. We love talking about elan. You can go and go and go about your memories. All those times that we were talking and drinking and bringing up all this, he never once mentioned that he heard a confession.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

That is, until the spring of 1996, a couple months after the Unsolved Mysteries episode about Martha's case aired, when, after a period of estrangement, Segan and Higgins reconnected.

[Chuck Segan]

He called me and he wasn't nice.

[Dominic Dunn]

He, he.

[Chuck Segan]

Yeah, I heard.

[Michael Skakel]

You looking for me?

[Chuck Segan]

My mom? Yeah, man, I just wanted to say hi and just see what was, you know, what was going on. Yeah, well, listen, did I ever tell you that Skeko confessed to me when we were at Elan? What?

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Why?

[Chuck Segan]

Why are you telling me this? Why aren't you calling the police?

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

I don't know.

[Chuck Segan]

Just full legged and hung up and hung up. I'm like, okay, what do I do with this? You know, I'm not really the best at coping with normal.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

How the hell am I gonna cope with this? Segan says he wondered if just knowing this information made him a target for the Kennedy family or the alleged mafia connections of Elan school director Joe Richie.

[Chuck Segan]

I was wrestling with myself from a long time, but really what came down TO it was Mrs. Moxley was on some TV show, Unsolved Mysteries. And she said, if anybody has any information. And this was the mother talking to me, you know, if anybody has any information, can you please come forward? Well, that was it. I found that I didn't have to hold on to this anymore. I'm not an asshole. So I made the phone call.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

As you may recall from an earlier episode, after speaking with Segan, Inspector Frank Gar called John Higgins, who reported that Michael had mentioned the murder at Elan, but said he didn't know whether he'd done it or not.

[Dominic Dunn]

Believe me, if I had a confession from him, I'd give it. I never specifically told me that he killed anybody.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Higgins went on to explain to Garr that he hadn't thought about his conversation with Michael in years. It only occurred to him after he received a call from another former Elan alum who, like Chuck Segan, was living in the Chicago area.

[Dominic Dunn]

He called to tell me that they were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of increase to $100. That's special.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Again, the tapes are rough. Higgins told Gar he'd heard about the $50,000 reward. Gar told him it had now been doubled. That's special, said Higgins. Higgins and Garr talked a while longer, covering Alain Higgins job as a mechanic and stories about Michael Skakel. As the conversation wrapped up, Higgins told Garr he wanted to take some time to think.

[Dominic Dunn]

I'd like to take a break and consider all of this and try and put it into perspective for myself because I think that decisions are best made with good amount of thought. Okay, good. What's the decision that you have to make? I think we'll probably have to just leave that for now.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

As Higgins now believed, $100,000 was on the line. He described himself as a man who lives and dies by the truth. In the same breath, he'd sworn he heard no explicit confession. What might he say next? When Gar called back a few days later, he started by mentioning that Higgins wife had reached out to him over the weekend and they'd had a long talk. There's no transcript or police report available recounting their conversation. Who knows all the topics they discussed? One subject that seems to have been covered, Higgins recent health problems.

[Dominic Dunn]

Yeah, I just was informed last week that I can no longer do what I do for a living. I got bad shoulders. Genetic, really. My collarbone. Long. Basically, I don't have a job anymore.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

I'm out of a job. Higgins said bad shoulders. You have to make some plans. Gar replied. Within minutes of this exchange, Higgins told Gar that he'd been mistaken when they last spoke. Indeed, he'd heard Michael Skakel confess quietly and only once. There were no witnesses. They were all alone. When Michael said, I did it, he.

[Dominic Dunn]

Said, I killed her. And, you know, I probably gave the guy a hug.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

During that second call, Higgins also told Garr that Michael said he remembered being in his own garage, remembered pulling a golf club out of a bag, running through pine trees, and waking up in his bed with no knowledge of what had happened the night before. But two of these details didn't quite add up. The Skekles didn't have a garage, and according to police reports from the time, the stray Tony Penna clubs were kept in a barrel in the back hallway of the Otter Rock house. Still, it was the detail about the pine trees that Gar would say really sold him on this story. In his book Conviction, Len Levitt described Garr's thoughts. Only Michael could have known about the pine trees. No way Higgins could have known that on his own. He has to have heard that from Michael. I don't know how Gar could even say such a ridiculous thing. By 1996, there had been hundreds of stories that expressly mentioned that Martha's body had been discovered beneath a pine tree. But the tree detail, Gar would say, like the hug, gave the story the patina of truth. What Gar believed in his heart, I can't say. Though he later told Len Levitt he believed Higgins. All we know for sure is that with that 100 grand reward on the line, Higgins story evolved. Higgins died in 2013, so I can't ask him myself about what went down in those phone calls. But while testifying, Higgins was asked if the reward money influenced his story. He denied it. Either way, Higgins didn't give Garr a whole lot. One whispered confession witnessed by no one. But by the time Higgins reluctantly took the stand at trial, that whisper had become a cornerstone of the prosecution's case. Higgins was just one piece of the puzzle, though. The second Elan alum to proclaim that Michael confessed. Greg Coleman wasn't so stingy with his details, though. He made Higgins look, by comparison, like a Boy Scout. If you recall, in the spring of 1998, when Mark Fuhrman's book about the case was released, the former detective's face was all over tv, fingering Michael as the culprit. One night, Coleman was channel surfing in a hotel room. After his wife kicked him out of their house, he landed on a segment about the Moxley case.

[Dominic Dunn]

When we come back. I'm going to ask Mark Fuhrman who he thinks murdered Martha Moxley.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Coleman's ears must have perked up 18 years out of elan, he decided it was finally time to tell someone his story. He called up the local Rochester NBC affiliate. The reporter who fielded the call reached out to the state's attorney's office. Coleman's number wasn't in the phone book, so the state's attorney's office called John Regan, the Coleman family attorney, you remember him, who immediately flagged his concerns about Coleman.

[Dominic Dunn]

He had a bad drug problem. I told this prosecutor in 1998, I don't think you should be using Gregory.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

For whatever reason. Regan's take was completely disregarded because a couple days later, Greg Coleman's phone rang. This is Frank Garr, said the man on the line. Or at least that's what I can only assume. He said there's no transcript of this interview in the police file or any of Garr's conversations with Coleman, for that matter. In fact, the state's second star witness is only mentioned twice in police reports. But we know what Coleman said publicly. Before he died in 1998, he testified before the grand jury that he'd personally heard Skakel confess five to six times. Two years later, at another proceeding, Coleman claimed he only remembered two confessions saying he made a mistake during his prior testimony because he was going through heroin withdrawal. While on the stand, Coleman would also say, impossible though such a scenario would be, that Michael told him he he'd returned to Martha's body two days after the murder and masturbated upon her. But logic and consistency be damned, he stood by his story that Michael had confessed, and he didn't just limit his telling of it to the confines of a courtroom.

[Dominic Dunn]

For a quarter century, Greg Coleman was silent. Now, having come forward, the Rochester man has become a star witness. I believe in my heart 100% that he did commit this crime.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

In February 2001, just a year before Michael's trial, Coleman made an appearance on Rochester's News 10 from the comfort of an overstuffed chair in his cluttered living room. Tall and beefy as heroin addicts go, he wore an unkempt Van Dyke beard, and his skin appeared waxy as he sweated under the lights in a giant red ski hoodie.

[Dominic Dunn]

For the first time ever, Coleman is speaking publicly about an admission he says he heard directly from Skakel. And the first words he ever said to me was, I'm going to get away with murder. I'm a Kennedy.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

This by the way is not something that Michael Skakel says he ever would have uttered. The Skakels and the Kennedys had a long history of enmity, which we'll dive into further. But Dominic Dunn, who fashioned himself a Kennedy expert, knew this well.

[Dominic Dunn]

It's a divided family.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

They don't like each other. Asked about his own credibility, Greg Coleman had this to say.

[Dominic Dunn]

Just because someone ends up in jail or someone has a disease of drug addiction definitely means they're a liar or they're dishonest or anything.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

The point is well taken. Just because Coleman had a drug problem doesn't mean he's a liar. We know from Len Levitt's book Conviction that Garr seemed to view Coleman through this exact lens. Here's Levitt quoting. He was a great big teddy bear of a guy with enormous problems, but he was one of the most believable guys I ever talked to. Your worst day is a good day for this guy. He couldn't climb out of it. He had nothing, no future. He was sick physically and probably mentally because he had this monkey on his back. But that didn't mean he wasn't telling the truth. It's hard to understand how Gar came to that conclusion. Before Coleman's News 10 interview, he'd smoked crack and shot heroin, as he testified during an April 2001 probable cause hearing, a hearing in which he was only able to complete his second day of testimony after Garr personally took him to the hospital to get methadone. Perhaps it's more of a case of the detective making the best of his scruffy recruits. Thinking about the trial, like Donald Rumsfeld once said of deploying a not totally outfitted fighting force.

[Dominic Dunn]

As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the.

[Michael Skakel]

Army you might want or wish to.

[Dominic Dunn]

Have at a later time.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

We can't know for sure what Benedict or his team were thinking when they put Coleman and Higgins on the stand. Were they truly confident in their star witnesses? Did they actually buy that Michael had confessed it along? Or were they just willing to do anything required to win? When I interviewed John Regan, the Rochester lawyer who sounded the alarm bell about Greg Coleman's drug issues and credibility, he had this to say, you know, in.

[Dominic Dunn]

My experience doing criminal defense, one of the frustrating things is that you get these terrible witnesses that are produced by the prosecution, and you're kind of surprised that they use them. But the. The difficulty is that they generally have a stock spiel that they give in their closing about how well, you know, if you want to Catch criminals. You're not going to. You have nuns who testify about their activity.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Regan says there's also a common profile for those witnesses who provide questionable testonian trials. They want stuff.

[Dominic Dunn]

It has always struck me that the worst kind of evidence produced in criminal cases is what you might call the jailhouse snitch, who is just somebody that comes in and says, oh, yeah, I talked to so and so in the jail and he told me he did it. And then, you know, it comes out that, of course this guy's getting offered some kind of consideration in terms of leniency or something else for giving this testimony.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

There are many ways to reward jailhouse snitches. Reduced sentences, transfers to cushier prisons. But if you have snitches who aren't incarcerated, the best enticement is money. A year after Michael was convicted, John Higgins, Greg Coleman's widow, and Chuck Segan split the reward money, all paltry $20,000 of it. The reward had indeed, just as Gar told Higgins, once spent $100,000. The Moxley family ponied up $80,000 in June 1996, several months before Chuck Segan outed John Higgins to Frank Garr, but put a one year expiration date on giving it away. Here's Segan. You got a little reward money, didn't you, for your.

[Chuck Segan]

Yeah, I mean, I did, and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. I'm like, God, is this ethical? Well, I did go through a lot of bullshit.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Yes.

[Chuck Segan]

I'll take it. Five grand.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Five grand. Segan felt torn that his involvement may have led to Michael's conviction, but he took the money anyway. Coleman's Widow also got $5,000 and John Higgins got 10. Whether the reward money was a motivating force for them or not, it seems that the state's two primary confession witnesses, Higgins and Coleman, were questionable at best and liars at worst. But for Chuck Segan, the only one of the trio still alive and well, the question of Michael Skakel's guilt still turns restlessly in his head. In our conversation, he said that by the time Michael's trial rolled around, despite testifying for the prosecution, he didn't believe Michael was guilty. But still he wondered what, if anything, Michael knew about the crime. Segan kept thinking back to Michael's reactions whenever he was confronted at a lawn.

[Chuck Segan]

I was in several, at least a half a dozen groups when Michael was being confronted. Did you kill her? Did you kill her? Did you kill her? Over and over and over. And Michael would never admit it.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

He would cry.

[Chuck Segan]

And I always thought, why is he crying? Why? What is the struggle here?

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Chuck Segan poses a fair question. If Michael Skakel didn't in fact kill Martha Moxley, why did he have such an emotional response to the confrontations at Elan? Recall that one of Elan's core tactics was the Confrontational Encounter, a methodology supposedly designed to break students down in order to build them back up. As NBC News would later report, confrontation.

[Michael Skakel]

Therapy comes in various forms.

[Dominic Dunn]

It is supposed to help troubled children.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

From everything I know about Elan, Joe Ricci was adept at at finding the perfect pressure point to break down his charges using various sadistic exercises he devised carried out by his students. And although I understand Segan's point of view about Michael's emotional response, I think most of us would cry if subjected to even a fraction of the punishments that were carried out at Elan. For me, there's a bigger question. Elan and its former students had such a huge hand in getting Michael convicted. So what did actually happen while he was there?

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[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Recall that at trial, prosecutor Jonathan Benedict, in his closing, parroted Mark Fuhrman's theory that Michael was sent to Elan as a last resort to protect the family and hide Michael from the police. Benedict, voiced here by an actor, suggested that Rush Gakel Sr. Had outsourced the harboring of his murderous son to Joe Ritchie. That's what they decided that they had to do with the killer living under their roof. Michael says, that's absolutely not true.

[Michael Skakel]

I had, you know, got in a car accident, and that's why I went to Elan. Not because I killed somebody like the prosecution said. I went there because I kept failing out of schools and got a dwi.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Michael was sent to Elan because of the car accident, but recall that Michael and his father already had a particularly fraught relationship with for many years before, partly due to Rush's temper in drinking and partly because teenage Michael was a bit of a hellion and, thanks to his undiagnosed dyslexia, consistently flunking in school. If Rush was gasoline, Michael was a match. And an incident that occurred in 1976, a little less than two years before he went to Elan, may have added fuel to the fire. Here's Michael.

[Michael Skakel]

There was a bedroom downstairs, and, you know, I just missed my mom, so I smoked some pot and I cried and went to sleep. I slept with one of my mom's dresses just because I missed her. And I know it sounds crazy and weird, I just missed my mom. You know what I mean? I never had a time to. I was never allowed to grieve. Never allowed. And the next morning, the maid came in and went, young lady. And I'm like, where the hell am I? And then I'm like, oh, shit. And stood up. And she said, michael, yes. You know, I threw the dress on the bed, and, you know, I was just embarrassed.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Though Michael says he was just holding the dress, the maid immediately reported to Rush Senior that she'd found Michael wearing it. For staunchly Catholic Rush, this would be as offensive as a kid's behavior. Could get worse, I imagine, than fornication or masturbation. Recall the violence, the discovery of those Playboy magazines invited. So did this get to your father? Did you and your father have it out? Because it sound. That's.

[Michael Skakel]

Yeah, but, yeah, we did. We did have it out.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

And Michael says that when he crashed the car in Windham a little over a year later, his father was incensed. Michael recalls that shortly after he arrived at Elan, Rush Skakel and family lawyer Tom Sheridan flew in on a Great Lakes plane to meet with Joe Richie.

[Michael Skakel]

I remember my father, they sat me down and they said, Mr. Skaika, you got anything to say to your kid? And he picked up a big ashtray and he smashed it across this blackboard, and he said, you're no longer my fucking kid. You're disowned. You can keep your first name. You got no last name. You got nothing, you know, because you were drunk driving, you could have killed Debbie Deal. He said, she could have died. You would have cost us everything. As far as I'm concerned, you can stay here forever.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

It was after this visit, during which Richie certainly would have learned about the other misadventures that had plagued Michael and his family in recent years, including the Moxley murder, that Michael says Richie began tormenting him, but not about him committing the murder.

[Michael Skakel]

He just said, I want to make everybody aware that this kid, his brother, murdered somebody, and he knows about it, and he's never leaving here until he admits what his brother did.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

There was no question that initially they were asking you about Tommy?

[Michael Skakel]

Yes, absolutely no question. For the first year, not the first week or ten days or two months.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Literally the first year, which makes sense. In the late 70s, Tommy was the only Skakel ever considered a suspect by police. Michael wouldn't even hit their radar for another decade and a half. Brother of a killer was the pressure point that Joe Ritchie used until Michael was returned from running away that third time. And suddenly things changed.

[Michael Skakel]

They then call the general meeting at the beginning of it. He said, yeah. He said, screw your brother, Tommy. You did this crime. You're the one that did it. I'm like, what?

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Chuck Segan remembers Richie making the announcement to the seething crowd.

[Chuck Segan]

Joe, Richie had a file book that probably had, you know, 20, 30 pages in it, and he said, listen, I want to let you know why he's here. What he said, I can't remember word for word, but he said, michael is here because there was a murder of a neighbor, and they suspect that Michael did it.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

After that, Michael says the pressure, the confrontations, the accusations never let up. Okay, Michael, this is important. They wanted, during some of these exercises, they wanted you to admit that you killed Martha Moxley.

[Dominic Dunn]

Is that right?

[Michael Skakel]

That's my whole point. They put a sign around my neck that said, hi, my name is Michael Skakel, and I'm a murderer. Please confront me why I killed my friend Martha. I'm a sick fuck. I'm a rich kid. I need help. Please confront me. I had to repeat that seven times a day. The entire community had to stop and listen to me do that. Then they had a thing called a haircut where it was from one person to 20, 21 people. And you had to stand there with your hands at your side, and somebody would literally scream at you at the top of their lungs like, you're in the military. And they would say, michael Skager, you're a fucking murderer, and you need to admit that you committed this crime. If you don't admit that you committed this crime, you'll never leave here.

[Dominic Dunn]

Blah, blah, blah.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

So they wanted an admission?

[Michael Skakel]

Oh, they absolutely wanted an admission. And I'm like, this is insane. I finally figured out. I finally realized the only way to stop them from is just to say I don't know.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

At trial, the state put on several witnesses, including Chuck Segan, who claimed Michael had at some point said that he was so drunk the night of Martha's murder, he had blacked out.

[Chuck Segan]

All I remember in those groups that stood out, and this is what I told the prosecutor, was Michael said he was stumbling and fumbling around the backyard and he was blind drunk, and he doesn't remember any anything.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Michaels never denied drinking that night, but he says while at Elan, he never said he might have blacked out and killed Martha.

[Michael Skakel]

I didn't even say that. I just said, I don't know.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Was there ever an admission?

[Michael Skakel]

No, never.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

And this, in fact, was precisely what four additional Elan students who testified, including Chuck Segan, said on the stand. That when interrogated in those high pressure situations about the murder, Michael would break down and cry. But the closest he got to confessing was saying, I don't know. Another former student testified that she witnessed Michael's beatings and heard Joe Richie threaten at least a dozen times, skakel, you are not getting out of here till you fess up. But that Michael never did. And someone else who might surprise you also backed up Michaels denials. Joe Richie. In the run up to Michael's trial, Joe Richie made several public statements adamantly denying that Michael had ever confessed to Martha's murder. Ritchie accused the Elan students, pointing fingers of doing so out of greed. Apparently referencing the reward money. He told the Hartford Courant, I think it's absurd. What you've got are a bunch of people who have been intimidated, who Ritchie seemed to think had been lucky enough to get a cross at intimidating his former students. I'm not sure when the witnesses were still at Elan. It was Ritchie, who obviously relished being intimidator in chief, or, as he preferred to be called by students, the God of therapy. Which is another reason that Segen doesn't believe that anyone heard Michael confess at Elan. There were great rewards in funneling information to Ritchie and stiff punishments if he found out you hadn't.

[Chuck Segan]

If you had that kind of information, man, you had. You had it all. And Joe Richie was looking for it. He was hungry. And you're telling me that you're holding back a piece of information? You know what I'm saying? It makes no sense.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Kim Freehill, who on her first day at Elan, witnessed Michael's beating at a general meeting and would later need to be airlifted to a hospital because of her own, says it's a miracle that Michael didn't crack under the pressure and brutality.

[Dominic Dunn]

You would admit that you were King Kong. You would admit whatever. You would admit anything. You do not know what these meetings were like.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Freehill and Michael got close at Elan.

[Dominic Dunn]

He spent a lot of time peeling a lot of potatoes and washing a lot of floors.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

If he truly murdered Martha Moxley, she thought he might have entrusted her with the information. But he'd never in a million years have confided in Higgins or Coleman.

[Dominic Dunn]

He would have shared it with me. He trusted me. I trusted him. We would exchange cigarettes. He would have trusted me. Michael was way too smart to have trusted those two. Coleman and Higgins, the two biggest bullies in the place who had beaten him alive, not only him, myself. Why would he trust them? Why would you trust somebody that's beating the shit out of you?

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Michael says he only knew Higgins and Coleman in their capacity as Ritchie's enforcers, and so he steered well clear of them.

[Michael Skakel]

I never said a word to Col. I don't. I never, ever spoke to Greg Coleman. Stayed away from him as much as I could. Twice my size back then. Just a bully like Higgins. Really, really relished causing pain to people.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

I haven't uncovered any concrete evidence that Michael actually confessed at ELAN. And in 2015, after I reached out to author Len Levitt, who died in 2020, he shocked me by emailing that even he didn't put any stock in the Yolande Confessions. The state's case, of course, wasn't limited to confession testimony. There was also the question of Michael's whereabouts on Mischief Night, about which his family members had testified, albeit somewhat unhelpfully. And then there was Andrea Shakespeare, who blew a hole in Michael's otherwise largely substantiated alibi by introducing the idea that Michael had never gone to Sursum Corda with his brothers and cousin that night. Remember her actor voice testimony from the last episode? Was Michael Skakel in the house after that car left?

[Narrator/Host]

Yes.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

And have you ever had any doubt in your mind about the fact that Michael Skakel was home after that car left from the side driveway?

[Dominic Dunn]

No. From 1975 to today, have you been.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Certain that Michael was home after that car left?

[Narrator/Host]

Yes.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Here's Dominic Dunn.

[Dominic Dunn]

After the trial, Andrea Shakespeare was a very, very good witness saying that he did not go in the car with his brothers to the cousin's house. She placed him at the scene of the crime.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Shakespeare was resolute on the stand when prosecutor Susan Gill questioned her. She said she had no doubt in her mind that Michael was home after the Lovemobile left the Skakel driveway, and she'd been totally certain of it since 1975. Try as he might, defense attorney Mickey Sherman could not get her to budge from this point. And after closing arguments, jurors requested a transcript of her testimony as well as other testimony that supported the theory that Michael hadn't gone. But in my reporting, I uncovered an issue with Shakespeare's statement. Right there in the police file. Plain as day is evidence that what she said on the stand is simply untrue.

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[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

On June 11, 1991, Jack Solomon and Frank Garr. Right in the midst of their efforts to pin the crime on Ken Littleton went almost 200 miles north to Hanson, Massachusetts, to interview Andrea Shakespeare about her memories of Mischief Night 1975. She really only had something meaningful to say about one specific thing. Running back to the Skakels front door to fetch Julie's forgotten car keys, finding it stuck and ringing the doorbell.

[Dominic Dunn]

I don't think I waited too long. Thomas came right to the door and opened it. I mean, I don't think it was immediate. It was like, ding. Okay. Dang. Hi. What's the matter? Okay. I don't have the keys to the car. You don't have the keys to the car? No. He goes, get some. Get to me the keys. Have a good night. Talk to you at school. I'll see you whenever. Doors open. Well, you leave the door. Door's open. See him. Go to the drawer. See anybody else in the house? No. No one else is in the house. Band them at the door. Walk in the door. No. Tommy and me. No. Absolutely. Absolutely not.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Quite absolutely. Because back when she was first interviewed in 1975, Andy told police that when she went to grab the keys, Tommy, along with Ken Littleton and Stephen, answered the door. But the intervening 16 years seemed to have erased those two figures from her memory. In 1991, Andrea was almost apologetic to the investigators about how little she had to offer them.

[Dominic Dunn]

I mean, I didn't see anybody after a certain point I had except for Tommy, who answered the door. Okay.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

There was a lot of activity at the Skakel house that night. Kids coming and going backgammon, an excursion to the Lovemobile to listen to music, roughhousing in the driveway. In 1991, Shakespeare said she saw none of this and didn't lay eyes on anyone other than Julie, with whom she spent this portion of the evening drinking tea in the kitchen and watching Ellery Queen on the sun porch.

[Dominic Dunn]

I mean, the first I ever heard about guy sitting in a car with new soaps. She's lightning up.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

The first time I ever heard about guys sitting in a Car. Listening to tapes is right now, she said. But as Solomon walked her through the movements outside the Skakel house, none of which she claimed to have witnessed, she stopped him.

[Dominic Dunn]

Durian boy gets in, John gets in, Rustin comes in and they depart with Michael with Michael in the car. For some reason, I don't know if you told me. I don't know if it's. I've heard it through the years or I don't know if I remember it. I never thought that Michael made the trip to the Darien's. I thought it was the three boys. Did I ever see him in the house? No. Did I see him leave? No. Put it this way, I didn't see Michael there when I left at the house. He didn't answer the door. Tommy did.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

This also was a deviation from her original police interview. In 1975, Andrea had mentioned both seeing Michael inside the house and him leaving. But in 1991, Andrea remembered seeing more. None of that. Not Michael leaving the sun porch to go outside, nor the Love mobile departing. Despite this, prosecutors called her as a witness in Michael's trial. It must have been a surprise to Inspector Frank Garr that Benedict, in his closing, so embraced Shakespeare's recollection of Michael staying and the possibility he'd killed Martha around 10. Like Furman, Gar was convinced Michael had gone to Sir Some Corda and only killed Martha upon returning. In fact, Michael's alibi seemed to be widely accepted by the many investigators examining the case. Here's Michael talking about that night at Cirsum Corda.

[Michael Skakel]

The state knew I was there. They always knew I was there.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

But at trial, Benedict was able to cast Shakespeare's testimony as a revelation. And it seems jurors saw it the same way. I would have liked to ask Shakespeare herself about this, but I reached out and never heard back. So it's hard to know what to make of her sudden certainty about a night 25 years in the distant past that she'd never been able to offer much information about before. Had memory failed her twice? Or had she, like so many, simply become convinced by the relentless media coverage that Michael Skakel had to be guilty? She had, while being cross examined by Mickey Sherman at the trial, conceded that she'd read Mark Fuhrman's book. Whatever the case, it's clear she did some damage on the stand. But it was Michael's bizarre tale of masturbating in a tree, which Jonathan Benedict used so cleverly to insinuate his guilt, that probably tipped the scales. Recall that Mark Fuhrman and his media blitz played a big role in turning the salacious story into water cooler fodder.

[Michael Skakel]

He crawled up a tree, masturbated in a tree, called out Martha's name. He accounts for the possibility of any forensic evidence being transferred to Martha because she had access to the same location.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

But Martha.

[Michael Skakel]

He claims that he actually left semen.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

That's not, of course, anything that Michael ever claimed, though the Sutton Worst Case Scenario reports on which Fuhrman based his case theory do include a mention of masturbation to orgasm. Michael says even that didn't happen.

[Michael Skakel]

I being a stupid kid, I was thinking about the lady next door and played pocket fool for about 20 seconds, 30 seconds. There was no happy ending. There was no nothing.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

But once the story got out, the seed, if you'll pardon the expression, was planted. And prosecutors deftly used it to suggest Michael was trying to explain away potential DNA at the crime scene. Michael doesn't like it, but he understands it.

[Michael Skakel]

I think humans just don't think too deep about things, and I think they equate with, well, if he was masturbating, then she must have been there, so he must have done this. Something like that.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Since coming clean first to his friends and then Sutton Associates in 1992, Michael has stuck by his story. He got home from Sursum Corda, climbed the tree outside Martha's window, masturbated briefly, and went home. The story hasn't deviated, of course. It's not just the weird story itself, but also the fact that it only came out years after Martha's murder that's been cited to suggest he's guilty. It's a reasonable question. If the masturbation story is true, which Michael says it is, why did he initially lie to investigators about it in 1975?

[Michael Skakel]

The reason my story changed between 1975 and 1992 or whatever the Sutton friggin report was, is pretty simple. Because in 1975, I literally didn't have the emotional or mental tools. When I went to bed that night, I was so embarrassed. I'm like, oh, my God, this is so stupid. I'm an absolute idiot. I was so angry at myself. And then to have Mrs. Moxley wake me up, then I was like, holy crap. You know what I mean? It was like the worst nightmare ever. My biggest fear is that I would get blamed for this murder because of this, and that my father was absolutely right, that you're gonna go to hell because you had fun with yourself, you know, because you looked at Playboy and have been ashamed out of My mind ever since. For being. For being human, for being a kid, for being me.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Back then. At age 15, Michael says the fear and shame associated with his father's puritanical stance on all things sex related drove him to lie. But seriously, who among us at any age wouldn't lie about masturbating, especially to cops? But then things changed for Michael.

[Michael Skakel]

Alarm happened. Sobriety happened. Found out I had a learning disability. Found a whole new perspective on life. I was able to be more honest about my life and be able to cope with things a lot better.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Michael says he owned up to the tree story and sticks by it now because his recovery requires him to tell the truth. One of the major AA tenets is the saying, we're only as sick as our secrets. The idea being that deception is incompatible with sobriety. Michael takes this very seriously. I'd say his devotion to the program rivals his father's devotion to the Catholic Church.

[Michael Skakel]

Not just even keeping a secret. It's responsibility. It's taking responsibility. I have to be honest about everything, or I'm screwed. It's just. That's just the way I'm built. If I'm not honest, then I'm in pain.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Whatever you think of all of this, one thing remains true. The state of Connecticut pulled some major abracadabra and won a case that most people thought was theirs to lose. But like all magic tricks, I wanted to know exactly how they did it. Was it simply the questionable witnesses and prosecutor Benedict's dramatic closing argument? Or was there more? In 2007, after five years behind bars, Michael, then 46, petitioned the state of Connecticut for a new trial based on the promise of new evidence, as well as claims that the state had illegally suppressed crucial evidence from the defense. An appeal is like an autopsy of a case. Appellate attorneys dissect everything that happens in the trial, hoping to isolate instances of wrongdoing on the part of the state that might get their clients another shot at freedom. And in Michael's 2007 appeal, his attorneys had some thoughts about how the state might have won their case. Unsurprisingly, one of their arguments was that Gregory Coleman wasn't a reliable witness. Lawyer Stefan Seeger was part of Michael's original defense team and also continues to represent him on a variety of case related matters. Coleman was such a liar and such a bad person to vest any faith in.

[Michael Skakel]

Even at a probable cause hearing, there.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Was more than enough evidence that Benedict would have known about at the time for him to make a credibility assessment. But that was only part of the basis of the appeal, Michael's attorneys also argued that the prosecution had potentially committed Brady violations. By law, prosecutors must disclose any evidence that could help prove a defendant's innocence or or undermine the prosecution's case. If the prosecution fails to do so, it violates the Constitution's due process clause. The state, Michael's attorneys asserted on appeal, had failed to turn over several key pieces of evidence. One was the so called Morganty sketch of the figure seen by Belhaven officer Charles Morganti near the crime scene close to the likely time of the attack. Remember from our discussion of Skakel tutor Ken Littleton, the sketch that looks remarkably like him. The other was a 43 page suspect profile for Ken Littleton authored by Solomon and Garr in 1992. Not only would the evidence against Littleton have been helpful, but the report also states that, quote, it was determined by the two investigators that Michael did indeed go to sursum corda, a conclusion that would have been essential in countering the argument that he hadn't. Gar would eventually be asked under oath why he hadn't turned over the report during discovery. He replied that Mr. Benedict told him not to. The state's stance on this the materials were a work product, not subject to disclosures to the defense. The appeals court ruled against Michael in 2007, upholding his conviction. Their conclusion on the matter of Coleman's reliability was striking. Michael's original defense team had dropped the ball. The court ruled that the defense should have done more to discredit Coleman. As for the potential Brady violations, not the state's fault, the court determined Michael's defense attorney, Mickey Sherman, had simply neglected to request those items from the state. This perplexed me. How could Sherman have committed such grave oversights in such an important case? One day a couple years ago, as I waded through transcripts of the entire trial, thousands of pages of them, I located something even more incredible. And this one wasn't hidden from the defense at all. Recall that Jonathan Benedict would pick up on Fuhrman's theory and run with it, arguing that Michael had only concocted the masturbation story in order to explain potential DNA evidence that might be discovered linking him to the crime. But State's witness Michael Meredith himself testified that Michael related the tree story in that summer of 1987 he spent at the Skakel house. Bobby Kennedy told me, and included in his book that Michael also told him the tree story four years earlier in 1983.

[Dominic Dunn]

The story that he was telling at the time of trial was the same story that I've been hearing for 20 years. I had heard this story since 1983.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Here's Dr. Henry Lee, Connecticut's former chief criminalist, who testified at Michael's trial about when he'd first started using DNA evidence in criminal cases.

[Dominic Dunn]

1989. We start doing that.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Lee is referencing his own professional experience in Connecticut. And in fact, 1989 was the only date jurors heard at Michael's trial about the use of DNA in criminal cases. Actually, the very first time DNA was ever used in a criminal case in the United States was in the rape conviction of a Florida man named Tommy Lee Andrews in November 1987, which would have been at least three months after Michael shared the tree story with Michael Meredith and more than four years after he told Bobby. When Michael told the story to Michael Meredith, DNA just wasn't being used in criminal cases. Was the state suggesting Michael was a prophet anticipating future science? In Mickey Sherman's closing, when discussing Michael Meredith, did he connect these two very simple points for jurors that because of these dates they'd heard from two prosecution witnesses, the state's theory was, on its face, ridiculous. He did not. Why hadn't he? I wondered. I have an answer for this, and I don't say this lightly. It's mind blowing. Gregory Coleman, the missed sketches. A bad closing. Turns out it's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Mickey Sherman. Next time on Dead Certain the Martha Moxley Murder.

[Dominic Dunn]

I said, stephen, your brother is going to be convicted if he keeps Mickey as his attorney was as long as there's a breath in my body, this case is not over. As far as I'm concerned, the man.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

Was living a rock star lifestyle to.

[Michael Skakel]

Try and mirror and keep up with.

[Andrew Goldman (Narrator/Reporter)]

His rock star best friend. From NBC News studios and highly replaceable productions, Dead Certain the Martha Moxley murder is written, reported, executive produced and hosted by me, Andrew Goldman. Alexa Danner is executive producer and head of audio at NBC News Studios. Megan Shields is our senior producer. Rob Heath is our producer. Nora Battelle is our story editor. Fact checking by Simone Buteau. Production assistance by Brendan Wiesel. Sound designed by Rick Kwan, Mark Yoshizumi and Bob Mallory. Original music by John Estes. Amanda Moore is our production manager and Marissa Riley is the director of production. Liz Cole is president of NBC News Studios. Thanks for listening. New episodes of Dead the Martha Moxley Murder drop Tuesdays through January 20th.

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